I think, further to what I said in my last post, that it's more than losing your voice... it's about losing your state of being - losing your place in the world. It's such a strange thing to go through - it's sex and it's power - but the effects of these two things together are much greater than the sum of their parts.
I don't actually understand it, not fully anyway. I think it's a space of being so far outside yourself that you can't quite get back in. Like this person has pushed you - your essence - out of your body - so they can get what they want. They don't actually care about you and aren't afraid to make that known. Their emotional needs come first and yours are not being considered. I want to make a case in this blog for the idea that rape occurs on many levels - not just physical but also psychic or energetic... because I can see links from my childhood experiences through to the actual assault... and I'm sure I'm not the only one that has been through this process.
Looking back there wasn't just this one incidence of losing power. Men had come into my space previously and done the same thing - only it wasn't rape, it was considered an equitable partnership because I had a space to say yes or no... however, what I didn't say was that I wanted to be considered in the 'process' (that feels like all it was), instead I wasn't really taken to be a part of the process at all:
I had been pushed out of my body during both one-night stands and the first relationships I had - they didn't really want me to be there - they just wanted gratification and I was a body to do that by. It's such a strange realisation to make and I suspect something that is ingrained in sexuality for many people. I am maybe being harsh on them and perhaps on myself but I am coming to think that this is more prevalent than anyone has really spoken about in the past. Women don't really have a space to say I want this or that... and when they do have a chance it become a snatching away from someone else rather than a request of what they want (having not been taught that women are worthy of everything they desire, they think that they need to fight tooth and nail for life to come to them)
What I can say is that much delving into my childhood and teen years has seen me understanding that my father never actually wanted me to have a voice - particularly not about my sexuality or my body. He found it very difficult to understand his daughters because he felt he had to protect our innocence in some way - we had to be seen as 'good girls' (not so uncommon for father's I wouldn't think). My mother also, being raised a strict catholic and considering at one point becoming a nun, had/has very little understanding of what sexuality was and how it could be used to harm or to enlighten the body(!) I can see now looking back is that my lack of voice ensured, from a young age I was told not to have a body, sexuality or presence that would be noticed. During my first sexual experience I had no idea what I wanted or how I could get it. This may not be unusual but I didn't learn to ask or navigate either. It just was what it was - ok, nothing earth shattering and didn't evolve into this either.
It's quite amazing how taking one's voice at a young age allows a person to have no thoughts after that - I never thought to question why sex wasn't great. I never thought it was anymore than this sometimes laborious, and often un-enlightening, task that I took part in. My concerns were buried so far down that they couldn't be found. Let me explain...
As a child I was told that my space was my parent's space. I had no right to argue, contemplate, question or think outside the square that they provided for me. Even though I maintained a sense of indignation at my parent's lack of imaginative thinking, I eventually (I realise now) stopped contemplating those deeper questions. I thought myself empowered because I didn't live as my parents did. I knew better than they did about sex - I didn't believe the catholic church - I knew that sex was ok because it was a natural part of life...so I had sex with people. However, what they had done through their teachings was ensure that I didn't have space to question what I was doing. I just did. I acted without questioning anything. I ended up in a strange place where I had all these sexual and social experiences that I couldn't understand afterward because I had no space to question, and place them appropriately in my experience - ie I couldn't learn from my experiences, I continue to this day repeating patterns that should have worn themselves out many years ago - including listening to the voice of my parents telling me I'm a bad person for this or that.
So, where does go? I let myself do things that I could have done with a little more self-respect. Being told to just do what you're told to do and no think, doesn't allow the necessary growth of respect and resilience that one really does need to get along healthily in this world. Rather you tend to end up putting yourself in situations that don't allow people to respect you. You develop such a sense of insecurity that you just don't know what you should or shouldn't do. I didn't think twice about hanging around with people I didn't know on a Saturday night. I never ventured too far from my friends, but I never really allowed myself to feel at ease with people (without alcohol) because I thought it was enlightening and very anti-my-parents to just run off and trust that whoever was in front of me was fine to hang around with. I didn't allow myself to develop many friendships, just trusted that who ever was in front of me was find for the moment. I didn't question my own motives or the motives of those I would hang around with. Moreover, I don't think I suspected that this guy who assaulted me could have been dangerous in any way. I just didn't register that people didn't always have the right state of mind - it was about me proving my independence from my parents. I think that instead I found myself going around with people just because I could rather than because they gave me anything in particular to be comfortable or feel at ease with. Feeling at ease wasn't a part of my precise on life because I'd never experienced it.
