Rape With a Capital R
By. Samantha Simma
*Please note this content could be triggering for some
Monsters are not confined to the darkness of closets or the undersides of our childhood beds. The monsters of adulthood are a far more terrifying breed. My nightmares were once filled with colorful, animated creatures, but now they’re populated by figures as real as the ones that surround me in my waking hours.
These monsters are not hindered by the light like vampires. They do not jump out of the darkness of alleyways and creep up behind me. Instead, they smile knowing half-grins and covet my body with their eyes. My body relied on me to protect it and I failed.
I am a writer, a communicator, and yet, I could not say or acknowledge the R word for two years after I was Raped. My silence was stifled by internal doubt. Was my fleeting look across the beer pong table consent? Was that brief eye contact an admission of, “Yes?”
Four years ago, I was raped at a country music festival in Wisconsin, in the blistering heat and light of a sunny summer day. Although I’ve traveled alone to the countries of Thailand, Honduras and the Bahamas, I am not as afraid of the wider world as I am of the backyard of my youth. I do not know the level of resistance he experienced when he entered my unconscious body. I do not even know his name. But I do know that there was no safety in my slumber that afternoon.
I naively believed that the burn of alcohol would make me wise beyond my youth. That weekend made me wise alright. Wise to the unintended messages my body might send, wise to the way other humans will stifle your strength to achieve their own personal pleasures. I do not know the memory he walked away with, but I stumbled away from that weekend with damaged insides.
When the doctor saw the tear in the womanly folds of my skin, she gasped. As she probed there, while I winced in pain, she asked, “Was this consensual?” I said yes because I didn’t know if there were boundaries and circumstantial differences to the term Rape. I said yes because I wanted to get back to my normal life. I said yes because I hoped someone else would speak for victims like me. I said yes because I didn’t know if I was strong enough to handle the repercussions of saying no. I said yes because I didn’t know if my eyes and my body had said yes that day.
Samantha Simma is a freelance writer and entrepreneur who lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She writes for multiple print and online publications, but is currently finishing a longer work for women's fiction. She hopes that this piece can help women who doubt themselves and demonize their own bodies.