One for the ladies...

by Pathofthorns 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  waiting

  Hey Path,

  Thanks for the start of this discussion. Over at FreeMinds, there was research done on the WTBTS's writings and found that the WTBTS has reversed its teaching on the "appropriate Christian response to rape" approximately 20 times. Somehow the writings always refer to sisters, particularily young sisters, being raped. What about the men? The young boys? The old women? Statistically - those humans are raped also.

  Also strangely missing is the appropriate response from a young girl (or boy) being raped by her father, brother, uncle, elder - does she/he have to scream too?

  You are correct that the teaching now is that the sister would not be df'd for not screaming. However, that being said, three years ago a young sister I know was in 2nd year college (living at home) and was offered a ride home from class one night from another male student she knew. He stopped his car in a dark, secluded area. He cornered her in his car and raped her.

  She told her parents. Her father, an elder, went with her to the other elders. Other elders insisted on full-fleged Committee Meetings to "search out the true facts." (Even though a sister 20 yrs old, in good standing when raped was inflicted, as a teenager - she was quite brilliant and rebellious.)

  Father & daughter agreed but stipulated that he would attend meetings - quietly - with his daughter. He told us, in angry tears, of the questions and accusations that the 3 elders put upon his only daughter. "What clothes were you wearing? How tight were they? Didn't you think before you got in his car? Didn't you think that's what would happen to you in college? How could you be frightened of a man if he didn't have a weapon? No one is so frightened that they can't scream. Why didn't you succeed in fighting him off? You liked it, didn't you - that's why you didn't scream." (direct quote on that last statement, btw.)

  On and on and on - through her and her father's tears. The elders disfellowshipped her on the grounds that she didn't scream as she was being raped.

  Her father stepped down from being an elder, she sat quietly in back of KH, and was finally re-instated. Next year, he became an elder, she married a college student, she brought him into the organization - and everybody's hunky-dory again.

  Only in the WTBTS......

  waiting
• 

  Pathofthorns

  Old school thinking dies hard.

  "What were you wearing?"

  "Did you scream?"

  "You liked it, didn't you?"

  How sad.

  Path
• 

  Seven

  Thanks to Path and Waiting for this thread. Sometimes keeping things locked up inside yourself
  can eat a hole in your soul. If she did not scream she would ruin her relationship with Jehovah God. I never met with the elders. I never had to explain to them how difficult is was to scream with your underwear stuffed in your mouth. Jehovah sees all and chose to turn his head. All alone he chose not to help me. I survived on my own.
  Seven

  [i]Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies. We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie. We love to cut you down to size, We love dirty laundry.

  Don Henley
• 

  waiting

  Hello Path and Seven,

  The girl I was speaking about - I had watched her grow through her teen years just at business Seminars. Got to know her parents. They were ok - somewhat stuck on their brilliance and spirituality. The girl, slowly I found, suffered from depression - to the point that one of her teachers picked up from the girl's writings that she was contemplating suicide. They got help for her, she got better. Still odd, but better.

  She's blond, pretty, petite, and I think on full scholarship to be some kind of chemist. Smart young woman.

  There were congregation politics involved - the old "we don't care much for your elder father - now's a chance to dig at him." Broke his heart. Of course, his suicidal daughter (again after rape) had already tore it in two pieces, with absolutely no intent to do so. The mother just really couldn't get a handle on the situation.

  The mother was not mean - just brittle and unable to cope with anything outside her little world. I one time mentioned (she started conversation) that my father sexually abused me - she literally went off on how great, really great, her father was. Which had nothing to do with my statement. Strange woman. To get to know the couple was to avoid them at the dinner tables.

  Seven, until people start talking about the aftermath of rape, incest - the emotional part and the physical part - others don't understand. Too messy. How do you put it in a nice mag. like Awake!? So, "Let's just not talk about it. Put it behind us. Forget all about it. Pick up the pieces. Get past this. Get along with the rest of your life."

  And then the WTBTS doubles the indignity of rape by saying that the woman (and it could be a man or child - but they're silent on that matter - what does it sound like for a man to scream during an anal rape?) was weak for not speaking up or screaming. Of course, the rapist was wrong - but so was she in their opinion.

  Now they don't teach this publicly - but some elders still enforce the old ways. Make the victim more of a victim - and then toss her aside as a "dirty towel that others have wiped their hands all over." One of the problems of being a victim is that a person, child, has been victimized - making their self-worth zip. So when others come along, it's easy to allow more victimization - the boundries have been ripped apart. Takes a long time for some victims to be able to sit up and say, "hey, wait a minute here."

