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Reporting rape

Thispost on Taking Steps about rape from a survivors view point entirely sums up why I didn't report, or indeed tell anyone for a long time, about being raped, or even identify it in my head as rape for a long time.

I was just 17, naive and felt completly responsible for putting myself in a situation where a guy could do that to me. I wasn't drunk or on drugs, I'd just gone to meet him in a quiet out of the way place for what I thought would be making out. Yet still, even though I was bruised and bloodied and beaten I thought no-one would believe me, that it was my fault for wanting to make out with a guy that I liked, for having desire. I had virtually no experience to measure this against. At the time I was at a fancy private school and I was terrified about the scandal bringing the school, which I loved, down, and of the shame of everyone talking about me.

6 months later a different girl was assualted by a different guy. The school blackmailed her into not pressing charges, the guy was not punished and eventually she quit. The rumor mill had a field day and was always on the guys side, who was pretty popular.

I was so glad I had said nothing. Now nearly 5 years later I don't know how I feel about it; as a feminist I feel like I should have reported, I feel guilt for letting my fear let a man get away with this, and I feel terrible for not being more supportive of that other girl, of not forcing this school, which was so proud of how progressive it was, to change its ways.

But as me, the woman who was the frightened teenage girl I can't fault my choice; I would not have been able to withstand the pressure of a trial or investigation or the public shame. Not on top of dealing with the rape.

It would have been easier to report if I hadn't known the guy, if I hadn't been brainwashed into thinking that rape was always the victims fault, or that rape was always perpatrated by strangers. It would also have been easier to report if I hadn't known that rape cases in the UK hardly ever went to trial and when they did were hardly ever successful.

If I was ever raped again would I report? I don't know. I like to hope that I would be brave enough, that I would have the courage of my convictions. But I really don't know.

I do know that this has to change. Attitudes towards rape have to change, thoughout society. Laws have to change, all over the world. And feminists are the only people who can make that change happen.

Crystals

i've got a big review of an amazing gig that I went to on tuesday night to give you. But I've been busy so I haven't finished it. So instead we're going to talk about crystals. I'm going around the world, as you, my faithful non-existent readership know, and as a pagan I've been thinking about what supplies of the magical* type I should bring along. I'm toying with the idea of brining my tarot cards, because well, I'm travelling round the world alone and there's nothing like telling peoples fortunes to make friends, right? But I want to bring along some protection. And that, to me, means crystals.

I've used crystals since before I ever considered myself pagan. Gemstones and plain old stone stones, for various purposes. Aged 11 I brought my first two crystals on a family holiday in Lyme Regis; a tigers eye and an obsidian. I needed grounding and induitivly picked some of the best stones for grounding. The moral of that sotry; buy what ever stone you want to buy on the day. Don't question it.

This weekend I went to this local healing fair and knew that I wanted to buy some yellow jasper. Unfortunatly there wasn't any there. So on Tuesday, after getting my Hep A, B, Typhoid and Rabies jabs (I still feel nauseous :( ) I headed here, a local restuarant and crystal shop (crazy combination I know, they also sell clothes!). They didn't have any yellow jasper either. However I did buy a load of other tiny stones, with the intent of making my self a sort of medicine bag type thing.

I picked up some Pyrite, Amethyst, Aventurine, Bloodstone and Lapis Lazuli. Last night I popped down to my spitual home and picked up some tiny little pebbles to go in it as well.
So far so good. Now I just have to cleanse them all, make something small and unobtrusive to put them in and find a small enough piece of obsidian to add to the haul.
Oh and some Yellow jasper, because I still want some! And a load of tiny quatrz shards as offerings for the various places I come across that deserve them. Why does everything end up being more work than you think?

I am sooooo busy organising stuff for my round the world, and my lovely jaunt to Norway next week, and my two days in an infant school as part of ongoing post-grad plans, and driving to Cardiff to purchase essentials for my round the world. Oh and working. And of course writting. I'm getting worried I won't be ready for June the 4th.


