Archive for the 'recovery' Category

Bullshit, Part II

Published on November 22, 2011 in anger, anxiety, assault, consent, recovery, stupid people, trauma, trust, Uncategorized and venting. 3 Comments

On the other end of the irritating spectrum is the fact that the guy who sexually assaulted me is still denying it. (Description here, despite his trying to claim I deleted it off my blog.) I wrote about my situation, not naming him of course, on Good Vibrations’ blog because I think more discussion needs to happen around non-consensual acts in a community that prides itself on consent. He commented (outing himself!?) denying that anything non-consensual happened. GV got nervous, so I offered to re-write the post. The original can now be found on Kitty Stryker’s blog. He also tried to leave a comment here, but I don’t feel I owe this man any airtime in my space.

It’s disgusting that this man still refuses to take responsibility for his actions. I feel certain that there could be clear video and audio footage of the incident – of me telling him to take the speculum out because it hurt and his continuing to hurt me instead – and he’d still deny responsibility. I don’t expect any different from him, but he should realize that he’s not going to shut me up about what I KNOW happened.

It’s also disgusting that it seems the organizers of the Geeky Kink Event told him that I sent them information on him. Hey, it was within their rights to decide to keep him teaching a class, but to tell him that his victim reported him? What the fuck? They could have very well put me in danger. So far harassing comments denying his responsibility are all that he’s done, but they didn’t know what might happen. I’m still waiting for an explanation for this. MasterDoc contacted them and so far they don’t seem to have anything to say for themselves.

I’m refraining from naming the con that approached me discreetly and respectfully earlier this year and decided to ban the asshole. Hopefully it drives him nuts to not know who will be denying his application to teach next year. I had hoped that maybe people were becoming more concerned with consent and better able to handle complaints since things were handled so beautifully with this con. Unfortunately, it seems I can be sure of that with only one grouping. As for the Geeky Kink Event, if you’re a survivor don’t approach them as they clearly won’t honor your privacy one iota (nor worry about your safety). And if the guy who assaulted me is to be believed, apparently they feel qualified to decide if I was assaulted or not.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Published on May 10, 2010 in anxiety, assault, blog, depression, emotions, mental illness, recovery, trauma and Uncategorized. 8 Comments

I wrote the first draft of this on Saturday morning, when I was heavily in the midst of a post-traumatic stress disorder crisis. Sorry to say you don’t get any hot stories from the weekend as there pretty much weren’t any. This post is a bit meandering as it’s more about expressing my feelings than writing a well-written blog post.

Mental illness is something that you can’t just wish away. I’m as able to wish away bouts of post traumatic stress as much as I’m able to wish away a bout of diarrhea from ingesting dairy without lactaid. It’s frustrating. My rational brain can grasp the fact that I’m not in danger like I was during the trauma that gave me PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It can grasp the fact that MasterDoc takes care of me now, and the same scenario wouldn’t happen again as he would never let it. But the primal brain, the part that was traumatized, can’t be reasoned with and so I go into a bout of panic, anxiety and helplessness as if I’m re-living the the trauma all over again. And again. And again.

Various things can trigger a bout of PTSD and it’s not always (or even often) possible to determine ahead of time what might set me off. I read stories about sexual violence regularly in feminist blogs; I think it’s vital to discuss it and that silence will only perpetuate the problem. But sometimes something hits me just the wrong way, or just on the wrong day, and I find myself struggling with the same feelings I had right after the assault.

What set me off this time was a combination of things: reading comments on a post about outing sexual predators was the big thing. People were telling the survivors that they should always go to the police and that if they didn’t report the incident then they were somehow responsible for the sexual predator attacking the next person (and yet they shouldn’t publicly name and shame the person). This of course is utter bullshit as the only person responsible for the inappropriate behavior of the attacker is the attacker. But it struck me deeply as I agonized for a long time over pursuing legal repercussions after I was sexually assaulted 5 years ago. I worried about the women who could be affected in future by this asshole who was incapable of empathy or taking responsibility for his actions. I ultimately decided not to file a report because in talking to the NYPD I found out that unless they were sure they could convict they wouldn’t even prosecute. At the time people who were there that night were making all sorts of excuses for the guy who traumatized me. (He hosted fun sex parties, no one wanted to be uninvited. From what I hear he still hosts parties. Yes, New York sluts, you may in fact attend the parties of someone who committed sexual assault without remorse.) I felt like I would be completely alone in my accusations, and considering I was barely keeping my head together at that point I knew that pursuing legal action would only serve to damage me more. I also worried about harassment from his friends if I spoke up. (I did receive a little harassment just from speaking up within the circle.) Now, it’s past the statute of limitations (I can’t tell you the agony I went through that year the statute was going to be up. Do I report? Do I not?) but in the past two years a few people have come forward from that night to tell me that, indeed, what that guy did was wrong and they have felt terrible about what I went through. It’s comforting, but I wish they could have spoken up when I could have gone to the police.

