Raine's story is one of breaking the silence to rape after she dealt with rape first-hand. When Raine was thirty-nine years old, she took her trash out from her apartment, leaving her backdoor open, and allowing a stranger to sneak in as her back was turned. For the next couple hours, the stranger brutally attacked Nancy, yelling at her to "shut up" any time she tried to scream, tell him to stop, convince him not to do it, etc. These words, "shut up" now resonate with Nancy so strongly, she loathes the sound of them. For seven years, Nancy believed she had to be quiet about what happened to her, that she couldn't bring it up, that it couldn't be spoken of. Her family was afraid to talk about it, her friends were afraid to talk about it, nobody wanted to upset her. Nancy had told her dear friend's daughter about what had happened to her, as they had a very close bond. A few years later, the friend's daughter was also sexually assaulted, and Nancy's bond with her became even tighter. On the 7th anniversary of her rape, Nancy decided to begin writing how she felt everyday for the last seven years on October 11th, and when Nancy didn't know what to write anymore, she received flowers from her friend's daughter telling her she wasn't alone. Nancy then completed her article and published it, receiving a lot of feedback telling her how inspiring she was at that they had also felt silenced. Nancy then decided to go on and publish this book in hopes to stop the "unspeakableness" of rape, hoping to end the silence people must feel. Nancy wants the topic of rape to stop being such a taboo topic, and having happened in the 1980's, breaking silence in the mid 90's was tough for Nancy.
After we all discussed our books, we moved on to getting our papers back. Talking about conclusions was a big subject today, as conclusions shouldn't be the shortest paragraph in an essay, but many people make them. Things we could have included in this paper to make it longer were policy proposals, the way we think the system favors the rapist, etc.
From here we went on to discussing claims and warrants, especially alcohol being involved in rape. We discussed that alcohol doesn’t make you do things out of character; it makes you do things that are in character that you may not even know you wish to do sober. We also talked about athletes and how the star football player is typically let off easier because "they can have any woman they want because they are the star"- this is based on a woman being just for sex. This is irrelevant to rape, because just since someone is a "star", that doesn't mean they are entitled to this sort of thing. Rape is often seen as something less quick to prosecute, as it becomes a "he said-she said" case.
Even with advanced technology that we can get finger prints off of someone, it can be hard to use in rape cases. Many rape victims go home and shower right away because they are in denial. If someone goes straight to the hospital and has a rape kit done, they have loads of evidence. Now, you can get evidence even up to 5-7 days after the even, although it becomes less likely. The process is long and involved, takes 4-6 hours, they take your clothes, you have to answer tons of questions, people coming in and out to take samples, etc. It is embarrassing, it is violating, and it is a tough, long process. This is one of the reasons why many people don't do it.
Today our discussion went to various places, but touched on rather important matters.
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