Starting with a Bang

Rape. I’m going to make my first blog entry about rape. Maybe it’ll create lots of buzz and lots of people will discover AcmeBanana. Or more likely it’ll just let me work through some thoughts I’ve had on my mind. Thoughts that can’t be flushed out and worked through in the conversations I typically have. Conversations that are either unsatisfying because they’re about someone else (not me!) or because the person I’m talking to would really prefer to stay in the here and now, not venture into awkward territory. I’m also guilty of structuring most of my person-to-person conversations so that they eventually deliver a punch line of some sort. I don’t want to entertain today.

Friday I heard a story on BBC about an under-reported, but seemingly ever-more-common crime in South Africa: lesbians are being subjected to “corrective rape” by men trying to “cure” them of their sexual orientation. Here’s a link to the story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/4982520/Lesbians-subjected-to-corrective-rape-in-South-Africa.html

First, let’s all imagine a plain old everyday sort of rape. It’s not a crime of passion. It isn’t a case of “No… no…well, when you put it like that…wow…thanks baby…that was terrific.” It’s all about power and a need to dominate. There are all varieties of pain and they last long after the attack. There are tastes and smells that linger for days, despite vigorous washing. Flashbacks occur without warning. Nagging thoughts of what you could have done differently. Or worst of all, thoughts that maybe you’re responsible in some way.

Now, let’s imagine the corrective rape. In addition to all the “normal” rape issues, you’re dealing with a rapist who thinks he’s doing you a favor. Somehow this pain is going to help you. This humiliation is for your own good. Knowing that this attacker is full of shit would not lessen the horror. It must be as awful as anything I can imagine. No, wait, there’s another element to the crime—sometimes the men also rape the daughters of these women just to let them know they have options other than what their moms are teaching them. Your daughter’s raped because of you? That would be the worst thing I can imagine.

Now, what if your mother supported such an attack?

The radio report didn’t mention any moms who’d enlisted rapists to cure their daughters. Yet. I hope this story grows and gets the widespread coverage it deserves. And as it grows, we’ll learn more specifics and I’m sure there will be some mother implicated. I’m that sure because I know a mother who has had her own rosy dreams of corrective rape for years.

“Corrective rape” isn’t wording she’d ever choose. She prefers a quaint “bonk on the head” scenario: Like a caveman, a lumberjack from Alaska swaggers into our town wearing a Pendleton wool mackinaw hunting coat. He takes one look at my friend and knows he has to have her, whether she feels the same or not. Then he “bonks her on the head and drags her back to Alaska.” That is this mother’s wish for her first-born daughter. Somehow the bonking would make my friend realize that she wants to be with the lumberjack. And the Alaska part? My friend prefers rugged outdoor clothing to anything you normally find at a department store and her mother figures Alaska is a state that would accept such practical-yet-unfashionable taste. Maybe that state’s just so remote that none of this mother’s friends and relatives would ever hear that her daughter was gay, should the bonking not take. Or perhaps this mother views it as a state where her daughter could find happiness. Never mind that this friend of mine is doing just fine where she is.

Mothers. They say they want their children to be happy, but happy only really counts when the child’s definition matches the mother’s.

So a daughter being gay, or choosing to be gay, or not trying to not be gay, would definitely be seen as an issue in many households. A certain kind of mother would never accept that her daughter wasn’t just choosing to be difficult. Or she’d blame anyone or anything for her daughter’s “condition”. Maybe the father treated the girl as a son. Maybe the family moved too often. Maybe the problem started because girls back then were starting to dress like boys. This mother would probably feel bad about her feelings, but would stubbornly argue that she was just interested in her daughter’s happiness. “I don’t care about me, but I’m worried about her,” she might weep. And if she could do anything to change the situation, she would.

Which brings us back to those men in South Africa.

They claim they’re only interested in helping the women. Could this possibly be true?

Of course not.

The raped women were not asking for help from these men and they certainly weren’t crying out to be healed through rape. And the notion that these men have a better understanding of what’s good for society than the women is outrageous.

The attacks on the lesbians are another example of the wide and varied spectrum of sexual violence against women and girls. A few years ago I heard about “virgin cures” for HIV/AIDS. Apparently some men believe that having sex with a virgin would cure them of their disease—not a new idea. A long time ago people thought it would cure them of syphilis and gonorrhea. I’ve also heard about African men raping babies and toddlers, no doubt using the same virgin cure excuse.

Or maybe the attacks are not, as some speculate, simply homophobia. Maybe they show one effect of the economic marginalization that’s occurring in countries like South Africa. The perpetrators are addressing their wounded masculinities under the guise of doing something useful; by dominating a lesbian, they feel more like men.

As promised, I have no punch line today. I’m happy to be living where I do, when I do. For now we’re safe from virgin cures and corrective rapes, but as my friend’s mom demonstrates, no idea is completely original or completely foreign.