  Many ways to say "Too messy - we don't want to hear about this." The problem is - the more we don't talk about it - the more it happens. Because, obviously, it doesn't happen much or more people would be talking about it.

  No wonder victims and survivors scream. Talking doesn't seem to work. Thanks for your comments, 7 and Path.

  waiting

  Edited by - waiting on 2 October 2000 8:13:20
• 

  Seven

  waiting, It's taken me a long time to find the courage to say, "Hey, wait a minute here." And when I finally reached that point, I was ready for
  my life to begin again. The sun looks brighter this morning.Thanks for your comments. Seven
• 

  Seven

  I am posting a link to a Rape Recovery and information page that I frequent. The online friendships and support that I have found has helped me merge my past and my present. I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.-L.M.Alcott
  [url] http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/2402/[/url]
  Seven
• 

  waiting

  Hey Seven,

  Some things are just not appropriate as a basis for humor. Rape and incest are two. Murder can be humorous if done to ex-husbands, imo.

  That said, growing up a not-remembered victim/survivor of incest/rape, I had many of the symtoms, just nothing to base them upon. So therefore, I just considered myself quite odd at times. Slightly more ill-fitted to other's personalities than the average kid.

  There are others who will say, and have said, but all kids are odd, don't fit in, etc. That's true. But we normally don't explore exactly what the oddity is that we're comparing.

  All kids have nightmares. Monsters, etc. Mine were of laughing devils with huge penises, etc. Most kids are shy. I would go through times when my whole body would shake at having to talk to someone I was uncomfortable, or too comfortable, around. Many kids have eadaches. I had violent migranes. Stomach aches- my irritable bowel syndrome starting at 10, severe enough I had to be emergency hospitalized with IV's, tests, etc., - then sent back home to my loving parents. Guilt - walking 2.5 miles everyday to Confession to confess my "dirty thoughts" of large penises (though in everyday life, I had never, never seen one at the age of 10). I was petrified of Hellfire - where I was sure I was going for my "dirty thoughts." Lying - I couldn't remember what I would learn in school one day to the next, so I became an excellent liar and cheat. Could talk my way out of most problems in school if caught. Forgetfulness- my legs would be covered with bruises, or upper arms, or hips, (any where hidden under clothes) upon waking from a restful night sleep - and no memory of where these horrendous bruises originated. I just assumed that I was terribly clumsy. Stupid girl - even though I was captain of our kickball team 3 yrs and then coach.
  Sickly, I don't remember being sick. I just thought I played hooky a lot, until I met my best girlfriend from 12 yrs of school recently. She said I was really sick - a lot. (she was the healthy sort of girl - also great at kickball [but not the captain nor later coach..]) She and another friend who used to help me with my English papers, etc (because I could never remember crap), both concurred on lack of memory and frequent sickness.

  I had, and still have, no idea or memory of their memories. I just thought I lied to be lying and skipped school because I wanted to. Go figure. The woman who used to help me with my studies says we were best friends for several years. I don't remember that. I always thought it was odd her coming to visit me in high school from another city. I didn't remember, even then, that we had been good friends. So many things lost in memory.

  I guess why I'm bringing this up is because maybe, just maybe, if others knew more about what to look for with kids of incest/rape, they might lend a helping hand to be nice.

  My Aunt Marion was one such nice person, who had absolutely no idea of my odd life, nor the impact of her visits. But she saved my person - just by being average with me. I also loved the way she wouldn't take any crap from my father, who didn't like this uppity woman. Marion is 70 now, with - Alzheimer's. Because she didn't take anybody's crap, and let it be known, and other things, none of her immediate family would help her - except me. The Psch. Hosp. admin. asked me why I would become her guardian when no one else would lift a finger to help her.

  I told the young man briefly of my father, and Marion's wonderful freeness of speech. I told him she saved me and I was just returning the favor. I also gave him a warning: "Be nice to a kid, you never know who might save you when you're old."

  waiting

  ps: I grew tired of my Aunt Marion (who is in a nursing home) quickly btw - she is a senile pain in the ass. My cousin told me: Now you know why nobody would take her in!"No good deed goes unpunished....."

  Edited by - waiting on 3 October 2000 16:2:57
• 

  waiting

  ok, ok,

  I know I grow mundane in my black hole background sometimes. Sorry if I make some others uncomfortable. Touchy subject, but it is a common,gross, crime which continues in secret against those who usually cannot fight the aggressor.

