Friend's reaction to my rape

Last year I lost my virginity to rape, and as time goes by, I'm becoming more and more afraid of anything having to do with sex (sex jokes, nudity on tv, etc).

I sought online help to recover from the rape trauma. I was advised to keep in touch with friends, and share the truth with them. The other day I was talking to this friend of mine (who says he likes me a lot), I told him I was sexually abused last year, and that I was going through great anguish and having terrible nightmares every night.

He said "oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I wish you would have wet dreams instead of nightmares. Wet dreams are definitely better". I was grossed out by his words.

On the following day, he told me he had a wet dream about me.

I wonder if my friend is perverted and/or extremely insensitive, or if I'm just overreacting.

Whenever I talk to him I get flashbacks He makes me feel really uncomfortable. I told him once, but he hasn't changed and keeps mentioning the wet dreams

Hi Hope. I hope I can be of some help.

Firstly, please allow me to say that I am sorry this ever happened to you. No one deserves to have such a thing happen to them.

As far as your friend goes, I've no idea what he's attempting to accomplish in telling you this. I don't think you're overreacting...this isn't something you'd tell someone even if all were well, and for him to tell you this after confiding in him makes it, in my opinion, infinitely more inappropriate. I don't think he is offering you any help in telling you such a thing, and I would recommend that, after telling him it makes you uncomfortable and him continuing, you reevaluate your friendship with him.

Lastly, if I may, don't consider it as losing your virginity to such a thing...I know the physical act took place, but I think, in my own humble opinion, losing one's virginity is much more than the physical act itself. It is, in part, a willing giving of oneself to another. I don't think, in that regard, you have experienced that. I don't know if that offers any comfort, but I wanted to offer that.

My best to you, and I hope things get better soon.

Hugs and prayers,
Harley

What exactly was the point of sharing the rape experience with a male friend? How did the online advisors explain why you needed to do that?

Sorry it happened to you last year!

Hello Harley47 and hamster-bamster. Thanks so much for your support I'm feeling better than I did a few months ago.

Although my guy friend understood the situation and said things to make me feel better ("he will be punished for what he did to you, I hope he dies a horrible death"), he also mentioned the wet dreams, which I found disgusting.

I wasn't told to share the experience with a "male" friend. I was just told to share it with whichever friends I thought could offer me some comfort. I wasn't expecting this reaction from my friend.

I don't have a lot of female friends. Because of my job, I am mostly surrounded by men. I'm still in touch with my childhood female friends, but we are not that close. We grew up to be totally different.

My mother's opinion is that my guy friend is too sex-oriented and he can't understand I'm not the same way.

Hi Sorry you had to go through such a terrible experience. Rape is such a terrible crime that leaves so many issues behind that the victim has to deal with later. There are quite a few people here who may be able to help you with that. I hope so.
About your friend... not sure how much to say about him. That was incredibly insensitive. We all say insensitive and inappropriate things at times but after you explained it he should have understood. A lot of us are "sex-oriented" so that's not a good excuse. Maybe think about finding a new friend or just tell him the subject is closed?

Hi George! Thanks for your reply. I'm afraid you are right, I should drift apart from my friend... Today he said it again Even worse, upon seeing an old pic taken at my cousin's wedding, he said that I looked so pretty that many guys would like to masturbate to my pic.

My main goal is to try to avoid reminders and flashbacks, to improve my psychological well-being, and this friend is not helping.

I do not see it as something so negative. So they would like to masturbate to your pic - but not rape, you, right?

When I started reading your sentence, I thought you were leading to something along the lines of his creating excuses for the rapist's crime on account of your unusual prettiness. If all he is saying is that guys would masturbate to your pic, which is innocuous and should not disturb you, then I do not see a problem.

That said, I have never been raped and fought a couple of rape attempts successfully so I might not be able to correctly appreciate your level of vulnerability and your risk of having flashbacks and reminders.

By itself, it was a crude compliment.

In the past, when he would say those things, I didn't attach any importance to it... I became really sensitive after the rape.

I know that he was trying to compliment me, he doesn't understand my reaction even though I have tried explaining it to him.

Just tell him that it was nice of him, because you need to acknowledge his good intentions, but that he will need to take a break from such comments/compliments until you tell him that you are ready.

That would mean that you are not trying to switch him off forever.

I did that twice but it didn't work.

I will try for a third time...

my late grandmother used to say that the third time (in anything and everything) usually works

Do not explain to him how you feel. Tell him, sweetly, that he should stop until further notice from him. And add that this is nonnegotiable.

If he does not get it then, you need to have some no-contact time.

Telling a recovering rape victim that men would like to masturbate to her pic is a terrible thing to say. Rape is a trauma of intrusive sexual attention, of the most intrusive and shame-inducing kind possible. Telling a woman that people would like to masturbate to her pic is usually intrusive sexual attention. It's the same f****** thing and I don't know how hard it is to see that. It's going to trigger all the fear and shame and disgust of the original event.

