slb@drutx.UUCP (Sue Brezden) (06/05/85)
The question "Would you rather be raped or killed?" is being
discussed, and I would like to share some of my experiences.
Ordinarily, it is not a subject I talk about. Especially in
a public forum. But perhaps I have something to add.
I have been raped. I have also come very close to being killed
(by stangulation--a wire coat hanger). At separate times. By
the same man--my ex-husband.
I am still alive. And I am glad that I was not murdered. I
have had time to regain my self-respect. To learn to enjoy
myself, to see my children grow and to find a good man who
loves me for me and not for what I can do for him. If I was
killed back then, I would not have had these experiences.
Now perhaps rape is easier to take if it is done by a man close
to you rather than a stranger. But I tend to think not. I lived
with that man for 5 more years after those incidents took place.
He never understood why I would flinch when he touched me, or why
I was always so unsure of myself. He still does not understand, I
am sure, although I would never talk to him about it. I am sure
he feels in his own mind that he is innocent. Somehow that made
it harder to recover--since the closest person to me reinforced
the feeling that I was wrong to feel the way I did. I only started
to recover after I left him.
At any rate, I do know now that recovery is always possible--if one
lives. It is not possible if one dies. If faced with rape, torture,
or murder, I pick anything but murder.
--
Sue Brezden
Real World: Room 1B17 Net World: ihnp4!drutx!slb
AT&T Information Systems
11900 North Pecos
Westminster, Co. 80234
(303)538-3829
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Send lawyers, guns, and money, Dad. Please get me out of this!
-Warren Zevon
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