Rape is About Sex and Sex is Power: Stop Saying It Isn’t!

Danae and the Shower of Gold Coins

Titian, 1544-45

At its best, sex is the ultimate power of loving and being loved in return. Lover and Beloved. This powerful force makes the world go round: people fall in love, get married, have children, cook, eat, work, play, travel, make art not war, and enjoy life.

Any upset to that serene balance of lover and beloved and we have rape, sexual assault, sexual molestation, sexual harassment and a myriad of other disturbing crimes, many of which are in the news now.

I have more than earned my right to speak. #notokay, #metoo are both absurd understatements compared to what happened to me. My real father put his dick in my mouth when I was 3 and my mother caught him. She wanted to commit suicide after first killing me. I don’t blame her. Her life was ruined. My father went on to abuse me for years starting again at age 11 when I was cognizant of what was happening, but still too young to know for sure that what Daddy was doing was wrong. I had the vague notion that I was cheating on my mother with her boyfriend. (It’s all in Holy Days.)

Those episodes were just the beginning of a lifetime of the kind of sexual harassment and assault that most women face every day. Boys “feeling me up” in school and on field trips: men, on a daily basis, since I was 12 years old, stopping their cars, opening the passenger door and asking me if I wanted a ride (I could have been murdered hundreds of times.); men pinching my ass on the street; men making comments on my breasts; men ogling me and grinning lasciviously; men harassing me while I put coins in the parking meter. I could go on. Men asking me to smile actually made me smile; it seemed friendly and funny compared to the trauma I’d gone through, though I can understand how some women might find it annoying or even threatening. It wasn’t until I moved to the quiet town I live in now that I could cross the street unmolested. I still remember the first time I stepped out of the car on the busy main street and walked to the coffee shop and not one man leaned out of his car window and hollered at me. Wow.

There have been professions I did not enter for of fear of being molested or sexually and professionally bullied – and, from the reports I’m hearing now, I was right.

I speak from experience. Long experience. I can tell you, as a victim, I do not appreciate it when I hear therapists and other so-called experts telling victims, “Rape is about power, not about sex.”

Bullshit.

Rape is absolutely about sex and sex is about power.

Sex is power. Think about how powerful you feel when you are looking sexually attractive. Think about what powerful men want to show off their wealth and power – a beautiful woman. What is the most powerful image in advertising? Sex. (Although, Death runs a close second.) What made you stop and look at this article? A bare breast.

Rape is about sex and sex is power. That’s why every rape victim feels powerless. Every victim is sexually damaged. That’s why victims have to re-learn their sexuality. This is especially true of victims of childhood abuse in which the abuse is their first sexual experience. Victims of child abuse must take that first experience forth into their lives, whether they want to or not, as the definition of sex. In fact, I’m willing to bet, for most, that first sexual experience becomes a deep, sexual identity to which they respond sexually from that day forward. It was like that for me. Of course, as I got older, I discovered other things that turned me on, but that first experience has been seared on my brain and sexuality.

Saying rape is about power, not about sex is a disservice to victims. Oh, sure, it’s a nice catch phrase and it probably helps victims for the first few seconds. But, then, the doubts creep in. “But, what about the way I feel when…” “But, why do I have trouble trusting a man?” “But, why do I feel so guilty? And dirty?” “Why would I rather not have sex at all than deal with any of it?”

Do I have a solution? Yes, get rid of guilt. Guilt is more bullshit. The only thing to ever feel guilty about is hurting another person or yourself. And, your guilt is hurting you. Drop it.

I’m glad about what’s happening now. Women are being taken seriously. Women are being believed. And society is responding with justice. Hopefully.

I am especially happy for the children. At least, I have hopes in that direction. A few adult men have come forward to say they were abused as child actors in Hollywood. Actor, Anthony Edwards. Michael Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan. Corey Feldman, Hollywood actor famous for his roles in “Bad News Bears” and “Stand By Me,” who has been screaming for decades about rampant sexual abuse by Hollywood producers, is finally being believed. I do wish he would take this opportunity while the tide is turning to speak up now and name names. I wish he would not wait to raise the $10 million he needs to make the kind of film he wants to make – or I wish someone would help him make his film, like in a Disney movie, magically, I wish a good man or woman would appear and help Corey reveal the truth. Not much can be done until these pedophiles are named and arrested. At the very least, and it's a lot, parents can stop lying to themselves about what’s going on in Hollywood and protect their children.

