(continued from above)
I felt like I wanted a better party than that, so I just took the bull by the horns and left the people I knew. I went to the next apartment, where all things looked reasonable to me. There was lots more room to move about, what with there being fewer people there in the same-sized kitchen. I knew the occupants of the apartment, but nobody else. One of my friends handed me a drink, and from there the night is a blur.
What I can best piece together, is that the punch was spiked in that particular apartment, and that some people who were known by nobody had managed to crash in order to create some havoc. Through the course of the night, those of us with spiked drinks (rohypnol?) were eventually taken by friends to various bedrooms and couches to crash, some paramedics were called, and we were all given a clean bill of health. I remember none of that. Later in the night, again unknown to me, most of the occupants of the second apartment congregated back at the first apartment, where the majority of party-goers had ended up, again, thanks to the larger group I had brought with me.
But one important omission to that rule took place. One of the occupants of the second apartment stayed with me, flirted, evidently, and eventually undressed me. I remember awaking to her naked, grinding herself on my body. I was still (mostly) clothed, but my legs were being held down by a very heavy weight. I began vomiting, passed out again, and remember awakening again with the naked woman. When I finally came to my senses some time the following morning, after the sun was well up, I tried to leave, but the woman was actually flirting with me and attempting to keep me in the house. She treated the occasion as though we had "hooked up" for the night, as though I had initiated the whole thing, as though I had been a willing participant. I was later to find out that she had concocted that as a cover story, and was very cagey about how she instilled little "reminders" of things that she claimed I had done very early in the evening. She was covering her bases.
Only weeks later, finding out the truth of my actions and putting two and two together, did I realize she was probably in cahoots with the people who spiked the punch. For the remainder of that day, and for a few weeks following, I thought I had committed some drunken indiscretions that were a little embarrassing to me, but not uncommon among students at a major school on a weekend. I'd accidentally flirted with the wrong girl, ended up in bed with her, and then we'd just let it drop. Or so I thought.
(continued)
How many providers, that you know of personally, have been raped on duty? I recently got together with a buddy of mine... a mistress actually. She's kind of conservative looking to meet her at her regular job or on the street, though she'll fulfill any fantasy you want her to (including brown showers)! She's really "out there" as a mistress...
Anyway, she was "wooed" by a potential client who promised her a number of things, including becoming a regular, a car, etc. etc. Mind you, she's no ingenue. The day he saw her, he forced entry and left without paying. She called him repeatedly; he never answered her calls. She went to the police, and said she was treated with some compassion. He was brought to the station, questioned, and released. It's a he said/ she said thing right now. Might not go any further. But it hopefully scared the shit outta him. It certainly stunned her.
When we got together, she didn't want to go into the details, understandably. She seemed like she was doing ok. She seemed more open to me, even vulnerable. It touched me...
I almost got taken once. It was an outcall, which I hardly ever do, right after I first started working, about 3 years ago. A young, rather pushy guy (business rushy kinda guy) called me two days in a row. When I said yes on the second day, odd thing is - I was kinda in a victim state of mind, which I rarely get into. An ex, who has always been extremely abusive (a Christian, with a Taliban attitude) and I had just talked. Well, we didn't talk... it was no communication and completely abusive as per. Anyway, with that vibe, I went to see this guy. His house was behind another house. I knocked on the door, asking for Kent. He said I didn't have the right place. I was confused and also pissed for driving over for nothing. I asked him if anyone by that name lived in the front house. He said no; we went and checked the front house together. It was completely empty; vacated to be rented out or sold. He asked what I did, when we went back to his house. I said massage. He said what kind. I said sensual. He seemed to not understand. I looked at him point blank and said, I'm a hooker (used to be my word of preference...).
So, I didn't have a cell at the time, and asked if I could use his phone. I called the number that had been given me; it was busy. In my right mind, I probably would have put two and two together and realized I was calling the same phone I was holding! But I was a victim of faulty thinking. I was in his house - kept trying the number, it kept coming up busy. I chirped to his parakeet; strolled around his kitchen, paid attention to his knives and thought, out of nowhere, how they could be a dangerous weapon if used. Then, I handed him back his phone, headed for the front door. I was wearing a mini skirt, a sheer leopard top, black bra, crotchless nylons, g-string and heels. By the time I got to the front door handle, he had his hand up my skirt and his finger in my crotch. He asked, You don't mind if I have a feel, do ya?