As for the guy who did it, well he’s still a part of the sex blogger community. He’s on twitter. He’s on Fetlife. Part of my trigger was thinking about how many of my blogger friends believe his facade of “nice guy” and don’t realize what he did to me. I feel like the world should know, but in this society we protect the perpetrators of sex crimes. Had he hit me, or mugged me, I wouldn’t hesitate to name him. But since it was sexual and I know that being at a sex party when it happened would be enough for the slut shaming to begin, I don’t feel safe hollering his name from the rooftops. Oh privately I have told many, but publicly I’ve been mostly circumspect. I’m sure if anyone questioned him about the incident, he would deftly turn things around and make me look like the bad one. (Just as he did after the assault. Nice guy, huh?)

I’ve heard from someone else that they heard the story of that incident from him and his telling is completely different. In his mind, I was a woman who decided to try to “destroy him online.” I find this rich considering I didn’t name who did it or hint at who did it in the aftermath (for at least 2 years). I merely blogged about the hell I was going through and from this dickhead I got things like emails telling me to stop using him as “blog fodder.” Most readers of the blog I had at that time didn’t know who had done it, so I don’t see how he was persecuted by my trying to process my feelings. (He sure didn’t like the comments people left about what an asshole he was. But these people didn’t know he, specifically, was the asshole.) He refused to take any sort of responsibility for his behavior, and one or two people close to him made excuses (“He was drunk.”) or one even went so far as to call me crazy. I’m not crazy. And this man who did this to me is clearly incapable of empathy. I’m not the only person to observe him and come to the conclusion that he likely has some sort of personality disorder. So while a part of me wants to hear an apology (5 years later and one still hasn’t appeared) I don’t really expect to ever get one, because he is so focused on how this incident affected him. (Isn’t that simply amazing? He traumatized and assaulted me and he feels that he’s the wronged party.) I’ve seen him concoct huge, involved, false stories about people I know because he imagines that they are persecuting him in some way. I’ve heard about others who have spoken out about him who have been incessantly harassed by his minions. Intellectually I know this man will never feel remorse for what he did to me. And this is supremely frustrating because his actions can still affect me deeply 5 years later. When will it stop? I don’t know that the flashbacks will ever stop. I don’t know that the self-blaming will ever stop. I don’t know that my fears of him hurting other women will ever stop. A few years back a woman I was dating turned out to go to his parties. I felt panicked for her because I was afraid if he knew I knew her then he’d do something to her too. That incident was a total trigger for me. I went home and cried.

I’ve spent the past three and a half days trying to distract myself from the feeling of being re-traumatized. But it’s not something that can be simply ignored. I keep going through endless cycles of panic coming on, followed by extreme frustration that I could be happy and having hot sex right about now, but instead I’m feeling violated and fearful. When I’m triggered, I live the trauma all over again. Over the weekend I was psychically in the space where I was during/after the assault: scared, helpless, panicked, angry. I find myself questioning if going to a sex party makes it somehow okay for someone to put a speculum inside you without having negotiated it (or ANY play) with you beforehand. I find myself angry that I didn’t stop him before he put it in my cunt and jabbed me with it. (I had a tender spot inside my vagina for about a year after the event.) But at the time I firmly believed that if I said stop he would stop. He didn’t. And you can’t just jump up and run out of a room with an open speculum inside you. I had to rely on this asshole taking it out of me. With enough panic coursing through me I decided to end things there and then by drawing all attention to what was going on. And while I’m proud of the strength it took for me to do that, I was already traumatized at that point.

It’s been a long trip back from there to where I am now (on most days). It’s taken a long time for me to trust my dark fantasies to MasterDoc. I often fear that someone will use these fantasies against me, like how after the assault someone commented on my blog and cited my talking about using a speculum to see my cervix as an indication that I consented to this guy, who I had never played with before, to use one with me sexually. (Keep in mind any discussion of speculums on my blog were related to viewing my cervix and not at all sexual fantasy-related.) I find myself often afraid to admit to things especially without putting in the caveat that I want to do them “with MasterDoc.” He’s the only person I feel safe enough with to indulge the dark, kinky fantasies I’ve always had.