Children are out there even as I write, suffering. I hope they will be helped by the changes to come. I hope. But, the children seem to be the last to be heard. There is an International Sex Slavery system and if you don’t believe it, you are naïve. Hollywood is just a part of it. The Catholic Church is just a part of it. Every so often, there is a purge. It happened recently after a series of articles in The Daily Beast about the situation of children being used for sex. What usually happens is, the old are weeded out. One man is revealed to be a molester. His friends and cronies drop him like a hot potato, and, after a few months or so, he dies. That’s usually the pattern. It’s been the pattern for the international child abuse ring since time immemorial, since Caligula’s uncle used to throw little slave boys over the cliff when he was done with them, up till the present day, when care homes, like Boys Town; homeless kids and Hollywood child actors, are harvested for victims. One man said, in the film An Open Secret (not available at this time, but here's the trailer), about Hollywood child sex abuse, “that’s the way it’s always been!”

I’m happy for the actresses who, hopefully, no longer have to worry about the casting couch. I’ve watched them demure in interviews for years, saying, “Well, I’ve heard of the casting couch, of course, but I’ve never actually experienced it myself.” Now, they are finally talking. But I worry about the hotel workers, office cleaners, nurses, waitresses, farm workers, factory workers, big store clerks, small store clerks, late nights at McDonald’s, late nights coming home from the mall or the hospital or the office.

I’m hoping the justice we’re seeing now will translate into a deterrent in the future. Maybe that guy with a hard-on will think twice before “expressing himself” (what a man I know called sexual abuse) by violating another person. Senator Elizabeth Warren, in a recent interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, said, “…When the jerk over in accounting decides that pressing up against women who are caught at the coping machine might not be smart. When the boss decides telling those dirty jokes and talking about whose got great boobs and a killer ass, that he’d better re-think his management strategy, when that sort of thing happens for women all across this country, then we’ll know there’s been real change.”

But, really, I want to quote the Great Master of Horror, Stephen King - “I know they say that a stiff dick has no conscience, but I tell you now that some cunts have teeth…” By the way, the Indie film "Teeth" is available to watch now on Netflix.

Sex is power.

In Holy Days, my heroine, Gloria muses that every girl should get a pink gun at birth with five legal shots. Gloria decides that since men would never know how many legal shots were left in that gun, they’d have to behave themselves.

Sex is power.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2017

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest book is Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author. 

Raped By Her Dream

The Rape

Edgar Degas (1869)

In the Oscar nominated documentary, The Invisible War, by Filmmaker Kirby Dick, Kori Cioca (U.S. Coast Guard), Jessica Hinves (U.S. Air Force), Robin Lynne LaFayette (U.S. Air Force), Lt. Ariana Klay (U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Barracks Washington), Trina McDonald, (U.S. Navy) Lt. Elle Helmer (U.S. Marines Corp, Marine Barracks Washington), Hannah Sewell (U.S. Navy) talk about their dream to join the United States military for many different reasons: wanting to be the best they could be, wanting to be a part of something bigger, wanting to see the world, or wanting to continue a long family tradition of military, which for one woman, Lt. Elle Helmer, went all the way back to the Revolutionary War. All of the women expressed noble reasons for serving their country.

Kori Cioca said she would have repeated basic training over and over because she just loved it. Each woman echoed how much the experience of training meant to them: comaradie is mentioned, challenge, discipline, professionalism, doing the job well, kudos from officers, awards, leaderships positions, achieving great physical and mental prowess, keeping up with the guys and working just as hard as they did, all these accomplishments were exciting to the female recruits who looked forward to their service with eagerness.

And then – reality. 

