RAPE

CENTER

CRISIS

Rape Crisis HOT LETTER

Cleveland Rape Crisis Center

3201 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland 44104 391-3912 (answered 24 hrs., 7 days)

INCEST: AN INSIDER'S VIEW

Dear Sisters:

Enclosed please find a donation, a gift to me which I'm transferring to you as it was given to me by my father, who raped not only me but two of my sisters and my grandmother. I left home at age 17, and pretty well stayed away, increasingly in the past few years, since every time I visited my parents there would be another incident of sexual molestation, though not so profound as the first one, which occurred when I was eleven. I am now $1; with education, motherhood, career and financial stability firmly in hand, I've finally had the courage to confront them on what had happened. I want to share with you what they said, also how I handled their visit as I hope it would be useful to other women in this situation.

First of all, my father's version. It was not rape, he contends firmly. All he did was crawl into my bed nude, (I was nude too) lie close behind me with an erection, fondle my budding breasts and pubic hair, and run his fingers over my genitals while kissing my neck. Which was 'similar" to what he did to my sisters. With my grandmother, well, "there was a relationship, which she didn't like, but you have to understand that she lived in my house for thirty years." He, incidentally, has an MA in Anthropology and taught school for many years. He thinks that I fantasized rape because I was such a precocious reader, and had read Lady Chatterley's Lover.

My mother is obese, continuously on "diet" pills, a nationally known consultant on (wouldn't you know it) mental health. She says: "No, I didn't think it was right with you and the other girls and I was really upset over Grandma. But, don't you think, growing up at that time when it was all so male dominated, that the same thing happened to most girls?'' Finally, most chilling of all I thought, was the

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issue of love. They both repeatedly said, "But we loved you'', or speaking of the present, "We love you", with a flat hard tone of voice. When I asked what they meant by that, my mother burst into loud sobs, thereby ending the conversation.

Now, briefly I hope, my analysis. At the time of the incident I was frightened and enormously embarrassed. That I lay rigid was probably my saving grace. Had I responded I would surely have been actually penetrated. My sense of shame was so profound that I blocked the whole thing, and only remembered it after several months analysis. During my teens and twenties I saw myself only as a sexual object, with resultant self-destroying promiscuity and an unfortunate marriage. Even now, self-aware as I am, I think most of my interaction with men is dubious; I simply can't shake my "victim" air, and men pick up on that. I consider myself sexually handicapped, as surely as I might have been physically handicapped by a car accident. The challenge in my life is to use my ingenuity to work around this psychic "limp" and live as fully as possible despite it. This required huge mental effort on my part, because what I had to learn was to totally discount my victimization within my family. The wise protective father and the empathic encouraging mother were simply mirages for me. It helped a lot to learn to think of them and speak to them using their first names, rather that the titles Mother and Father.

That they are both educated made it doubly tricky; it took a very long time for me to sort out their fancy verbal explanations from their actual living prac. tices. Moral: Professional behavior can begin and end at the office door. Be skeptical, don't assume integrity.

It was very good to be able, finally, to confront

The Women's Growth Cooperative

p.o. box 18087, cleveland heights, ohio 44118 321-8585

FALL PROGRAMS FOR WOMEN

Assertiveness Training Learn positive ways to stand up for personal rights and express your needs and feelings without violating the rights of others. We will examine our current behaviors and feelings in this area. Then the focus will be on learning communication which is neither hostile nor submissive. There will be oportunities to practice new behaviors in situations like those at home, at work, at social gatherings. This fall Assertiveness Training will be presented as an ongoing group.

First session: Sunday, November 5, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (bring lunch), then four Wednesday evenings, November 8-29, 7-9 p.m.

Personal Growth Group An opportunity to share in a supportive environment experiences, problems, and the special dimensions of being a woman. Each woman will be encouraged

Page 10/What She Wants/November, 1978

to identify her strengths and goals and to use the group to do her personal growing in the areas she chooses,

Six Tuesday evenings, October 31-December 5, 7-9 p.m.

Parenting for the Single Mother

Learn to communicate with your children without creating blame and without feeling guilty. Exploration of the transitions in your relationship with your children as they grow older. Ways of nurturing yourself and achieving separateness as a person.

Five Thursday evenings, November 2, 9, 16, 30, and December 7, 7-9 p.m.

Support Group for Rape Victims Sharing the feelings surrounding rape and its aftermath. We will focus on turning our experience

them. I began last September with a phone call, during which I told them what I thought about their sexual and philosophical behavior. I then immedi ately enrolled in Wen-Do. Sure enough, after a wordless six months came a letter: crisply an nouncing their visit. I wrote back as crisply, reiterating what I'd said on the phone, telling them they'd have to stay in a hotel but that I was willing to talk to them. They cut their visit to two days; I kept them very busy and out of my house most of the time. It got pretty bizarre: we talked about incest while sitting in the O'Keefe waiting for the ballet to start, etc. I very warily went into their hotel room to pick them up one time; in retrospect, I think that was foolish. Basically, though, I felt most successful; by keeping them in public places when the "heavies" were being discussed they were restrained and I was protected.

They never repented, never expressed sorrow; in fact even as they left they were still denying that anything had happened. What went on with my grandmother was "none of my business", what went on with me was insignificant and my exaggeration; finally, "You are still our daughter and we love you." And then, this cheque for $60.00. I've been financially independent of them for thirteen years, what does that $60.00 mean?

Judging from my own experience, I'd suspect that most female promiscuity has its base in this type of unspoken incest. I am so aware of how important it has been for me to finally put it into words with my psychologist, then with close friends, with my parents and with whoever reads this letter. It is so hard for a child to understand that she did not seduce daddy but that in fact daddy violated and betrayed her. In doing so, he lost all claim to that title; his selfish disinterest in her developing dignity is that of a stranger on the street...worse, because he is in a position to keep her quiet and ashamed forever.

I'm sitting here sweaty and shaky even as type this. I just hope some woman, somewhere, will be a little encouraged by reading this, or at least will feel a little less like an immoral, irresistible animal.

With Love,

From a Sister.

From the Toronto Rape Crisis Center Newsletter: P.O. Box 6597, Postalstation A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W IX4:

from victimization to strength. Presented in conjunction with the Rape Crisis Center.

Six Monday evenings, November 6-December 11. 7-9 p.m.

Our Addictions

A workshop for women who are concerned about their own chemical dependency (drugs and alcohol) and for the addiction of important people in their lives. Through the use of discussion, movies, tape recordings and structured experiences we will explore our own and others' personal relationship to drugs and alcohol. In a supportive atmosphere with women similarly concerned, we will examine our questions, fears, and need for more information. This workshop will be staffed by three resource facilitators: A Women's Growth Cooperative member eager to explore her own and other's issues with addiction and two guest facilitators who are recovering from chemical dependency. Saturday and Sunday, November 11 and 12, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Feminist Forum Planned informal gatherings to explore issues. books, controversies of contemporary feminist concern. The first Forum will be Friday, November 10, 8-10 p.m. The focus will be "In the Beginning and Beyond" .. understanding patriarchal religion as carrier of male-defined reality, and breaking

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