Simply talking about something does not equal consenting to doing it.

I’d name this asshole right here, right now and link to his blog, only I fear the harassment that would ensue. I’ve dealt with enough hell from this person. Right now about the only thing I can do is hope he dies a slow, painful death. And I hope that I can move past this anger that plunges me into depression whenever I’m triggered.

I write this for me. I write this because I feel better having gotten it out. Douchebag, this ultimately has nothing to do with you. If I wanted to persecute you I’d be going about it in an entirely different way.

Rape Culture and Triggers

Published on December 20, 2009 in anxiety, assault, consensual non-consent, depression, emotions, Feminism, rape, recovery, trauma and Uncategorized. 16 Comments

*trigger warning*

Earlier today, MasterDoc showed me something on fetlife that he thought was sick and twisted, but sorta funny. I won’t put it here since that would require me looking for it, and that would not be good for me to do. I cannot read it again. To sum up: it was a sp0of on “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a rhyming tale of a man who chloroforms his wife, invites his girlfriend in to help him fuck his wife while she’s unconscious, (the wife comes in the story while she’s unconscious), he slips her a roofie when she starts to come to, films the entire thing, and then when she gets up in the morning and relates to him the “dream” she had, he tells her that wow, that sounds hot, wish I could have been there. Now, granted, different people read things differently. I had to point out to MasterDoc the fact that nowhere in there was any indication at all that this was consensual. No indication to the reader that this was a D/s relationship where consent has already been given for activities like this. Call me a stuffy old feminist assault survivor, but I don’t find rape funny. He had assumed consent, but when I pointed this out he read it again and agreed, there was no clear, or even implied consent. (And the whole bit about her coming during the assault is typical “women enjoy being raped” bullshit.)

I wasn’t inclined to post a comment myself, as I’ve seen too often that women will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humor for calling this shit out. But as a survivor of non-consensual sex I was really upset after reading this. I burst into tears while talking to MasterDoc about it. It’s an indication of the rape culture we live in that this is seen as humorous and acceptable by otherwise reasonable people. (Someone else we know posted a positive comment on this thread. Women posted positive comments on this thread.) MasterDoc decided to post a comment pointing out the problems with the post but the thread owner opted to delete it. He did, however, write to MasterDoc essentially explaining that he thinks that people on fetlife are all adults and able to look at a poem like that and appreciate that it’s not non-consensual. I disagree.

I wondered aloud if the following poem would have gotten the same level of appreciation: a woman chloroforms her husband without his consent, ties him up, invites in some guys to peg his ass while he’s unconscious, and then she lets him think that the whole experience was a dream (but meanwhile she’s filmed it). Would people find that as amusing? But you know, I don’t think that would ever be put out there as humor. I also think that most people are so conditioned by the rape culture that only other survivors would “get” the problem with it. (I worry that the scenario I just related would trigger a man who’s experienced sexual violence.)

The triggering for me was the way that raping the woman was treated like a big joke. When I was assaulted and wrote on my old blog about it, while most people were appalled at what happened one or two told me that I was blowing it out of proportion. They basically told me that I didn’t have the right to feel traumatized. That it wasn’t assault. The guy who did it to me tried to convince me that it was just an “accident.” While I did get support, the few people who dismissed my trauma as inconsequential did a tremendous amount of damage to me.

In all fairness, I don’t think there was any malice in the posting on fetlife. Not true malice. And MasterDoc felt terrible for showing it to me and said that he should have known better. I’m not at all mad at him as he had no intent of harming me. (Had he thought for a second that this post would upset me so, he would have never showed it to me.) I don’t think the author meant to convey a true non-consensual experience. After all, I can understand the fantasy of intoxication play – where one partner is heavily intoxicated, consensually, and the other person then has their way with them. Done consensually, I could find that really hot. Some people would still be triggered by this.

Driving home today, I started thinking that perhaps I was too sensitive about this. After all, the guy tells the wife that her story is so hot when she relates it to him; one would hope that if she was anything but enthusiastic about her “dream” he wouldn’t say that. But I don’t know – am I thinking this only because I’ve been conditioned as a woman not to cause shit? I’m not naive enough to think that the world is safe and that I shouldn’t ever come across something thoughtless and triggering. Shit happens. And what triggers me won’t trigger the next person, and vice versa. (Over on Shakesville this week there was an open thread about bdsm. I enjoyed reading the discussion concerning bdsm and feminism. But the moderator had to shut down the thread because she was triggered. And I think if she was triggered she totally did the right thing – took care of herself. Just because it didn’t trigger me doesn’t mean it can’t trigger someone else who has had different experiences.) But I do think that times like this are valuable moments to raise the consciousness of others.