Stationed in Alaska with ten men, Trina McDonald was the only woman. Trina was raped repeatedly. She said she felt “like a piece of meat on a slab.” Kori Cioca was raped by her so-called “superior.” Her jaw was so damaged in the attack that now she cannot open her mouth to chew. She must eat only soft foods. She cannot go outside in winter without her jaw seizing up in the cold. The other women have similar stories. Hannah Sewell was a virgin before her attack. Her back was injured during the rape and now she has trouble walking. Walking. Lee Le Teff (U.S. Army) had a loaded gun put to her head. One woman (U.S. Army Medical Corps) contracted two STD’s and became pregnant from her rape. Two were accused of adultery, though neither woman was married – their rapists were. (This struck me as very Victorian, reminding me of another film, The Crimson Petal and The White, in which a governess is given her marching papers for getting pregnant with her employer’s child.) In The Invisible War, only one man spoke of being raped, but more men are raped in the military than women.

According to the film, the estimated number of women who have been sexually assaulted in the military is 500,000.

Soldiers might expect to be raped by the enemy if captured during combat, but they do NOT expect to be raped by their fellow soldiers, by their friends, by their commanders - or by their dream.

Harsh reality –

The estimated number is 500,000 - 80% do not report because of the extreme retaliation that comes with reporting.

Rapists are being protected, not victims. A Steubenville Rape Culture prevails. Across every branch of the military, victims are told to be quiet by military officials whom they approach to help them prosecute the crimes against them. Commanders are reluctant to report a rape in their section because they will be seen as unable to command, and they will be reprimanded and fail to advance in their careers. Some of the rapists mentioned in the film were decorated and promoted – let’s be clear, not for rape, but for other wonderful, macho achievements, I’m sure. Rape victims who wanted to report, meanwhile, were told that if they wished to file a report, they could lose their rank.  According to the film, “In units where sexual harassment is tolerated, incidents of rape TRIPLE.”

In the film, Atty. Susan Burke said. “What we hear again and again from soldiers who have been raped is that as bad as it was being raped, what was as bad, if not worse, was to receive professional retaliation in their chosen career, merely because they were raped.”

In other words, raped by their dream.

Brigadier General Loree Sutton went on to say, “Losing even one soldier needlessly because of military sexual trauma is one too many.” All of the women in the film said they would never allow their daughters to join the military, and if that is the goal of the military to get rid of women then why are the rapists also raping men?

Who do you want in your military? Rapists? Or good soldiers? Aren’t we losing good soldiers when men and women must leave the service because of injuries incurred during rape? What happened to nobility? True nobility. Nobility of heart, mind and body.

Apparently, rapists are also JOINING the armed forces. Again, according to The Invisible War, a recent Navy study found that 15% of incoming recruits attempted or committed rape before entering the military, twice the percentage of the equivalent civilian population. Psychiatrist Brigadier General Loree Sutton (Ret. U.S. Army) said in the film, “Particularly for a savvy perpetrator, to work within a relatively closed system like the military, it becomes a prime target-rich environment for a predator.” These rapists, when they leave the military, go on to commit rape in our communities, because rape is a crime that is repeated until the rapist is caught.

Who do you want in your military? Are criminal rapists good soldiers?

According to The Invisible War, in 2011, the court ruled rape to be an occupational hazard of military service. How about getting rapists OUT OF THE MILITARY?

Does the U.S. military considered rape victims to be weak? If rape victims are supposed to suck it up, then why don’t male soldiers just suck up their erections in the first place? If they have so little control, how can they call themselves soldiers? If all that aggression is supposed to be perpetrated on the enemy, then, why are they raping fellow soldiers? (Not that I agree with raping the enemy. I don’t. I think it’s beneath us. Again, nobility.) Hence, the title of the film, The Invisible War: we are at war with ourselves. Conduct unbecoming.

What does a soldier do if the military is his dream and he is raped by his dream?  What does a soldier do when the country he believes in rapes him? The men and women who told their stories in The Invisible War, now must pick up the pieces of their lives and re-invent themselves. Men and women who were devoted to serving their country in the armed services, now must find another way to serve their country and the American ideals they still have. Many have, but many are still so damaged physically and mentally that they are forced to relive the nightmare before they can heal and go forward with their lives.

