Posts tagged sexual violence
Close Your Feet and Walk Away
Close Your Feet and Walk Away

My boyfriend and I say, “I love you,” to each other every single day, more than once. I don’t know why he loves me, but he does. Sometimes I question this love. Sometimes I wonder if we will get married someday and have a family and live in a big house with a big yard or if we will break up after a big fight and move out of the togetherhome we have right now because until death do us part is not realistic for a raped girl like me. Maybe after our big fight, he’ll ask his boss to relocate him to another state because he wants to move out of California because California is where we became us and where we destroyed us.

Read More
True StoriesJulia Nusbaumsexual violence, sexual assault, ChildhoodComment
Dear Rapist
Dear Rapist

Do you even remember me? Or was I nothing to you, a little conquest, a trifling diversion that for one brief evening made you feel powerful? Do you know how hard it has been for me to understand what happened that night? To remember how naïve I was, even at twenty-five, and not feel ashamed? To stop blaming myself for getting drunk on a few cups of sake, and for being unable to shove your six-foot-plus body off of me? Did you plan it, or was it merely a crime of opportunity, your secret safe because I was in town for only a few days?

Read More
Diya Mehtasexual violence, rape, pro-choice, abortion Comments
At The Grocery Store Alone, I Think About Becoming A Dead Girl
At The Grocery Store Alone, I Think About Becoming A Dead Girl

I think about becoming a dead girl, not because I want to be one, but because of how possible it is for me, out in public, to become one. I’ve read the news, the stories, watched the true crime documentaries and listened to the podcasts. In Youtube videos, a beautiful woman applies makeup while detailing another’s gruesome murder. I walk through the aisles of the store, filling my cart and avoiding eye contact with men I don’t know, wondering how many of their mouths have watered at the thought of wringing my neck.

Read More
Diya MehtaDeath, sexual violence, violenceComment
The Sex You Didn’t Want
The Sex You Didn’t Want

The further I get into the safety of a long-term relationship, the foggier my examples become. Each year is like another gloss of paint, obscuring. I am grateful for this obfuscation, however, a part of me wants to hold on to the memories, coloring them with new perspective as I grow in age and wisdom. This part of me wants to lose itself in the comfort of reliving the incidents, but altering the endings. This is what I would do, if it happened again. By rewriting your rape stories, you regain a façade of control.

Read More
True StoriesGuest Usersexual assault, sexual violence, rape, recoveryComment
Look At Me. Fix It.
Look At Me. Fix It.

I was not raped by someone you know. Just a few days after my fifteenth birthday I was raped by a boy who was scared of ghosts and hung a tin cross on his wall. When I was raped it felt like drowning. I could not breathe. My body twisted in ways I was not in control of, and in the fleeting moments when I realized and re-realized what was happening to me I gasped for air. I cried.

Read More
True StoriesJulia Nusbaumrape, sexual assault, sexual violence, Strong women, survivalComment
Not Just a Survivor
Not Just a Survivor

I am a survivor of abuse and rape. I don’t ignore that reality, and I’ll never forget it. I take medicine for PTSD daily and am a client of the campus counseling center where I can get free therapy. But it’s also not my whole story. I am also a wife, a PhD student, a friend, and a daughter-in-law; but most importantly, I am a child of a loving God.

Read More
True StoriesJulia Nusbaumfeminism, Storytelling, sexual violence, abuse, rape, panic attackComment