I knew it was serious. I kept my cool, pushed his hand away and said, slightly smiling, not this time. He was much taller and larger than me, probably over 6'. He pulled me away from the door, dragging me backwards. The thought that came through me was: so, this is what rape looks like. I suddenly turned to him, bit his neck (not hard enough to bring blood, but hard enough to get his attention and let him know I would struggle). It took him by surprise, he released me, and I ran to the front door and screamed my bloody head off. He was coming after me, then just waved me on (must not have wanted his neighbors to hear). Fortunately, I had my purse in my hands. I got my keys out, got to my car, turned around.. and there he was, standing in his doorway. Now here's the scary part: I almost smiled at him! I've been taught to be such a nice girl that I almost smiled at him... to let him know that, "hey, it's ok. Things got out of control. I understand you lost your mind for a moment. But it's ok." I didn't. Thank god. Instead I glared back at him, got in my car and drove off.
(to be continued)
I went to a deli right after that, to prove everything was fine, I suppose, all was normal. I ordered half a sandwich and some soup. I suddenly caught a customer checking me over, he threw me "that" smile. Ordinarily, I'd probably either smile back, or at least sorta smile at the universe and turn away from the guy. This time, I just blinked at him and felt inwardly disgusted and slightly outraged. I felt so.. exposed... and ashamed. Before that, I still hadn't had a reaction: no tears, no anger - I was just kinda stunned. But after that guy looked at me, I wanted to either escape and hide or go over and yank his head off.
I left the deli and went to a LE friend of mine that lived close by. I told him everything, sat on his deck, lit a cigarette (I used to smoke back then - social smoking - but I haven't for 2 and 1/2 years now), and finally broke down crying. I sobbed and sobbed. Though I hadn't been raped, all the feelings that rape victims go through came up in quick order: shame, fear, revulsion, anger, humiliation, the tears. I got a chance to experience what so many women have suffered, sitting right there by my LE friend, knowing that he totally disapproves of what I do (he's religious to boot), and that he gets what kind of risk I'm putting myself in, and he hung by me. He didn't try to make me feel ok for a minute; he wanted the truth of what I was facing to sink in. And yet he was there for me...
So, I called that 20 or so year old kid back up when I got home. His mom answered (he obviously wasn't there at the time). I told her I had a real "personal" message to leave for Kent and that I'd call right back and leave a message. I can only imagine that she turned the volume up. I told him that I'd visited my LE friend, and that now he knew who that guy was, his name, phone number, where he lived, etc. And that if any woman were harmed, either in the "work" force or a regular girl, he'd be the first one investigated. Then, I called all the working girls listed in the paper I used to advertise in - "The Great Exchange." One of them had had the same experience with this guy, only not quite as threatening, a year earlier. This time I called up, left an answering machine message and told him that I had called all the working girls and had alerted them about him, and then I again reminded him that a very high up LE knew his name, etc. and that if any girl were raped, he'd be called first.
Why do I relay this? It's part of the business we face. The women who do this work are honorable beyond most people's understanding and we risk what very few women would ever do on their own naturally. Most of us probably don't think of this often. I rarely think about it - it seems so fearful and negative. It's just... my friend got attacked and I wanted you to know... Faye
We live in a society that tends to blame the woman, "She must have done something to deserve it. It doesn't happen to nice girls." Well, one thing the feminst movement taught all of us is that it does happen to nice girls.
Any woman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man can be raped. The invasion of your person is a horrible crime. However, it is not God's punishment for being a bad person. Women joggers are raped. Women in their own apartments have been raped by men who broke in and found them there alone. Date rape is all too common.
All men are not rapists, of course. Most men are not rapists. But a few men are. They are predators plain and simple. Or perhaps they are just angry and full of hatred, what do I know, really.
Years ago I was jury foreman on a rape trial. I will never know if we did the right thing or not and it still bothers me years later.
