Yes, I've spent most of my adult years teaching young people, boys and girls, to play cooperatively and honor one another in word and deed. But the horror of rape and attempted rape seems to be growing. Where are the fathers whose job it is to teach their sons how to behave and how never to behave?
The use of physical force, verbal abuse, and humiliation when a man feels the urge to express his sexuality violently is terrible for the victim in ways that are hard to express. And while women are almost always the ones put into this kind of traumatic situation, sometimes men are, too. I know, because I have been raped.
I was in my late twenties. I'd made one of my very infrequent visits to the gay bathhouse around the corner from where I lived in downtown Amsterdam. The same place where, years earlier, I'd met Rudolf Nureyev. But that's another story. This time, as I was about to head home at 3 a.m., I was invited to make out by a strapping fellow with a light in his eyes. I said I'd like to play, but had had enough of the baths for one night. I mean, how clean can a guy get? So instead, he went home with me.
Bringing a stranger to my aerie of a flat was a very rare occurrence. I have blanked out this man's name, but let's call him Chad. (Sorry, real life friends named Chad.) Chad was good-looking. As we spoke, disrobing along the way, he also seemed rather full of himself. Maybe he was high on something. At any rate, as conversation turned into sex, he started to become first assertive, then aggressive, and stopped listening to me.
There was one critical moment when I realized that this was not consensual sex. I was pinned to the bed and his trip was about power for him and submission from me. And if this was a game, it was only Chad's game. I was very clear about telling him to cease. Perversely, that only made him more eager. I realized in horrifying clarity that he wanted to hurt me and dominate me. And not really "me" but some image that his troubled mind was projecting onto me.
Alone with this brute at 4 in the morning, my fear and pain had me feeling very sober. Somehow I was able to will myself to relax. The rape became less painful, and he finally began to lose steam. But the experience, the feeling of being overpowered, and the way that he linked pain with sex --- I have let go, but never forgotten.
When I hear from a rape victim that she didn't report the abuse, my heart aches with her. It took me a long time to forgive myself, when in fact I'd really done nothing that needed forgiving. I felt shame. And rage. And, ultimately, great sorrow.
When one is young and pain is inflicted upon one, that urge to hurt another is all too often passed down to the victim. But no matter what a man's past may contain, it is the adult's responsibility to break that chain of violence. You, dear reader, may very well know from first hand what I am talking about. I wish you strength to see yourself through the pain of abuse. I wish you support from loving people around you. You are not alone.
Namasté.