Taking My Rapist’s Side

Blog Post 8

Taking My Rapist’s Side

The things that my father has done are so outrageous, so far from normal, that they have a surreal feeling to them.  These are the sorts of behaviors that if you put them in a work of fiction they would be dismissed as unbelievable.  But the things that he’s done are unfortunately real.  When I’ve been caught up in one of his aberrant behaviors, I start out stunned and unable to react but end up enraged later.  I’ll ask the question, “How could anybody even do that?”  Maybe it’s because there is Evil in the world.   Maybe it’s because my father is so twisted in his thinking that he only knows how to behave in a disturbed manner.  Most likely, I’ll never really know.

One year when I was in college in my early 20’s, I had a third shift job monitoring the residents in a home.  Since they slept at night, I was able to do my homework there.  I’d leave work and go to school from about 8am until noon.  At that time, I’d go home and sleep all afternoon until it was time to get up and go to work again.  At this time, “home” was a small off campus apartment that I shared with roommates.

One day while I was sleeping in the afternoon, my boyfriend showed up at the apartment.  My roommate let him in the door, and then into my bedroom.  He woke me up, interested in having sex.  I was sound asleep and not interested.  He felt entitled to my body and raped me.  I fought him and was bruised on the inside of my legs where he had pried them apart.  Once he had gotten what he wanted, he left.

I had to get to work that night and I had school in the morning, so instead of reporting him I took a shower, put my clothes on, and went to work like nothing had happened.  Who would believe me that I’d been raped by my boyfriend, anyway?  And I had shit to do.

But you can only stuff those feelings for so long before they come out whether you want them to or not.  Mine wouldn’t be denied and after a few weeks I completely fell apart and couldn’t even function as a human being.  I couldn’t stay in that apartment any longer or sleep in that bed where I had been raped.  I ended up moving back into my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house, dropping out of school, and eventually quitting my job.

I was in my bed at my parents’ house one afternoon, sleeping, as I still had my third shift job, when my former boyfriend and rapist walked into my room.  I was horrified.  What the Hell was he doing here?  As he approached across my room, I reached for the phone on my bedside stand to dial 911.

The ex saw what I was doing, as in I was calling the police on him, and immediately reached for my hand and for the phone and we got into a physical fight over it.  I never managed to say anything into the phone, but the police knew which house it came from anyway.  The ex left when he realized that the police would be on the way.

I threw on a robe and went downstairs and asked my father how this person had gotten into the house and into what should have been the sanctuary of my bedroom.

My father said, “I let him in.”

Me, horrified and confused, “What?”

My father, “He said he was sorry.”

Let me be clear, my father knew that this man had raped me.  I’d told him.  I’d told him that was why I was moving home.  He knew.  Let that sink in.  He knew and he let him into my bedroom.  Because he said he was sorry.

This is so far out of the realm of normal human behavior that I don’t even know what to say about it.

Obviously, I was upset.  To make matters worse, when I told him that I had called 911 and the police were on the way, he INSISTED that I call them back and tell them not to come.  There was no way he would have the police in front of his house.

I was now more upset, hurt and betrayed.  Humiliated, I called the police back and told them not to come.  Much to my relief, they said, that’s nice, we’re coming anyway.

They came into our house and sat down with us.  I told them what happened and they couldn’t actually do anything as no crime had been committed there, but they took the ex’s name and made a report and I let them know that I didn’t want him coming around to where I lived.  At the very least, they were supportive and kind.  The police were supportive and kind, but not my father.

When I think of this, I wonder how could a father treat his daughter like this?  If my child’s rapist showed up at my house, they’d be greeted, let’s say, differently.  It can only be deep seated misogyny.  To him, I am not a person.  Nothing I say, or do, or feel, matters.  My experiences don’t matter.  But to him, the experiences and words and feelings of other men matter, even in relation to his own daughter.  I was his plaything and it’s just fine for other men to use me as their plaything, too.  Even if one rapes me.  He’d always treated me as if I had no right to say “no.”  He clearly didn’t think that I had the right to say “no” to anyone.