The story goes as follows. The woman lived in the Hollywood area. She was riding home late at night on her motorcycle. It broke down. Two guys in a pickup truck stopped to help. They got the motorcycle running. They told her they would follow her home in case it broke down again. She got home OK. She went inside and her husband was asleep. She came back out and talked to the guys. They suggested that she go out for coffee with them. She agreed. At some point they ended up driving up into the Hollywood Hills. She testified, and everyone on the jury believed her account, that she panicked at this point. There was a killer on the loose at the time called the Hillside Strangler (if my memory serves me correctly). She decided that these guys were the killer (they weren't) and that she was going to die unless she didn't let them know she had caught on to that fact. She decided that her only chance to live was to pretend to go along willingly. So they took her up a dead end road somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, had sex with her, and then took her home. When she got home her husband was awake. She told him she had just been raped and the police were called. We were the jury for the trial of one of the two guys. Either the other guy hadn't been caught or the trials had been separated. I don't remember which.
Our problem was this. According to the jury instructions the law at the time did not require the woman to resist if she was threatened or a weapon was used. According to the woman's testimony there was no weapon and they hadn't threatened her. In the absence of a weapon or a threat the law required that the woman put up enough resistence to convey that she was unwilling. But because she had convinced herself (not through anything the guys said or did) that she would die and her only chance was to convince them that she was willing she testified that she did not put up any resistance either physical or verbal
We on the jury (and it was a mixture of men and women) think that the guys must have known that she was out of her mind with fear and not willing. However, the law in criminal cases requires that guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Could we be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that they knew she wasn't willing when she testified that she was pretending to be willing to (in her own mind) save her life? Arghh! We decided that we couldn't and we brought in a verdict of "not guilty," but I've never felt good about it. A guilty verdict would have haunted me too because perhaps, just perhaps, they really didn't guess that she was unwilling.
The law and justice are not the same thing. In this case I don't even know what justice would have been. Only the people involved (and God) know fully what happened that night.
Faye, we live in a world where bad things happen to good people. We just do the best we can and sometimes it is less than perfect. I don't know if telling this story helps you, but it is all I can think of to offer.
-- Modified on 10/4/2001 11:35:37 PM
And the guys were taking advantage of her (not even having to force her - just take advantage of the situation at hand)... I call that rape, plain and simple. We act like we don't know that there's a "law" written in our hearts. We know what's right and wrong when we're "doing" that to another person. It was wrong. It was rape. She reacted out of fear. The guy was definitely not: not guilty! xo Faye
Damn, Faye! Helluva story. It hurts to hear about s**t like that, but I know it happens. I'm sorry it almost happened to you, but I'm glad you kept your wits and got away. I'm also glad you got a little back in the revenge department. Hope it f**ked him up good. Hopefully it also served as a deterrent, but it's hard to deter a sick (or just an evil) mind with mere consequences to their actions. I don't think they can reform (or be "scared straight") and are just time bombs waiting to go off. Please be careful out there! Best wishes always, Faye.
PC
A while back, a provider told me a story about one of her bookings with a new client. When she arrived, the door was slightly open, but no answer. After a moment, she decided to go in, only to find this guy waiting behind the door for her with a large knife. Her response was something like "just take whatever you want, there's no need for violence". With that said, he dropped the knife and replied "do you know how much I would have paid you to go along with this". Apparently, the sick fuck had some sorta rape fetish that he failed to clue her in on.
Faye, I really don't know how you girls do it, especially how petite most of you are. Forget about mace, I'd be packin a 44!
Wow, what a complicated mess. I congratulate your jury, Mathesar, on choosing the legally right solution ... to let a potentially guilty man go free despite some pretty obvious but not necessarily LEGAL suggestions that he did the crime. Even though I believe a perpetrator like the one you described deserves punishment, I believe even more strongly that convictions must always be beyond a shadow of a doubt. Kind of like saying I know OJ did it but I'm glad he got off anyway ... all under the umbrella of "follow the rules, not your heart." That's what the law is all about.
That having been said, if it indeed was non-consensual sex, then the guys deserve punishment. They had a great set-up, didn't they? A woman who wasn't free to express resistance, in a situation in which they could easily accomplish the logistics of raping her. I hope that if I or anyone I respect ever finds himself in that strange situation, with the easy and obvious legal loop-hole, that he or I would be sensible enough NOT to try to take advantage of it. Sex is only good if both partners are REALLY willing ...
