Rape

Before I get into this topic I want anyone reading to know I'm a very passionate person. Maybe it's the Italian/Irish in me or maybe it's the libra but things boil in my blood and make me very angry or deeply sad. 

This makes me both.

In the relatively short course of my adult life three individuals told me they were raped. One was raped as a teen by strangers at knife point and two were raped as adults by boyfriends, but didn't realize it was rape until after. All told me about their experiences some time after the incident occurred, but none reported it. I'm beginning to wonder if reporting a rape is just something that happens on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit...

Once upon a time a woman could not be raped by her husband. A woman was property of her husband, could legally be beaten and could not possibly be raped by the man who married her and fathered her children. In this day and country women are born with more rights than ever thanks to the women generations ago who fought tirelessly for them. It kills me to know that every day women are raped and don't say a word until it's too late, if ever.

What most amazes me is how often women believe the excuses. So and so would never do that to me. He's my boyfriend/husband, he wouldn't rape me. I was drunk/high, so it's my own fault. We'd been flirting for a while, and I would have had sex with him anyway. I didn't exactly say no, so it wasn't exactly rape. He was drunk/high, and he didn't mean it. I know I said stop, but he didn't hit me or get violent. I could have tried harder to make him stop but I didn't, so it's my fault. 

Why, women, do we delude ourselves? Why are we protecting the men who violate us? Why are we so quick to take blame for crimes committed against us?

Don't tell me it's because it was so traumatizing that they'd rather forget it and move on than relive it. Because it's so traumatizing women should want to stop these men, or at the very least make them aware of their actions. No woman alive forgets a rape. She may move on, but it will stay with her and affect her and her choices and relationships for the rest of her life. I wish that women would realize the protections they have in the law and realize the responsibility they have for other women. The statute of limitations in California is up to ten years, and rape is a capital offense. I understand that rape can be hard to prove if there's little evidence, but isn't making a report better than nothing? Speak up, ladies. Speak up and show yourself and the world that you're more than a victim.

Am I alone? Am I naive? What would you do?