Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [124]
Men are fearful for their women friends and family and aware that women are afraid of them. A male student complained that he hated rape. He said, “When I walk across campus after dark, I can see women tense up. I want to reassure them I’m not a rapist.” Another said, “I haven’t dated a girl yet who trusts men. Every girl I’ve cared for has been hurt by some guy. They are afraid to get close. It’s so much work to prove I’m not a jerk.”
But mostly rape damages young women. They become posttraumatic stress victims. They experience all the symptoms—depression, anger, fear, recurrent dreams and flashbacks. The initial reaction is usually shock, denial and dissociation. Later comes anger and self-blame for not being more careful or fighting back. Young women who are raped are more fearful. Their invisible shield of invulnerability has been shattered. Forty-one percent of rape victims expect to be raped again; 30 percent contemplate suicide; 31 percent go into therapy; 22 percent take self-defense courses and 82 percent say that they are permanently changed.
Our daughters need time and protected places in which to grow and develop socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically. They need quiet time, talking time, reading time and laughing time. They need safe places where they can go to learn about themselves and others. They need places where they can take risks and make mistakes without fearing for their lives. They need to be valued for their personhood, not their bodies.
Today girls are surrounded by sexual violence. We have emergency treatment for sexual casualties—therapists, hospitals, rape crisis centers and support groups. But we also need a preventive program. We need to work together to build a sexual culture that is sensible, decent and joyful.
Chapter 12
THEN AND NOW
Cassie reminded me of myself as a girl. She even looked like me, with long brown hair, blue eyes and a gawky, flat-chested body. Like me, she loved to walk in the woods and cried when she read poetry. She wanted to visit the Holocaust Museum and join the Peace Corps. She preferred books to clothes and didn’t care a fig for money. Like me, she was the oldest daughter of a doctor. She loved both her parents even though they were now divorcing and had little energy to care for her. At school she was shy and studious. Kids with problems could talk to her.
But Cassie also wasn’t like me. I was fifteen in 1963, she was fifteen in 1993. When I was fifteen, I’d never been kissed. She was in therapy because she’d been sexually assaulted. Her hands folded in her lap, she whispered the story.
She’d been invited to a party by a girl in her algebra class whose parents were out of town. The girl was supposed to stay with a friend, but she had worked out a way to be home. The kids could use her parents’ hot tub and stereo system.
Cassie didn’t get invited to many parties, so she accepted the invitation. She planned to leave if things got out of control. She told her mother the truth about her plans, except she didn’t mention that the parents were gone. Because her mother had been to her lawyer’s that day, she was preoccupied by the divorce proceedings and didn’t ask for more details.
The party was okay at first—lots of loud music and sick jokes but Cassie was glad to be at a party. A guy from her lunch period asked her to dance. A cheerleader she barely knew asked her to go to the movies that weekend. But by eleven she wanted to go home. The house was packed with crashers and everyone was drinking. Some kids were throwing up, others were having sex or getting rowdy. One boy had knocked a lamp off a desk and another had kicked a hole through a wall.
Cassie slipped away to the upstairs bedroom for her