I know about how these "take advantage of" situations can arise, because I've been there. That's right, I'm a male rape victim. Or, I called myself one for a while; I don't exactly know where I stand on the issue right now. I went to the police, went to a legal office to discuss my options, but never brought charges against the perpetrator. Here's my story, just as complicated and full of odd holes as the one you've told.
I was friends with a variety of groups of people when I was in grad school. On one occasion, one group was having a party at one of those multi-apartment former houses where grad students usually live. Many of the apartments were involved in the party, and since I knew people from a different set of friends, I was one of the links who would bring in new people for others to meet. When I arrived, I discovered that what was meant to be a multi-level, mix-and-match sort of party, had turned into three separate parties. Each separate apartment in the house, had limited its occupancy strictly to the people they already knew, so the apartment I was invited to had an extra packing of people ... the people already there, plus my own entourage. So there we were, in a multi-apartment house, but most of us crammed into one kitchen, most of us already knowing one another.
(continued)
(continued from above)
I felt like I wanted a better party than that, so I just took the bull by the horns and left the people I knew. I went to the next apartment, where all things looked reasonable to me. There was lots more room to move about, what with there being fewer people there in the same-sized kitchen. I knew the occupants of the apartment, but nobody else. One of my friends handed me a drink, and from there the night is a blur.
What I can best piece together, is that the punch was spiked in that particular apartment, and that some people who were known by nobody had managed to crash in order to create some havoc. Through the course of the night, those of us with spiked drinks (rohypnol?) were eventually taken by friends to various bedrooms and couches to crash, some paramedics were called, and we were all given a clean bill of health. I remember none of that. Later in the night, again unknown to me, most of the occupants of the second apartment congregated back at the first apartment, where the majority of party-goers had ended up, again, thanks to the larger group I had brought with me.
But one important omission to that rule took place. One of the occupants of the second apartment stayed with me, flirted, evidently, and eventually undressed me. I remember awaking to her naked, grinding herself on my body. I was still (mostly) clothed, but my legs were being held down by a very heavy weight. I began vomiting, passed out again, and remember awakening again with the naked woman. When I finally came to my senses some time the following morning, after the sun was well up, I tried to leave, but the woman was actually flirting with me and attempting to keep me in the house. She treated the occasion as though we had "hooked up" for the night, as though I had initiated the whole thing, as though I had been a willing participant. I was later to find out that she had concocted that as a cover story, and was very cagey about how she instilled little "reminders" of things that she claimed I had done very early in the evening. She was covering her bases.
Only weeks later, finding out the truth of my actions and putting two and two together, did I realize she was probably in cahoots with the people who spiked the punch. For the remainder of that day, and for a few weeks following, I thought I had committed some drunken indiscretions that were a little embarrassing to me, but not uncommon among students at a major school on a weekend. I'd accidentally flirted with the wrong girl, ended up in bed with her, and then we'd just let it drop. Or so I thought.
(continued)
(continued from above)
Well, in the long run, it was all too nebulous to prove. I believe that at the least, she knew I wouldn't have been interested if I were sober, and that I was not acting in a manner that could be called responsible. I was under the influence of illegal drugs, we even had a medical examiner's legal report to that effect. Anything I'd done, from the flirting she claimed, to the actual act, was not something I felt responsible for. I felt that, given that I knew the woman and she was ostensibly looking after me, she had taken advantage of the situation to its fullest. But no full sexual coitus had taken place, and anyway there's no way to do a rape kit on a guy to see whether or not the woman had left something inside him. Further, it took me a few weeks to find out, from other friends who had left the party without having drunk the spiked punch, that the reports from the woman of my actions did not coincide with their memories of my actions. I did speak with a sexual harassment officer at the university, leaving a full report, which of course means nothing; and I did have one initial paid consultation with a lawyer; but he only told me what I knew was the situation, that I had no case and only a vague reason to pursue it anyway.
The funny thing is, my sense of feeling violated didn't arise until I realized I had been. I wasn't feeling like a traumatized rape victim wondering what I'd done wrong or why the world was full of evil people, until well after the act. When I began to learn the facts, and began to realize I'd been violated, or at least that I COULD describe it as an event in which I'd been violated, only then did I FEEL violated. And so, in some sense, my own after-the-fact explanations lead to, rather than followed, my actual view of the experiences. Were I in a different context, or had it been a woman I was more attracted to, I can see (and this doesn't make me proud) that instead of being disgusted about the fact that she cheated her way into my confidence, I would actually have been proud to have "landed" a hot night with a hot babe. I can imagine myself putting the facts together, weeks after the incident, and not thinking, "my God! I've been violated," and then feeling like a victim, but rather putting together the SAME facts and thinking, "well, wasn't that fun. I should get wasted more often," and then feeling like a stud.