Cut to civilian life -

In a 2004 New York Magazine story, Naomi Wolf describes having been sexually propositioned by her Yale thesis professor, Harold Bloom in 1983. Apparently, Bloom put his hand on her thigh and told her that she was lovely. After Naomi threw up (Have you seen Harold Bloom?), he changed his tune and told her, according to Wolf, that she was a “deeply troubled girl.” Naomi was advised to get her degree and wait to expose him. She did. If she hadn’t waited, perhaps she would have lost all that she had achieved in her field, and been raped by her dream as well. Naomi said she finally had to come forward because male entitlement at Yale still predominated the campus among professors, who considered approaching female students to be a “perk” and among the male students themselves, as in the “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal” chant of a certain Yale fraternity. Of course, an advance is not a rape, but it is if your dream is held hostage.

            Oh, I know I’m being naïve. I know, for instance, that Marilyn Monroe was “passed around” and that “she understood this.” I know that the Catholic Church knew forever about the child rapes and took them as a matter of course. Of course. In the grand Roman tradition – Caligula’s uncle, who raised him, used to throw little slave boys over the cliff when he was done with them. I’m sure none of those slaves ever dreamt of being sex slaves, but what about all the altar boys who once believed in something? All the Catholic children – and their parents - who once believed their priest was the representative of God on earth?

            Recently, The Daily Beast reported a story on scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet. Ballerinas were being coerced into having sex with some of the wealthy and powerful men of Moscow and Paris. The Bolshoi story reminded me of Degas’ ballet dancers. When Degas painted the hall of the new Paris Opera House, he was painting a beautiful baroque hallway of chandeliers and sparkling gold scrollwork peopled by men in evening dress and female ballet dancers (nicknamed “petit rats”), a hall created for this sole purpose – for wealthy men to view the ballerinas and choose from them.

L'Etoile

Edgar Degas (1878)

            I guess I’m naïve. I’m told that theaters will always depend on wealthy patrons and that the rich will always be able to buy almost anything they want. The petit rats in Degas’ time came from poor families who could not protect them. The ballerinas of the Bolshoi who are coerced are usually chosen from the lower ranks because they are the most vulnerable to losing their positions. Will being able to dance superbly the life-demanding discipline of ballet ever be enough? Ballerinas of the BOLSHOI raped by their dream? Am I really being naïve? I guess so. I’m told that rich “patrons” mean as much to the ballerinas, who cannot dance forever, as they do to the theater. In fact, securing a rich patron can ensure a ballerina’s success. I’m told the ballerinas brag about their expensive gifts. Sounds like Stockholm Sydrome. When will dancing superbly be enough?
            May 31, 2015 UPDATE: Something I, as a victim, have always wondered about, now answered by Director Amy Berg's film, "An Open Secret" - Hollywood's secret sexual abuse of child stars.

            Recently, I saw the film Young Abe Lincoln, which portrayed Lincoln's early years as a lawyer, and yes, it was fictionalized. Sure, it was melodramatic and sentimental. I wasn’t in the mood for a black and white oldie, but I found myself drawn in by the characters, the nobility of them. Maybe I’m naïve. I’ve always been drawn to Lincoln’s self-education, which I believe in and I have done. I’m drawn to the simplicity of his life. How he was really very shy and quiet, but was encouraged all the time by the needs of the community to get up and speak, to take a leadership role. I found myself laughing outrageously in some places, and sobbing in others. Particularly at the very end, when young Abe, reluctant once again to take the mic, walked up to the podium and morphed into the statue of himself in Washington. He’s still there.

What would you do in his presence? Would you rape your fellow soldier? I’m pretty sure Lincoln could have watched and appreciated a ballet without trying to get a little from the exquisite ballerinas. I'm sure he could have enjoyed a TV show without fantasizing about the child star. Maybe I’m just naïve.

©Patricia Goodwin 2013
Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.