I can't say and wouldn't say that the assault wouldn't have happened if I'd been able to question people or myself more deeply. But I do think that when we stop to look back upon the past, we can see that things aren't as we thought them to be. Self-respect was lacking and I didn't place myself in situations where I asked for respect either. Perhaps if I had not been so anti-parent's and run around sleeping with people to prove them wrong, I wouldn't have met this guy and the assault would not have happened. Maybe it would have happened under different circumstances, but I do see the links between my unwillingness to question and my not allowing myself to look at the motives of the guy who assaulted me.
To think further about the concept of psychic or energetic rape and what this might be. I want to say that one of the other problems that I've found in this whole sexual-past delving is that my father's own lack of sexual knowledge led him into unfamiliar and shaking territory with his daughters. I often caught my father looking at me, through me perhaps, and understanding instinctively that he simply wasn't regarding me the way a father should. I don't know what he was thinking but it made me very uncomfortable. It seemed to me that he was thinking that his daughter was attractive and that led him into thoughts of sexuality. Without being able to delineate between his daughter and another woman at all. I feel disgusting even now when I think about how I caught him watching me and considering me sexually. I still do not know what to do with that knowledge...? It was like psychic rape to my mind - I had no space to counteract what he was doing because it wasn't physical and I didn't have the capacity to confirm what he was thinking. What he was doing was telling me to keep my sexuality hidden, whilst contemplating it at the same time. Ensuring that I couldn't speak about it and speaking about it for me. I had no space in my body to contemplate what he was doing. He has successfully pushed me outside myself and considered this body was just for him in those moments. I can see this was a power play for him to have such knowledge about sexuality that he could tell me how bad it would be for me to take part or to be considered sexually by another man/boy (in my late teens I mean what sexuality was growing and body was shaping). And at the same time to "know" he had control over his daughter and her space and to ensure that she had no capacity to question his authority left his power (in his mind anyway) solid. He could do what he wanted and not get caught. It was just thoughts after all. He didn't harm me physically at such times.
Knowing such things about your father is a very discordant place to be in. I don't have a great deal of respect for him. He has done some good things with his life and built his own livelihood - I can respect that. I don't respect his capacity to justify what he was doing, nor his inability to question why he might be doing and to show some respect to his daughter. He still does not have this capacity. He still assumes, now that I'm in my 30s, that he has a right to speak about, and in, my space. I still can't respect this. I do know that he taught me as he was taught. He treated me in a way that attempted to deny his parents' upbringing of him and his sister. He wanted to ensure that he had complete authority as his parents had given him none... perhaps I'm seeing a pattern here in my own behaviour?
I have a feeling that many other women have experienced such things - their father's being able to psychically molester them. As I said in the beginning I want to highlight that rape is not just physical it's also psychic. I felt everything that my father was doing in his mind without having the capacity to say so. Moreover, and this is where the disappointment really plays out, I had no space to know my sexuality growing up, but had a father who took liberties upon my body and space. It's truly disturbing.
How could I possible know what it's like to respect myself? How could I know what appropriate sexual behaviour was?
I know that I can't blame him, he was acting on knowledge he'd grown up with, but I am really angry with him and not even sure that I have an outlet for this. What would you say to a person who's done this? There is no proof, and is it even necessary to bring it up. Would this enlighten me in any way?
My parents are not independent thinkers. They don't know how to question anything and they believe that which is the 'norm'. They just want to be told what to do. But of course, they can't live this way - life doesn't work this way. Because there are always situations where someone hasn't told you what to think. They haven't told you that this thing might come up and this is what I've had to struggle with. They told me that life was this this and this. But then life turned out to be something else and I didn't have the skills to deal with it.
