Warning: This is about the subject of Rape and the author's experience with it.
I won’t speak about this on stream, I won’t mention it on
Discord but I will write about it here. On a friend’s Facebook page, I
unleashed a bit of rage and I thought this would be a good blog to explain a
bit about my stance on the word Rape, the issue at hand and explain somethings
about survivors.
I’m sure
you are all aware of the former Standard swimmer and his “20 minute” mistake,
as dubbed by his father the link will be down below. I don’t know if you know
about his ‘light’ sentencing of just 6 months in a county jail which he has
served some of, and his 3-year probation. Well there is a lot of social out cry
for justices and I have had to explain why I feel so angry about this.
I
was 8 and he was 10. Yes, 10-year-old boys can get it up. My attacker was my
friend, a neighborhood boy that I had known for three months. It was a summer
day and we were playing hide and go seek. Back in the 1980’s people thought the
far south side neighborhoods were safe. Needless to say, I hid in a shed close
to home and when the friend found me he wasn’t alone. Without going into
details because frankly I’m shaking right now, tearing up and wishing to the
Gods I had something to drink that was stronger than A&W Root Beer right
now. I was a gang initiation and he did
things to me that no 8-year-old girl should ever know about sex or what to do
sexually to anyone. I was raised Catholic so there is the Catholic guilt and
the shaming that comes from one’s self.
After the assault, I was
threatened. I was told that if I told anyone, they would come to my house.
Break in and kill my family in front of me then they would kill me. I couldn’t
bear to think of my parents dying or my little brother dying for me. I thought
I deserved it, I did something wrong, I did something that angered them. As a
child of the 1980’s, that’s what the culture would have done. Blamed me, so I
blamed myself so I didn’t have to hear it from anyone else.
Many
have asked where were my parents. My father was an Iron Worker working within
the Loop and my mother was at the local Junior College trying to get a degree.
We had a babysitter that let us play outside as much as we wanted while she
watched t.v. inside the house. No, my attacker was never caught, never faced
trial and will never have the punishment he deserves. I’ll leave it to Karma to
handle him.
What
did that do to me? Out of the dark and rather tattered box of surprises every survivalist
receives. My horrible prizes were as follows:
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder)
Low self-esteem
Feeling dirty about sex and
being sexual
Over aggression
Angry and rage (still feel that
one)
Feeling socially awkward
Over thinking and analyzing
Overly critical about one’s self
Seeking perfection in places it
doesn’t exist
Unable to admit defeat and fight
even when the battle is lost
Pushing people away when the get
too close for comfort
Overly cynical
Severe depression
Inability to accept one’s self
as who and what they are
And many many more
self-tormenting surprises I had to learn and are not able to list without just
falling into a pool of tears.
This woman will now go through
the same things (more from what I read in her letter to the judge) I did 33
years ago. She knows her attacker is getting off on a light sentence, and he
knows it too. The world does actually. How can this be? How can this be
allowed? Just because his Dad and others wrote about his ‘character’ that he
should get a lighter sentence? What about her? Does she get a ‘lighter’
sentence for what he did to her? Will her recovery be as swift and easy as his?
It makes me rather mad to see this rape culture alive and well today.
For me it has now been about 33
years since that event. I still go through some of this. I wish to see the Rape
Culture die and never come back. It’s why the word ‘Rape’ is banned in my
channel and I make a strong effort to get it banned in other channels. No one,
should have to know what this feels like. I mean no on, no man nor woman should
ever need to go through this. Yes, I know men can and have been raped as well.
I want to change this gaming
culture as well, not to see us women as ‘girls’ that need to be taken down but
to be guildies to play games with. We want to enjoy games as much as guys do. I
don’t and won’t flash or show myself in stream as anything but me. I don’t care
if non-cleavage doesn’t get me tips or money, it’s not why I stream; and it’s
not why I game. I game for the pure enjoyment of it.
There are certain games I can’t
and won’t play because part of the content is about the sexual exploitation of
women through assault and violence. I’m sorry, but no woman deserves that and I
don’t care what kind of story line you’re trying to develop. The over exploitation
of rape on women within movies, t.v. (Yes, looking at you Game of Thrones) and
any other media used for entertainment has to stop! Fuck, it’s messing with my
PTSD so much at times I punch the damn screen to make it stop. Flat screen
monitors don’t grow on trees.
Well Junie, don’t watch it. Hard
not to watch it when you didn’t see it coming and it clocks you blind side from
left field. I want my daughter to play games with boys and enjoy herself not
afraid to make friends with people. Not wanting to be afraid or be weary of the
true intention of the boy. Games were meant to bring people together and allow
them to have fun and build conversations to spring up and build communities.
People just stop using the word ‘Rape’.
I don’t even use it and I’m a survivor of it. Unless you know what it’s like to
be violated in the worst way possible; it’s not a joking word. It’s not funny,
it’s not awesome to say; it’s a gross and disgusting word to describe a
horrible act. If you have to use a word say ‘Recked or Rekted’ you can say “Ripped
or Ded’; there are so many other words to use.
This will also explain if you
know/have known, or might possibly know a survivor and they act out in ways you
don’t understand. I’m sure you will or have heard while either in my vods or if
I’m streaming you hear my guild leader telling me to tone it down, or the Lead
Mod telling me to quit it, stop it or randomly changing the topic due to my
getting overly aggressive on Discord. This is due to someone triggering me. It’s
the almost primal defense response to show you that I am a Junie with claws
willing to defend myself. I know deep down side you are probably trolling me,
joking with me or what have you; it’s my triggers acting up and trying to set
things right.
You
need to see and understand that us survivors are like (hate this analogy but it’s
rather true) abused pets that have been rescued and are still being treated for
our injuries. We might not want to lash out, scream, latch on, smoother, be
over protective, get angry at the drop of a hat or become very depressed and
hide away for a bit. We are messed up, confused at times still, angry and
wounded. Some of us have found a drive for these things, others haven’t and are
still trying to find their way. It’s why I listen, why I went into psychology
and wanted to help people. I still help when I can. All in all, this is me, the
fractured, broken parts of me that will heal in time (I hope). Some people have
used this bit of our pasts (myself included) to exploit our fears, use our PTSD
to their advantage and have promised to keep us safe. From my experiences, I
know now that I am the only one that can keep me safe. I’m the only one that
can conquer my fears. And in 33 years, I’m still learning how to handle, deal
and cope with that moment in time.
Someone told me that time heals,
I do agree to an extent. I can’t say that it does truly. I know there is that
little piece of me that is frozen in time. Its stuck there still trying to
understand, still trying to rationalize and come to terms with it. I over think
for this exact reason. What if I hadn’t gone out to play, what if I had
screamed. Should I have told someone and see if the death threats were real? I
wasn’t going to risk it.
My
hope is to share something of myself, a horrible experience to explain why this
issue of rape culture has to stop. How we should be standing up against it and
to give you some insight as to what we go through after it happens. Support a
gaming culture that supports women within the field and shame those that
exploit us for game because it’s just a woman getting sexually assaulted. Thank
you for taking the time to read this; for any questions or comments please list
them below. No, I won’t talk about this on stream nor on discord; you want to
ask questions post below. Thank you for understanding.
Link to Issue: Father's Words (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-stanford-rape-20160606-snap-htmlstory.html )
Issue at hand: http://www.coveragemail.com/news/former-swimmer-of-stanford-university-brock-turner-sentenced-to-6-months-in-jail-for-rape/