Book Review: Healing Sex

Published on September 7, 2009 in anxiety, assault, bdsm, bisexuality, embarrassment, emotions, fantasy, Feminism, kink, lesbian, libido, masturbation, rape, recovery, reviews, sex, sex toys, sexuality, trauma and trust. 0 Comments

When Babeland offered Staci Haines’ Healing Sex for review, I decided to snap it up. You see, after I was sexually assaulted in 2005, a friend at that time had Haines’ Healing Sex DVD and lent it to me sometime in the months following the assault. While Haines’ focus is on survivors of childhood sexual abuse, her techniques can definitely be applied to recovering from any sort of sexual trauma. I remembered the DVD as being insightful, so I was happy for the chance to read and own Haines’ book.

Staci Haines specializes in the somatic approach – “an educational and transformational approach that assumes that the body, mind and emotions are one interconnected biological system.” (p. 15) She discusses a great deal the concepts of being aware of what you’re feeling, or indeed being aware if you’ve dissociated and stopped feeling. Being present during your sexual experiences is a major first step towards healing. Being aware of your body and reactions helps get you away from dissociating – “checking out” – during sex.

Haines is realistic about the conflicting emotions that survivors may feel – they may feel guilt or shame when they feel sexual pleasure, they may love and hate their perpetrator at the same time. Being triggered during sex with a partner may cause a survivor to take their anger out on their partner. She doesn’t paint a picture of recovery as being all hearts and flowers – but she does point you towards the wonderful future you can have if you take the time to heal. As they say, nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The approach is entirely sex-positive. She explores different types of sexual expression, everything from oral sex to S/M and in between. There’s chapters on sexual anatomy, creating boundaries for yourself, partnered sex, navigating your way through triggers and how to work on healing them, and even the use of sex toys. Many of these chapters have interesting sex-positive information that would be useful for anyone. (The book is aimed at women survivors, of any sexual orientation.) While she discusses the problem of survivors sometimes becoming sexually compulsive in reaction to the abuse, she makes clear the point that being a fully realized sexual woman with a stronger sex drive than our society thinks you should have is NOT the same as being compulsive. She then goes on to discuss the real difficulties with actual compulsion. She also doesn’t glamorize sex as being the perfect image we see in porn or read about in books. Haines is clear that we bring our quirky human selves to our sex lives – there will be times when things go wrong and you and your partner end up laughing. Sometimes you may need to stop the action for a time and get back to it after dealing with difficult memories. There’s even a chapter for partners of sexual abuse survivors.

The final chapter in the book is a phenomenal collection of resources – everything from healing sexual trauma, to dealing with any sort of trauma, to women-friendly sex-positive sex toy stores (Babeland is on the list).

One minor gripe: this book has more than an average number of typos that were not caught and fixed. If you’re a grammar nut like me this may irritate the heck out of you.

Reflections on the Week

Published on September 5, 2009 in anxiety, assault, bdsm, caning, D/s, fantasy, libido, musings, optimism, random thoughts, recovery and sexuality. 2 Comments

I’ve had a busy week, alas I don’t have a lot of stories to share but MasterDoc and I had good sex and a caning on Wednesday night. (Again I had to reflect on how some pain pushes me harder into orgasm, but some pain, this time his fingernails digging into my ass, can push me away from orgasm.) Since I won’t be seeing him too often this month it was kinda like a little sending off I suppose. Still, I’m sure it will turn out that I will see him a good amount – after all I should still see him one or two nights a week – not bad! Yesterday he took me to get a gastroscopy done. I was nervous, as I tend to be with any procedure, but I have to say that propofol is the shit. Yes, that’s the drug Michael Jackson took that ultimately led to his demise, but he combined it with a bunch other stuff. I went into this procedure with an entirely empty stomach and no medications since the evening before. Propofol knocked me out nearly instantaneously. (I watched the anesthesiologist inject it into the line in my arm and then all went hazy seconds later.) I felt like I was still just falling asleep as I became aware of MasterDoc standing next to me – and the mouth guard, IV line, blood pressure cuff and oxygen tubing that had just been on me seemingly a second ago, were gone. I have absolutely no recollection of the procedure. Nice! (No wonder they call propofol “milk of amnesia.”) I go back to the gastroenterologist in a couple of weeks to hear about the bits that were taken from my esophagus for further testing. But overall the whole thing went well.