I hate them for it. They should have taught me how to better handle my sexuality rather than abusing me along the way for being female and having a vagina... I think they taught me that because I had a vagina I would just have to put up with whatever came my way. Incredible isn't it... I'm saddened that I believed it for so long (and still trying to unravel myself from it).
I've had to overcome my father's thoughts/actions upon me in both not understanding sexuality and wanting more from women than they wanted from him... I'm not sure how this statement fits into this but I could often see my father watching women's bodies and not respecting them but thinking that they were his in some way - his to lurch upon. I hate this.
I see it in other men. They simply don't know where to put their sexuality. It's become distorted. It's messy, unsure and very abusive (even if just psychically abusive). Women don't know how to protect themselves either. (I believe that we're all off-balance and unsure of ourselves right now. We've moved far from the world of no sex before marriage but haven't quite given ourselves permission to be sexual beings.)
I actually believe that the psychic and the physical assaults are interconnected - my father left me very little space to be private about my sexuality because he seemed to have a part in it. He didn't want his daughters to be sexual beings because men couldn't be trusted. He proved that himself by allowing his thoughts to wander into unknown territory and not have the wits about him to pull himself out of it. I do consider this abuse on his part - I find it vile that he could think about me or other women in this way. I'm thankful that I have had the opportunity to begin to question my own sexuality outside of what my parents taught me and to have come to this conclusion so I don't have to put up with other men treating me the same way. Before I began to realise all this I let my sexuality was there to please them. I didn't ask for a part in the experience but lay there like a good girl. Violated by my own hand in the experiences.
In regards to my father, we are energetic beings who are much more affected by people's thoughts and musing than we care to think. Can I blame him though? I don't know. Who taught him to be insecure and scared of his sexuality? I think I've said here before that I believe sexual repression leads to distorted sexuality. It did in my case. So, I still find it vile but unsure whether I should begin to forgive him or not. He did so much damage to that little girl, but he doesn't know he did. I can't forgive him now because he made her so incredibly inept and unsure of herself. To consider me in the way he did made me completely incapable of stepping out into my own body and into my own experience because I never knew what was around the next corner. Could I trust him, or anyone else that I came across? My parents had taught me enough to know that I needed to be careful of people, but what do you do when the people you are being careful of is your father? It shattered my world, now that I'm seeing it from this past perspective. It made me a very insecure girl, teenager and woman. In fact I feel as though I am still that little girl too scared to move, much of the time.
But that fear was buried from the conscious mind at the time - I didn't have the capacity to question it. I acted out from the base of this fear - not knowing that fear was really guiding me. However, what I couldn't understand as a child I can begin to understand as an adult. The universe brought the abuse back around again. And this time I was more physically involved than the first time. I think that the reason the universe brought it back around the second time, was so that I could understand enough to say enough! I don't want this type of sexuality in my life anymore.
We as a human race want understanding and comfort and joy (and many people have this, but perhaps not until they've seen the worst of it?) and many of us have abuse. I believe that if enough people say 'enough' then it will be enough. We do need to stand up a bit more and talk about it a bit more. Not just let the media hype up sexual assault and drop it again, let alone attempting to understand any type of energetic or psychic rape.
It's frustrating that more people aren't out there saying - this just isn't acceptable. No-one is saying to our churches that they have it wrong - that we just can't stop people having sex because it mutilates their sexuality. That, perhaps this isn't what God intended - if sexuality can be so mutilated by repression of it, then how can the churches justify their claim that God said 'no' to sex??
If the churches are right that life is meant to be made up of events that cause us to prove our worth...what do we do with psychic rape, sexual assault and other types of abuse? If rape is the woman's fault (as many people still believe and which I believe comes from the God's word approach to women) what did I do as a child to feed my father's need to look at me that way? What did I do to deserve the psychic undressing he gave me? Where do we place this in the context of worthiness? It damaged me just as much, if not more than the physical assault.
Or do we just not look? Do we hide it away and hope that no-one sees? My mother would and does believe in this tack. I can't any longer... sorry I need to talk, shed and let people know that they aren't alone if they have been through such a thing as I have.
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