The Culture of Rape

The abuse of women’s bodies, our spirits, is so accepted, so ingrained in our society that rape isn’t even seen as anything abnormal.  Black women’s bodies especially are seen as objects to be used and abused by men.  We’re supposed to take it, like it even.  If we as a culture, society, and community don’t do something to stop this NOW it will be the end of us. 

Fate is a mother fucker.  I get into an argument on Facebook today, on someone else’s page mind you, and someone else, an “innocent bystander” as it were, starts fanning the flames, trying to provoke the disagreement.  The instigator sends me a friend request.  I accept, not thinking anything about it more than he’s someone who likes what I have to say.  He sends me a private message, asking me if I used to live in the apartments in downtown Atlanta.  In that first few seconds, I couldn’t imagine how he would know me like that.  I didn’t really think anything about it, but I didn’t panic or anything, I just responded, “How do you know me?”  He responded by saying, “You probably don’t remember me.  We met in the summer of ‘99.  You took me to your apartment. Wow, small world. LMBAO.” 

My home is sacred to me.  I’m very cautious of the people I invite into my home.  When he said, “You took me to your apartment,” I think I knew who it was before I even went to his profile.  At this point, time is moving in slow motion.  Going to his page, pulling up his pictures, opening the albums that show his face . . . everything is taking light years.  Sure enough, it was the face of the man who raped me, whose name I hadn’t previously known.  Jason Mass is his name as it turns out.  I confront him.  I say that I do in fact remember him, that you are the man who raped me. 

He wasn’t even a man at the time, he was 19 or 20.  I was in my early thirties. I was not attracted to him in the least even though I shouldn’t even have to mention that fact.  We met at Atlanta’s Underground Mall outside the Haagen Dazs store.  I saw him there a few times.  I’m guessing he was a student at Georgia State.  He could have just been hanging out there, I don’t know.  I didn’t really inquire too much, he was far too young for me and I was not at all interested in him.  I was nice to him; we might have even had lunch in the food court once.  I’m not sure. 

One day, he asked me to come to my apartment.  I told him no.  He kept asking, saying he just wanted to hang out with me.  I told him that we could hang out in the club room of my apartment building but that we couldn’t go to my apartment.  We watched TV for a while and I told him that I was not interested in him, he was far too young for me.  He wasn’t my type at all.  He said that didn’t matter, he just wanted to hang out with me, he wanted to see what sort of music I listened to, he said he thought he could learn from me.  He wouldn’t take no for an answer and I really thought I had made myself clear that I wasn’t interested in him. 

Finally, I told him that we could go to my apartment to check out my music.  I didn’t own a TV at the time so I had a super duper extensive music collection.  I honestly believed he saw me as a mentor or semi-mother figure.  There was nothing remotely sexual or romantic between us and I thought he was a harmless kid.  We went to my apartment and he was impressed by the Black art, all the books; I wasn’t a kid and I wasn’t ghetto so he probably hadn’t been exposed to very many homes that were like mine.  I showed him my balcony and that’s when things started to go terribly wrong.  We came back inside and he started to try to kiss me, grab me, hold me.  I started pushing him away.  He took out his dick.  I remember it so clearly, like a movie in my head.  It was almost like he was in a trance.  He was stroking it, telling me, “I love my big dick, I’m in love with my big dick.  I have such a big dick, don’t I?” It was like he was hypnotized by his own penis.    I told him to get out, I was trying to make it to the front door and he pulled me to the floor and we fought.  We fought and fought and fought.  We fought until I couldn’t fight any more.  I cried out, I said no, stop, NO.  We fought until I had no more strength in my body.  I lay there, in tears, while he raped me, unable to fight any more. 

So, here I am, on Facebook, and I’ve just accepted a friend request from the man who raped me.  I’ve written about him before, years ago, in my efforts to reclaim my own personal power.  I didn’t know his name but I would identify him whenever I spoke of the instance when men have violated me.  I confront him, in my haze of confusion, anger, and disbelief.  I say, “You raped me.”

He responds by saying, “Rape?  Don’t say that.  It didn’t go down like that.  We didn’t even get a chance to finish because you said stop.” 

Finish?  Finish?  Perhaps he wanted a second or third time to rape me but I most certainly had finished.  I informed him that we had fought, that I didn’t want him, that I said no, and he had raped me.  At that point, he gets an attitude with me, like I’ve offended him, saying, “Are u fuckin' kiddin' me?!  om fuckin' g!!!”  At this point, I’m scrambling to block him before I explode in anger and outrage. 

This wasn’t my first time to meet up with him.  The first time was as FunkJazzKafe, one of Atlanta’s premiere music events, a few years later.  We were both going in the backstage door in a dark, not heavily traffic parking lot.  He said something to the effect of, “You probably don’t remember me but . . .”  I turned around and looked at him and I knew him immediately.  I think I said, “You’re the guy who raped me,” but I’m not sure.  I got so scared I just turned around and ran away, shaking and crying and terrified.  The second time, I had my hands full of groceries and I was coming home and he was coming out of my neighbor’s apartment two doors down.  It was all I could do to open the door and get inside and I was terrified.  He took my sense of safety.  He took my sense of peace in the world.  He took something from me that was no his to take.  He stole a piece of my soul.  He’s walking around, not a care in the world, no remorse, no guilt, seemingly no consciousness at all that he RAPED me.  I think I knew that if I ever did have a chance to meet him again, he would deny it but I didn’t think he would send me a friend request, like I was going to be happy to talk about old times.  There’s something delusional about a person who doesn’t even realize the hurt that they’ve caused. 

I can’t describe to a man the fear that consumes you when you come face to face with your rapist and you know he could do it again.  Most men will never know that sensation.  He felt justified in violating my body.  He felt he had a right to take it without my permission.  We fought.  Not a tussle, not slap and grab, but I’m yelling NO and pushing and kicking and trying to punch and bite and do anything I can to get away and somehow, in his head, he thought that was foreplay.  He somehow interpreted that as perfectly acceptable to force himself inside me as long as it felt good to him. 

This god damn obsession society has with dick size, specifically black men’s dick size, is breeding rapists.  Objectifying women and this willingness to see us as things to be used by men, for men’s pleasure is manufacturing rapists.  Mothers raising their sons not to take responsibility for their actions is creating a nation of rapists.  Fathers teaching their sons to measure their manhood by the number of women they fuck is Rape 101.  This shit has to stop.  IT HAS TO STOP.  I don’t want another black girl to endure what I did.  I don’t want another black woman to know the sort of fear I felt.  There is a culture of rape that let him think that without any foreplay, romance, no attraction whatsoever, that he had the go ahead to force himself on me and that I would like it. 

I’m going to speak truth to power.  I’m going to continue to address the pathologies of this diseased and sick society that treats women like things to be used and thrown away.  Don’t feel sorry for me and tell me how you wish you could take the pain away.  Do something.  Confront men when they talk about women like things.  Confront the men you know are rapists, make them admit what they did.  Don’t waste your empathy on me, I’m going to be okay.