I’ve kept mostly private about issues I’ve had with Davey, and I don’t want to go into details here (sorry, some things I do keep to myself) but we had a breakthrough in our sexual issues on Tuesday night. (No small thanks due to MasterDoc.) I’m feeling better about things than I have in months (the only real issues we’ve had have all been sexual or related to the sexual issues) and hopefully things will get better now. I may write in more detail at a later date, but for now I’d like to keep quiet about it.

With MasterDoc gone, I hope to explore here some fantasies of mine – and share them with you of course. Ever since Floating World my mind has been filled with dirty, kinky fantasies and I need to get them out of me. I think I might somewhat be in subfrenzy, lusting after all sort of kinkiness – desperate to make all my fantasies come true. This month would be a good time to calm down and reflect. Luckily, I’m already with MasterDoc, and he wouldn’t let me go overboard in exploring my fantasies.

Soon, I will write and post a review on Staci Haines’ Healing Sex, a book which I’m finding very enlightening. It’s taking me into my sexuality in a new way, and despite the focus being healing from sexual trauma, I find myself looking at other issues I’ve had since before being raped at age 25 and sexually assaulted at 32 – issues with speaking up about what I want, not saying no when I’d really like to, and other things. It should produce a thoughtful post in the near future. I also have another dyke porn dvd to review – rowr. How I’ve held off watching it this long is beyond me.

So stay tuned, more of the dirty, sexual talk you’ve come to love and expect from me will ensue. For now, enjoy your Labor Day weekend and make some stories of your own!

Calm, Serene

Published on July 19, 2009 in anxiety, assault, emotions, optimism, recovery and trauma. 0 Comments

I’m feeling much, much better today. After my post yesterday I talked to MasterDoc. It wasn’t easy for me to open up, but I am so very glad I did. I cried, he held me and listened. He promised me that he would never let anything like that happen to me again. And I know that having his protection has made a huge difference in my being able to swing again. Even when I get to go to a party without my collar, and choose my own partners, it really helps to have MasterDoc there because I know he watches out for me. (And it’s sad to say, but he does a better job looking out for me than I do.)

I am still bewildered to get an apology from someone who was there that night. I never expected such a thing to happen. I suffered so much pain the past four years thinking that no one from that night would ever say to me, “What happened to you was wrong,” that they would never express support. If there are others out there who feel the same way, I hope that they come across me again and don’t hesitate to tell me. It does make a difference knowing that that vile dickhead who assaulted me is not supported by everyone. (These days it looks like he’s supported by fewer and fewer people all the time. Huzzah.)

I like the word survivor for someone who’s come through sexual assault/abuse/rape. It is how I see myself, I am not a victim, I am someone who survived something I never should have gone through. But I am a happy, smart, sexy woman with a lot to bring to this world. While I get the feeling of being alone, in reality I am supported by such a huge circle of people. I am lucky. I will prevail.

The Past Comes Back Again

Published on July 18, 2009 in anxiety, assault, depression, emotions, recovery, sex parties and Uncategorized. 4 Comments

I’m afraid this isn’t going to be an erotic post. I’ve been feeling triggered the past couple of days and so I’m not in a good mind-space right now. When I say triggered, it’s in reference to the sexual assault that happened to me four years ago. Sometimes I can talk to friends about it and be fine, but sometimes it triggers all sorts of horrible feelings. (If you want details, you can search for the category “assault” on this blog.)
So these feelings have been lingering – fear, anxiety, depression, feeling unsafe, feeling unsettled. I feel like I want to talk about it with someone, but I get so paralyzed with fear that I won’t be listened to again, that I won’t get my feelings validated. So I’ve spent today feeling paralyzed and introverted with depression. It’s not rational, but it’s overwhelming.

However, it’s not all been bad. Last night, MasterDoc decided that in my current state, since it was on my mind anyway, it was the appropriate time to show me an email that was sent via him, for me, about a month ago. Someone on fetlife discovered my profile, enjoyed my blog, but had a nagging feeling he had met me. Digging back in my blog it came to him – he was there the night I was assaulted.

He went through MasterDoc because he didn’t want to contact me out of the blue, didn’t want to be triggering, didn’t want to upset me. But he really, really wanted to be able to say – I’m sorry. He wanted to apologize for not speaking up, for not realizing that things were indeed as bad as they were. It was his first sex party you see, and so when others there defended the issue saying everything was merely a “misunderstanding” he uncomfortably accepted that. He didn’t know any better.

