Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (82 page)

In
the previous chapter I discussed how the
idea
of rape is mythified and glamorized in the culture not only for the rapist but also for the victim, but the actual act bears no relationship to storybook romance. Reality replaces myth with shocking swif tness. The female did not choose this battlefield, this method of warfare, this surprise contestant. Her position, at once, is unprepared and defensive. She cannot win; at best she can escape defeat.

Force, or the threat of force, is the method used against her, and a show of force is the prime requisite of masculine behavior that she, as a woman, has been trained from childhood to abjure. She is unfit for the contest. Femininity has trained her to lose.

According to the odds, she is three inches shorter and
24
pounds lighter than her male assailant. This works to her disadvan tage psychologically as well as physically, but worse than the differ ence in size is the lifelong difference in mental attitude toward strength. He has been encouraged from childhood to build his muscles and toughen his fists. She has been encouraged to value sof t skin, her slender wrist, her smooth, unmuscled thigh and leg. His clothing gives him maximum mobility. His shoes are sturdy; thick heels give him power. Her clothing hampers free movement by design, and fragile ma terials add to her vulnerability. One yank and her blouse is ripped. One stumble and her stockings are torn. Her skirt allows for easy access. One gesture, one motion and she is humiliatingly exposed. Her flimsy shoes have straps that break and heels that come loose. She cannot run.

Reviewing his own statistics, Amir wrote,
"It
seems that when confronted with a threat to her life or physical well-being, the victim was not willing to resist or fight." While this analysis has important legal ramifications-rape is the only crime of violence in which a victim is expected or required to resist-it raises another important question. Is submissive behavior in any way
helpful
to a victim of rape?

It
would appear that the answer is negative. Acquiescent

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cooperation by not screaming or struggling once the intent of the rapist is made manifest gives a victim no guarantee that she will be let off more easily. As I interpret Amir's sample, despite what a victim may have hoped
(if
her submissive behavior was to any degree a planned, rational response) , her numb compliance or lack of resistance gave her no blanket insurance against gratuitous physical damage.

This point cannot be overstressed. A victim may choose ·to play by what she assumes are the rules, but a rapist does not necessarily respond with similar civility. Several of the Boston Strangler's victims (including Evelyn Corbin and Beverly Samans) who were initially terrorized by choking deliberately permitted themselves to be tied and raped, according to Albert DeSalvo's confessions. DeSalvo murdered them anyway; they had "won" no
quid
pro
quo.
In
the
1966
case of Richard Speck, eight student nurses in Chicago under the threat of one man and one knife permitted themselves to be bound with strips of bedsheets and taken from the room one by one. The sole survivor of the massacre, Corazon Amurao, a
2
3-year-old Filipino, had suggested to the others that they band together to escape. The others told her not to panic and start something that might provoke him, for they all assumed that what was going on in the other room was "only rape." Corazon Amurao rolled under the bed and hid herself and Speck, in his glory, lost count. The rest went like lambs to their slaughter. The following morning eight bodies were found. Each had been slashed and strangled.

When a woman survives the physical trauma of rape, her emotional reaction may take many forms. She may cry, scream or tremble; she may be rigidly composed; she may smile inappropri ately or tell the story with bursts of laughter. There is no uniform response to a rape, or a uniform time for recovery.

TESTIMONY:
It
was like a delayed terror reaction. Like, when I started thinking how easily he could have just ki11ed me behind the building, I was shaking. I didn't want to tell my husband and I never did report it to the police. I just went into this whole terror thing. I was afraid to take that same way home again and I was af raid to go on the subway alone at night. I was just generally shaken.

TESTIMONY:
For years af terward I felt it was my fault. I tried to figure out what had made him follow me. Was it the clothes I was

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WILL

wearing or was it my walk? It had to be my fault, you see?
I
was only a child-an innocent child, but
I
was ashamed for a long time.

TESTIMONY:
I
was raped in my elevator after he took my wal let. He had a knife. He told me to lie down and
I
lay down. It was over in two seconds, just like that. The sex was nothing at all. What do you want me to do? Be angry and hate all men?
I
just want to forget it. It's New York City life and I'm not going to let it destroy me.

TESTIMONY: I couldn't stay alone in that apartment anymore. I moved in with a friend. I didn't feel strong enough to live by my self for about a year, and when I did get a new place, it had to be a very secure building, not like my old tenement walk-up. I moved from a $75 a month apartment to one where I now pay $z25, that's part of the price I had to pay. It wrecked me financially.

TESTIMONY: I kept thinking I saw him-on the street, in the elevator at work, on the bus. I was convinced he was still af ter me, that he'd get me for reporting it, that he'd come back to finish me off. Whenever the phone rang and the person hung up, I was sure it was him. I moved and got an unlisted number.

