Rape takes many forms – My message to you.

I just talked with Ouroboros. I feel better after our conversations. I think he does too, which is a wonderful thing. I explained to him the circumstances surrounding the rape and why it was influencing me the past couple of days.  I want to share this with you because I think the image that comes up in people’s minds regarding rape is a dark alley, being caught and cornered alone, and a weapon pressed up against one’s body. However, rape is much more common than one would think, and frequently happens in the home by a “trusting” partner.

Here is my story:

I had been dating this man for about 1 year when it happened. Our relationship was that of two young people, and so was fraught with drama. There were a few red flags regarding his behavior around me, namely a slight string of dishonesty and laziness. I thought it was all something I could put up with, or that as he matured, these behaviors would go away. Nowadays I have ABSOLUTELY NO TOLERANCE for negative dishonesty (compared with positive dishonesty where, for example, someone says they love the hairclip you just bought and love, but they do not).

We went back to my apartment for the night as we usually did, and I awoke with a strange feeling that I could not entirely pinpoint. It wasn’t until months later that he said to me (during our breakup) “please don’t tell anyone about that night”. Just then, a flood of memories came back and a realized he had raped me in my sleep and in my own bed. I do not remember if I had been drinking, I do not remember waking up during the act, but I do remember that strange feeling the next morning like something was amiss.

This has affected me since that day. For years my sex life was diminished and my marriage was influenced by my inability to trust my husband (that, unfortunately turned out to be warranted as well). I went to counseling for a year and a half to work through it. Finally, I had a breakthrough and began enjoying my sex life again and feeling free like I had before that incident.

This is my message to men and women everywhere: Rape takes many forms. The line between consent and rape can be VERY fine. Be careful with yourself and your actions with each other! The difference in rape and consensual sex is based on waking and conscious CONSENT! Not guilt, not pressure, but true consent in the form of “YES I WANT to do this”. Sometimes rape victims might even get off during rape. This does NOT equate consent! You should not feel sorry and guilty for an incident occurring when it does not fit the dark alley scenario. Talk to someone. If you feel like something is amiss, you might be right. Your feelings are always real and should never be discounted. Understand you are not alone.

Here is a starting off point if you feel you are the victim of rape or know someone who is:

http://www.rapeis.org/

Please contact a local professional in your area as soon as possible.

WE CAN EMPOWER EACH OTHER!

Swinging and polyamory… maybe too fast?

You know, I am having a lot of fun right now experimenting with a bunch of stuff, but I cannot forget all the pain that remains from memories of my divorce and from other previous relationships that have gone bad.

I was just sitting here thinking about going to the swingers club and exposing myself to this environment consciously. I realized several things –

For one, the intense anxiety I feel over power plays in sex, even though I play around with it myself. I could not figure out why this feeling was coming up and I realized that the feeling of not having a certain level of control totally freaks me out! See – I was raped several years ago by someone I trusted and it scarred me for several years. Just recently I have been able to enjoy sex again openly, and I also fear losing this ability by “reliving” the feeling of loss of control.  In fact, I even get weirded out by my partner controlling someone during sex… I get a negative feeling based on another woman feeling a loss of control too.

I have also experienced some fear out of dipping my toes into the swinging scene already. I thought all day about why this was bothering me and where these feelings were coming from. I realized that it isn’t that I would feel jealousy necessarily, but that I have not yet developed the level of trust in Ouroboros that I need to feel comfortable in placing myself in an even more vulnerable situation. It is not that I fear he would leave me – If he did, he is not right for me anyhow. It is based on my level of comfort and the process (time) it takes for me to develop levels of trust in someone after situations like my divorce and the rape. The thing is that I don’t think I even know for certain that he would not pressure me into a lifestyle I was not yet ready for. This is a big red flag that I am not even ready to dip my toes in.

I hate coming to these realizations. But I have to remember how good it feels to stay true to yourself and to not do things like this for other people! I genuinely want to explore different relationship paradigms with him, but I need to do it at a pace that works for me. If I don’t I am selling myself short and not acting on those powerful intuitive feelings I am trying to redevelop.  I want my relationships to be based on honesty, and a big part of that is simply being honest with myself.

Any thoughts?