Say I knew you’d been victimized, then we met…

This is a test or perhaps a challenge to women at OD who are in this safe arena where they can let their thoughts drift as they think about themselves and about how they might interact with males.

For this entry I am going to pretend that I came to know one or more fictional women, young or old, first via online communication which blossomed toward a great deal of shared trust. I am going to pretend, also, that the fictitious person in question confided in me that she had in fact been raped at some point in the not too distant past, and that I had reached out to her, verbally, and with great compassion as a very concerned friend.

                                                             (entry reprinted from Nov. 5, 2004)

The test that I want to contemplate out loud here is just how the interaction would be and seem from the perspective of both myself and of the fictitious woman I would meet in real life at some point after she confided about having been raped in her past.

Upon reading that sort of a disclosure by anyone online I immediately pause to consider just how heavy the issue is and that I simply have not ever known a personal experience that is anywhere near to being on the same plain. Instead of being able to draw on example of my own experiences I must wait for the woman to offer some additional frame of reference which might help me to perceive how that experience affects her life as it is today. I am sure that my own words cannot convey just how much I feel for a woman I’m messaging with who is bold enough to make such an admission to me. Being comfortable enough to confide with that amount of depth is so personal that it seems about as delicate as those first few caresses shared when two people are naked together for the first time. Sometimes I just have to pause for a moment to be in awe of either situation.

I really can’t know how to imagine the realm of different feelings known to sexual assault victims where it concerns being perceived somehow as a "victim". I can in a way understand the impulse to just want to be treated "normally" (what ever that is) and to go to great lengths to make sure that nobody ever knows, to preserve that apparent normalcy. Yet my inner brain suggests to me that such a woman isn’t ultimately being fair to her own self by suggesting that the entire world around her shouldn’t know about something so personal, and so life-altering, just so that she can see how the more fortunate women are treated by men.

I don’t mean to suggest that any more than two or three key confidants (if that) need to know about something so personal, but I am convinced beyond any stretch that a long-term lover and the sexual assault victim herself  would each be far better off if she told him as much of the story as she can.

In some ways it really doesn’t matter that a woman who has been so personally violated should know how others are treated when in the same social-romantic proximity. To me it seems that the playing field is different and to not acknowledge that is to cheat herself out of the chance to build a bond that is a bit more sturdy, and a bit more outwardly trustworthy than the happy-go-lucky interactions that random women know and are sometimes plagued by.

It seems OK that sexual assault victims should need relationships with a more solid foundation than those known to most everybody else and to reach that solidity takes some significant personal investment from both sides.

The more I read of the women at OD and elsewhere on the internet the more I get the sense that significant numbers of the women in my daily life have at some point been sexually assaulted and in many cases their personalities spend an entire lifetime reacting significantly to experiences they’ve known. No, we can’t usually pick such women out of a crowd but they’re there, and in many cases they’re the people who react very strongly, and often negatively to the most well-meant and sincere efforts at making friendships or social inquiries. Is that because of what we don’t know…?

Nowthen, moving along to the point where I am ready to meet my fictitious online friend who has at some point confided with some detail about having been raped or sexually assaulted in some way.

Yes, my very first look at you will cause me to feel the delicacy of what you’ve shared, and as much of my compassion will result from the fact that you dared to confide in me as from the actual experiences and traumas you described. It is safe to say that I would appreciate you, and the chance to meet you more, because you risked your own feelings by boldly letting me know of something so important to your every moment.

There is no way that the details of any such experiences would cause me to shun you or to think any less of you at all. I can plainly differentiate between someone who was forced by another person against her will, and someone who got to make her own choices regarding things she’s done in the past.

I don’t believe that the sexual expression done by any woman or potential mate I could meet could be cause for my downgrading them. Even if STD’s were a permanent factor in the life of someone I might see as a long-term mate possibility, I would be wise enough to ask them to help me learn all that I can in an attempt to be moderately safe while still sharing sexual intimacy. (certainly you can see how I would be a hypocrite if harboring any seeming high standards about the sexual past of any woman I might have as a lifetime partner)

So, now we’ve met, face to face, and you have dared to present yourself there before me knowing full well that I am very aware and considerate of your involuntary sexual past. My mind is asking me whether you seem to feel somehow ashamed, or if you feel like less of a woman for having shared something so personal and so hurtful. I sense that the factor that is your perception of what I (or any guy you’d meet) must be thinking weighs heavy on your mind as you function there before me in the public place in which we chose to meet.

It seems that for having learned of your involuntary sexual experiences I am indeed likely to show my interest in you more directly, because I want to affect you with more sincerity than I might otherwise show. I would in no way be insincere to anyone, but I would indeed alter my behavior ever so slightly to help you become more confident about me than you might have been with someone else in the random, recent past.

Because of these impulses our initial time together might seem a bit more awkward than it could but I think that we could also plant deeper investments in one another because your personal experiences were so clearly in the front of our minds. My gain and yours, from my knowing about your involuntary sexual experiences and about how they have affected y

ou comes in the form of those deeper roots of friendship happening right away.

I can understand the impulses of some who merely want to be seen and treated just as everybody else is treated but unfortunately it seems that the bad guys can read right through your exterior and they alone, as victimizers, hone in on you as a prospect for continuous victimization.

If those are the men who are often most attracted to you, and if your own attraction meter finds itself askew in always being attracted to the bad men (most likely because there were some bad men very early in your life), then it seems the way to cease knowing that long line of abusive relationships is to experiment with a man from the rest of the world, who would indeed need to hear about those forced sexual experiences directly from you, rather than be able to pick-up on them in subtle but reliable ways known only to victimizers.

So yes, I would gain a world of important life experience from knowing a woman who was bold enough to confide in me before meeting me face to face and then letting herself feel extremely comfortable in my company, even though I might know such personal detail.

The great guys won’t do anything but want to be there right by your side as you help yourself to attain the best possible place in your emotional life that you can reach.

Maybe it isn’t so bad to be held to a different standard, as long as you are able and allowed to be as content as possible there.

this has been the experimental mindset of a john

*** note: I have indeed befriended a woman on the internet who disclosed that she had been raped at 14 and then later went on to meet that woman in real life. She didn’t find me to have the (bad boy traits to which she would have been attracted). Perhaps because she didn’t take the time to get professional help in the weeks and years immediately after the attack. She was a deserving woman who had a whole lot to give, if only she could reach a place where she could bestow her attributes on a good man.

Be aware that this entry is reposted, having originally appeared in this diary on November 5, 2004.