TESTIMONY: Somewhere along the line society had told me that if you're a woman and you stick your neck out by being conspicuous you're going to get it. The rape confirmed it. Before the rape I used to go all over the city with my cameras, I was never afraid for my safety. Afterwards I stopped taking pictures, or if I did go out into strange neighborhoods, I made sure that I had a male companion. But at some point you have to say that you're not going to be stopped by it. It's a war and you can't let them win. Otherwise you'd just have to stay indoors.

TESTIMONY: I was black and he was black. The encounter caused a tremendous change in my overall attitude toward men, and especially toward black men. For three months I was afraid to go out with a black man. I was afraid to be out on the streets alone at night. Until I met that man in the alley I thought I was rea11y in control of my life.
It
taught me I wasn't.

TESTIMONY: I don't think I slept for a week. I lay on a cot in my sister's apartment with my clothes on. I thought of committing suicide. I had to quit my job-first of all I was a nervous wreck but

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also I was afraid he had spotted me going to and from work. I tried to stay still and make time move forward. I felt the course of my life had changed and nothing would ever be the same again. My being raped moved something in me so deeply that I could no longer not look at it: I'd had a fear of men all of my life.

TESTIMONY: We were what you'd call a middle-class black family, which means we were poor. I was
12
and all these strange things were happening to my body, I was sprouting here and there. It was very confusing and my parents kept saying, "Don't worry, it happens to all girls, you're developing." That was the word they used, developing. Then, af ter it happened to me, somehow in my head I tied it in with this developing.

TESTIMONY: I was raped when I was
i4
in a home for delin quent boys and girls where my parents had lef t me because my father was having a nervous breakdown. I had just begun menstrua tion. I never menstruated again until I was
21.

TESTIMONY: For about nine months afterwards I was sure I was going to die of syphilis. I was also sure I was pregnant. Finally I went to a doctor in New York. He told me I was silly that I thought I had syphilis. To this day, even, I have a fear I have syphilis.

TESTIMONY: I was gang-raped when I was
1
7t
after a party in Beverly Hills. My parents didn't prosecute because they were neigh borhood boys. Instead they sent me into analysis. They came all over me, every which way. This may sound odd to you, but for two years afterward, no matter how much I washed, I couldn't get the smell of come out of my hair.

TESTIMONY: It's a terrible thing to be woken up at 3 in the morning with a knife at your throat. You never forget it and you're never the same. It did not affect my sexuality, I think, because that was always a strong area of my life, one that I was always pleased with, but what it affected was my career. I stopped taking chances, that's what it was. I wouldn't say that my experience caused my career problems, but it certainly aggravated them.
It
hits you where you're most vulnerable. Even though I had been very strong during my encounter, I felt more vulnerable in every way. About six months to a year later some of the vulnerability disappeared.
It
was replaced by rage. Oh, I wish now I had hit him. Or killed him.

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TESTIMONY: Af ter that, it was all downhill. None of the girls were allowed to have me in their homes, and the boys used to stare at me on the street when
I
walked to school.
I
was lef t with a repu tation that followed me throughout high school.

TESTIMONY: People always say, you know, "time heals all wounds," "things get better with age," et cetera.
I
hate that fucker more
today
than
I did when it
happened
to
me.

TESTIMONY:
I
never told my mother to this very day.
I
wish she was here, maybe
I
could tell her now.
I
pushed it to the recesses of my mind.
I
never really dealt with it 'til a year ago-when my friend and
I
went to St. Thomas and she was raped. And then all the anguish and all the pain that all women have suffered all these years came out of me, and
I
was able for the first time to relate to an other woman's pain.

"Forcible rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes," a California police manual,
Patrol
Procedure, begins its instruction. "The majority of 'second day reported' rapes are not legitimate." Chatty and chummy,
Patrol
Procedure warns the cop on the beat that rape calls often result when a husband leaves town on business and a wife takes the opportunity "to go out on the town," with later remorse. "These situations must be delicately handled," the manual advises.

TESTIMONY:
I
went to the police station and said,
"I
want to report a rape." They said, "Whose?" and
I
said, "Mine." The cop looked at me and said, "Aw, who'd want to rape you?"

TESTIMONY: When they let me go
I
ran down the street and found a milkman who told me where the police station was.
I
was calm and coherent. Too calm,
I
guess.
I
got disgusted with their questions and slow typing and asked to type my own version of the report. The policeman said, "You're so clear and detailed-what are you, a sociologist or something?"

When women in the feminist movement first got together to discuss the problems of rape, many testified that their complaints were met by insensitive, often hostile policemen. ( In perfect frank ness, some reported good experiences. For the most part, these were the older women, white children, those who went to the

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