In the midst of my current angst, I have had waves of blessed relief. Relief that someone there has finally said that what happened to me was wrong, and that they are sorry it happened. Relief that my feelings have been validated. It’s something I didn’t really ever expect to happen. First, last summer my friend from that period wrote to apologize for not speaking up more, and now this. Amazing. Validation is so important.

I don’t want to downplay the support and love I received during that period of time from my boyfriend Davey, my friend Christopher, and various other friends who weren’t there that night either. But I had to sever all ties with anyone I knew from those parties because no one would say what happened was wrong. (The aforementioned female friend did think it was wrong, but she wasn’t prepared to get into a whole shit storm with the guy who assaulted me. I have to say that it takes just a simple apology for me to forgive people who were there. It’s not an easy situation to be in, you don’t want to believe that you just witnessed something that will change a person’s life forever. They’re human. While I felt very alone during that period, I can understand that it’s not easy to speak up about. People make mistakes. Apologies do a lot to heal.)

So while this letter was welcome and very healing in many ways, I’m still feeling triggered today anyway. It can take a while to get past it. I went out last night with MasterDoc and our friend S., and I just felt really unsafe and clingy towards MasterDoc. I couldn’t enjoy myself as much as I wanted to. I was really afraid of getting sexually involved with a man I didn’t know.I did manage to let MasterDoc know that I really needed to be taken care of.

Hopefully after writing this and getting my thoughts organized I’ll be able to talk with MasterDoc about this.

Working for a Better World

Published on March 8, 2007 in assault and recovery. 0 Comments

Thanks, everyone, for the helpful responses to my entry a couple of days ago. The idea of working to help others has come up for me repeatedly – both in therapy and in my personal life. My therapist thinks I’d be a great candidate for teaching sexual violence awareness as it’s something I’m passionate about and (self-)educated on.

Before I became a librarian, I went through a little career crisis trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to continue working in the corporate world – it was sucking my soul dry and the stress was ruining my health. Really only three career paths presented themselves for serious consideration. I thought about becoming an acupuncturist, but the schooling is intense. You can’t hold a job during the second year of it and I couldn’t support myself without a job. Next I considered becoming a librarian, which is clearly the path I chose. (And I’m quite happy with that choice.) The third choice, and one given serious consideration, was to become a sex therapist/educator. My undergrad degree is in a psychology-related field so going into some sort of psych career would fit well with my background. I’m passionate about sex. Part of why the assault has hit me so hard is that it totally turned my identity as a sex-positive, sexual person on its head (and still does). I wish more people were educated about sex and having better sex. I detest that our society basically condones rape (it sure doesn’t adequately condemn it). Young men and women need some serious education when it comes to what’s consensual and what’s not. “No means no” is all well and good but it hasn’t gotten the point into the heads of many men. And women need to have enough value for themselves and their sexuality to feel that they can say no.

Life is full of gray areas, and certainly when it comes to consent to have sex there are gray areas. But in a society where women and their sexuality are respected, a lot less assault would go on. In our society women’s sexuality is a commodity to be controlled by men. While feminism has brought things a long way, we still have a long way to go. The insidious forms of sexism remain intact. The victim of a sexual crime is still the one who essentially gets put on trial. “Boys will be boys” is still used as an excuse for rape. It’s ridiculous.

I think sooner or later I’ll end up in a situation where I educate others. It might be the next career change down the road, or perhaps a volunteer position is waiting for me. I just need to get myself organized enough to do it. Blogging has been a great platform to express my rage, my sorrow and my ideas concerning sexual assault. With my old blog, I got a few emails from women who had been through what I went through, and my talking about my experience seemed to help them in some way.

I liked Miss Syl’s comment. “Living well is the best reward.” In therapy this week we talked about how getting control of a phobia I have (using the telephone) might even help me feel better about the assault because it’s a way to have control over my life and what happens. I feel much better thinking about how to have control and power over my life than I ever feel when I think about retribution, or whether the guy feels guilty or not. Those two things leave me essentially powerless (after all, I’m not up for executing revenge in reality – I just think a lot about it.) Maybe that’s the route to moving on – finding ways to have control over my life. (Not in a obsessive-compulsive way obviously, but in a healthy manner.) I feel much better when I feel like I have control over what happens to me. I finally made a phone call at work the other day that I put off for weeks and I felt so amazing afterward. I had beaten the fear that kept me from making the call. I had control for a change. Maybe I’ve finally hit upon a way to move on, or to start to.