Well, that's my story, I'm glad I've shared it. For a while, whoever I told about it, I mentioned it in a chuckling, embarrassed way, but eventually I realized I was being self-effacing as part of my victim syndrome. I was trying to cause myself to appear the bad guy, the one who couldn't control himself. Emotions are a funny thing. We define the event on the basis, partly, of our emotional associations; but then we have the associations because of how we define the event. It all goes 'round in circles.
(continued)
(continued from above)
I'm reminded of one rape trial I saw a TV show about. A woman knew that there was a serial rapist in her neighborhood, and unfortunately became his victim. But she remained aware during the event, and stared at the man's face in order to memorize every detail of it. Then, within hours after he left her, the police had her in to the station house for a line-up, and she thought she recognized the perpetrator. On her eye-witness testimony, a man was convicted and sentenced to 20 years, despite lack of any solid evidence. He always protested his innocence. Later, due to ridiculous coincidence, that man's cellmate bragged about a rape HE had committed, which turned out to be the actual crime in question. The wrongfully accused was lucky, and with the advent of DNA testing, he was exonerated, about 10 or 12 years after the fact. The point of this, is that the woman STILL sees, in her mind's eye, the WRONG man. She memorized a face, but then while still emotionally "under the influence" of her adrenaline and the trauma, she associated a that was CLOSE to what she memorized, with the face of a guy in a line-up. From that moment on, because she had such negative emotional associations with the sight of the man in the line-up, she believed he was the perpetrator. She seemed to be a smart woman, explained that she knew that she had done a terrible thing, but then also said there is no way to control her own memories. She said she would never have deliberatley incarcerated the wrong man -- of course she would want to help the police to capture the REAL bad guy. Even to this day, she has to tell herself that RATIONALLY speaking, the image of the man she initially incarcerated is NOT the man who did the crime, even though her own memories of the crime itself include quite specifically that man's face. She must catch herself out.
It's a strange twist of human hard-wiring, that we recognize faces on the basis of emotional associations. Her associations get short-circuited, and now she cannot recognize the right face correctly. It isn't just her being stupid about her memories; she was very careful, and her memories of all other aspects of the crime are very accurate and specific. But because the emotional associations were there, the face in her mind's eye got "turned" into the wrong face. It's the way we operate, unfortunately, even when there's no malicious intent. And to some extent, that's how my own associations went. I had an event, didn't know how to feel about it, and then only after learning that it was possible that it could intellectually be thought of in a certain manner, did I then have emotional responses according to that intellectual interpretation ... responses that now seem hard-wired, as though they were the real and initial responses, even though they did not occur at first.
(end)
Wow, book guy, thanks for the depth and honesty of your sharing. It's just an amazing story to hear - how it felt to you, what you went through, the whole 9 yards. Sorry you felt violated. I'm sure your compassion level towards other rape victims, usually female, is of a higher capacity because of what you went through.
And the wrongfully accused and incarcerated man is just as moving. I can't imagine his pain or the pain of the woman who was responsible for locking him away. Your assessment of the situation is very insightful and sensitive... xo Faye Desiree
Yeah, I think the one insight I have about rape victims is, that the feelings don't make sense, but you still have them. You just sit there wondering why you're feeling the way you are feeling, and you don't want to have to explain it. People often try to help by saying such stuff as, "Well, why do you feel that way?" or "Now, is that a reasonable reaction?" or "And what are you going to do about that?" All of those CAUSAL, rational relations simply don't work. You have some RANDOM association in your head, banging around, and you feel all prickly and want to scream "DON'T TOUCH ME" for no apparent reason. And then you wonder to yourself, "Why do I want to scream that?" So it's just as confusing to the feeler as it is to the observer.
So, I've come to appreciate first-hand what PMS is like ...
Seriously, I mean, what being a rape victim is like ...
heh