  But an open discussion of rape/incest, imo, is necessary. Fewer places for rapists to hide.

  You see, the WTBTS says, and uses the Bible as their source, that somehow a sister (never a brother or child) might give "mixed messages" to the rapist - as if she's enjoying herself, secretly. Would a brother be asked if his pants were "too tight?" Would a child be asked if he/she was in purposely in the "wrong place" - his own house?

  And then the example of Dinah, who was really not raped in a savage, cruel way, btw. More like taken advantage of (wrong, but not having a knife to your throat either. wrong, but she was not a little kid.) The man wanted to marry her, before and after. He, and every man in his town, paid dearly for his action - all being castrated by Dinah's brothers.

  The Hebrew scriptures give a convoluted picture of sex. Sometimes loving, sometimes violent, even deadly, incest (grudging approved by God). Strange mixed messages.

  The WTBTS picks and chooses the message to suit their purposes. Examples:

  No - a woman must scream or she will be guiltly of fornication. Or No, she doesn't have to scream. They're flip/flop has become famous. But the argument is still on a common form of sex - between a man and woman.

  But then come to Lot - willing encouraging the debased men of his city to rape his daughters. Then, supposedly too drunk to remember having orgasms twice in one night (a good feat for even a young man, btw. Also a really good feat for a drunk old man. It has been my (reading) experience that drunks usually don't perform well, let alone twice.)

  The WTBTS opinion on this passage of incest (which could be considered rape by his daughters in today's "enlightened" society ["I was drunk and he/she took advantage of me"]) is that the Bible is silent on condemning the action because it was furthering the fathering of a nation in Jehovah's name.

  If the men of the city had taken Lot's generous offer of repeatedly raping his daughters, and they lived and got pregnant (which they most likely would have - since they got both got pregnant within days of this event), would those offspring then be considered the continuing of God's nation? Rather unpleasant thought, isn't it?

  Rape is wrong - and the rapist, not the victim, is to blame. The victim can be man, woman, girl, boy, baby - the rapist is always the one in control. Fear and power are his primary weapons, sometimes nothing further is needed. Can a person fight them? Sometimes, perhaps, depends on the circumstances.

  The WTBTS should never have tried, let alone established, a principle to met out discipline for the victim - or to even be judges over the victim. Could the sister (again, never a brother, but sometimes a child) be lying and really just got caught making it up - having never happened? Or, God forbid, just enjoyed it?

  Sure. That is human nature, and a problem, also. But the idea of small children actually enjoying sex with an adult, is losing popularity. The story just doesn't ring true.

  That would be the primary problem, human nature. But it's human nature to attack the weakest - which is the victim.

  The WTBTS set into motion a pattern of further victimizing the men, women, and children raped. Particularily the women. Not the rapists. The WTBTS says, and tries, to educate the elders to be more responsive, more helpful. What the WTBTS does not say, is that the WTBTS has taught their elders to be unresponsive, judgemental, and critical, for over a century.

  waiting

  Edited by - waiting on 5 October 2000 22:49:26
• 

  Seven

  To scream or not to scream? I know somewhere between gasping for breaths, I tried my best to scream. There is something horribly wrong with a belief system that led me to feel I was hated by God and his people for something I never asked to happen-let the victimization begin. No more. I'm not going to allow it. I'm going to develop healthy relationships, be happy and not be lured by institutions that use and reject me. That sounds good on paper, now to practice it.
• 

  Pathofthorns

  As painful as your comments are to read Waiting and 7, thank you for sharing them.

  Not long ago, i thought that if people don't talk about such things, it would help them move beyond such horrible experiences.

  I guess that's one more thing i was wrong on.

  I read your posts Waiting in incest threads on H20, just because you wrote them, but generally skipped over incest/rape threads because i don't like to read about it.

  But just because people like me don't like to read about it, and just because people don't want to believe such things happen to little children, doesn't mean such things don't happen.

  Putting faces to the articles that i just skipped over, or that i shook my head at and thought "my that's horrible", and then just moved on, puts a whole different spin on these subjects.

  Anyways, I have alot of pride and respect for both of you. However difficult it was, and however difficult it will continue to be, i'm sure you're sharing will help someone, and the more that talk openly about these things, the more likely a society where such things are no longer commonplace.

  Enjoy the sunshine again.

  Path

  PS. I still have a long way to go. I see, just looking over what I wrote, I barely use the term incest or rape. I dance around the topic using terms "such things", "it", "these subjects", "horrible experiences". Still working on losing the "old school".