*yes that's write I don't go all 17th century and write it iwth a k. ha

Small steps

Today I went and did a ritual at my spiritual home. Fairly normal stuff for a pagan you might think. Well yes. But also no.
You see my spiritual home is a beautiful beach and not somewhere that I'd usually go to at night. I was attacked once, long ago, and even though I'm perfectly comfortable holding my own walking through any sort of major city (I lived in central London and some of its less salubrious edges for 3 years) I get nervous sometimes on my own in the wilds. Especially near the sea. I'm not complaining; everyone has their demons and mine are quieter than most. But I'm going around the world in just a few weeks. I shall be alone. I can't afford to be nervous there. So I knew I had to get over this one.
What better way than going to the place where I feel safest and most grounded? So I went, and did the ritual and in the gloaming my time on that beach was moving and fulfilling and I felt peaceful and calm. I even discovered a ready made stone circle in the sand right where I wanted to work. This was the right decision.
Of course I did get nervous getting back to the car on my way home and practically ran across the car park and nigh on dived in the car. But small steps right? And as small steps go, this is a pretty big one.

Someone to hate.

Mostly I don't hate people. There's any number of people who I don't hate who have done me wrong in my life. But it would be dishonest of me to say that I don't hate. Like I hate my evil grandparents, my dad's folks, because it's the'r fault that my dad is so fucked up. Of course this desn't mean I'm a saint; if it wasn't for my evil granparents fucking up my dad then he wouldn't have such a fucked up relationship with me. There is one person who I hate though who it is mostly for me that I hate them. Me, the person who doesn't even manage to hate my abuser. My sister's boyfriend. Now admittedly the guy is a jerk, but that doesn't convey the depth of hatred I feel for this guy (he really honestly is a jerk as well, whenever I mention to people that know him that he's dating my sister they're like "that jerk! he's such a horrible nasty dick etc etc," so far nobody I've met (without passing judgement or commenting on him or anything) has had one nice thing to say about him. Apart from my sister. And my parents. Whom he has obviously brainwashed.
He smokes in the house. Which is so selfish. Even my seventy yo aunty was never allowed to smoke in the house. And he treats my sister like shit. Maybe she likes being belittled and demeaned in public, but personally I think its outrageous. She used to be so feisty and confident. Now she waits on him hand and foot. Literally. She gets up every morning to cook him breakfast.
But the real thing I can't stand; the way he treats me like crap. He's the same age as me, but acts like he has some sort of right to pass judgement over every aspect of my life, from the way I look to how I talk to my parents. Seriously I hate him so much that it hurts.
In general I'm a good person. In general I'm actually way more forgiving and easy going than most in fact. I just hate this one person with a passion. Everyone should hate someone, right?

Setting sail

Everything has to start somewhere, right? Except obviously there's not such thing as a beginning, you're missing the back story, the context, but, like any good writer, I promise to show rather than tell, so this blog isn't going to begin with a vast vomit of self-congratulatory and revelatory expositional dialogue.
Tonight I'm heading to a poetry reading, I do that a lot. I'm busy trying to build a reputation for myself in the wilds of west wales. Not that a reputation out here in the sticks is probably going to do me much good, but its better than nothing!
The trouble I'm currently facing is what to perform. I've spent years writing my work, honing my voice, but I'm right at the beginning of my journey as a public performer. I don't yet know what goes down best with an audience.
A lot of my work is, like my life, pretty angsty. But short, and sweet. I decided I was just going to pick the things that I like best and run with that.
Of course instead I ended up writing a entirely new poem using a strangely random but utterly strict rhythmic system. (Going 8,7,8 8,7,8 8,8,6,5,8,8,6,5,8,7,8 ad infinitum) Because obviously I don't like me very much!
Well today I don't like me very much. A lovely friendship with much lovely potential ended last night and I'm vaguely sad about it. But only vaguely, which is why I don't like myself very much; I ought to feel terrible! But more on that another day!