VERY well said!

Rape is not a trauma of intrusive sexual attention but more a violent crime and a terrible abuse of power. Nor is it intrinsically shame-inducing - I have fought rape attempts, luckily and successfully, and I tell people about them without feeling any shame. Shame is an artifact of societal views and not inherent. There is no more shame in being a victim of rape than in being a victim of burglary. So there is intrinsic fear of the original event just as there is intrinsic fear in any event in which you are powerless, and there might be quite a bit on intrinsic disgust, but there is no intrinsic shame.

regarding the bold part in the quote:

Most people are able to draw the line between men who masturbate in the privacy of their homes quietly and peacefully and men who abuse their superior physical power to force unwanted sex on their victims, much as most people are not color-blind.

hamster,
I regret phrasing my post as a flame, but let's look at a few things.

I agree that rape is not shameful, but I think that it's going to provoke shame in a lot of people, especially someone in a culture of shame around rape. I am super-glad for you that you fought back and escaped, but I really think that experience leaves a very different impression than a woman (or child, in my case) who loses control of her will and is violated against her will.

When you say rape is an abuse of power, you are describing it from a third-person, objective perspective. I'm describing it from a first-person experience. It's an massively intrusive experience that comes through the vehicle of sexuality. I know that people say it's not about sex, that it's violence. But it is also about sexuality. For example a raped person is going to be potentially triggered by sexual situations.

This has nothing to do with whether men masturbate privately. I'm glad you don't see anything wrong with that, but the question is whether you go up to a woman and tell her that you or someone else is going to masturbate to her photo. That is super-creepy even if the woman hasn't been raped, but for a woman who has been raped what you are doing is violating her sense of privacy and ability to control her thoughts around sexuality. It's like being raped all over again---in fact, coming from someone you thought was your friend! It's a betrayal.

Maybe you don't care if men say they masturbate to your photo. But that's you. I doubt that's the most common reaction. I guess we'd have to conduct a survey to find out.

Mike

I do not see any problem with men masturbating to my pictures as it does not harm me in any way and if they can derive some practical utility from my image without my spending any time or energy on it, I would say that it only adds to the common good. I in general control my thoughts with respect to sexuality myself because I have full agency power so I do not see how someone's comment would add to or detract from this control. While nobody has ever suggested that men are going to masturbate to my photos in those exact terms (well, hopefully I still have the second half of my life to collect this sort of feedback...), I have heard comments from male acquaintance such as "It is really hard to stand next to you without rising to you" which I have always treated as compliments and deflected using the most powerful tool that is quite universal and is called a sense of humor. When I was a little girl, my extended family, out of concern for teaching me proper manners, taught me the importance of acknowledging compliments with grace and a smile as well as thanking the givers of presents even when I did not like the presents. For example, when I was 6, somebody gave me a book by Astrid Lindgren (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrid_Lindgren - she was one of the best children's books writers throughout the world history, but unfortunately has not received enough recognition in the US, and if you have not read her books I recommend that you do because you would experience a lot of joy even as an adult) AND I HAD ALREADY READ THE BOOK and I told the giver about that. After the birthday party, my aunt chastised and shamed me in such a way that I still remember the lesson. The lesson is that you should acknowledge good intentions even if you do not have any use for them.

Even though my extended family did not use any sexually-charged context in their teachings on manners, I was later able to transfer the lesson and apply it to the sexually-charged context, just as when you learn the multiplication table up to 10 or 12, you can then use that knowledge in order to multiply larger numbers (a bad analogy in the world of calculators and computers, but I am rushing with this post so it is what it is).

A sense of humor, a smile, and batting eyelashes from time to time as I (intuitively) see appropriate have been fully sufficient throughout the course of my life in dealing with sexually suggestive compliments without feeling shame, loss of control, loss of power, loss of privacy, as well as feeling violated and deprived of my civil and/or human rights, being triggered, feeling betrayed, suffering from psychosomatic symptoms, or any type of negative consequences that you might deem undesirable.

Mike, it is OK - I did not think you were making an attempt at flaming. I thought you were simply expressing your opinion.

So I can tell you this - I thought that I was a victim of acquaintance rape when I could not say "no" to a close friend/neighbor/classmate on one occasion in a situation of watching a movie together in my apartment. As a result of that experience, I have learned the following important lesson:

- a woman should either improve her assertiveness score or, failing that or until that developmental milestone is achieved, avoid compromising situations such as watching a movie in her apartment

I was also infuriated to no end. When I think back to the experience, even though it happened back in 1997, I start feeling infuriated. I do not feel shame, fear, .... , I just feel infuriated. Being infuriated is an extreme form of anger. Anger is a non-specific emotion and does not invoke any sexual connotations per se.

This man, who, I thought, date-raped me, babysat my son in 1996, for three days, when I needed to fly to another state to finalize the divorce from my first husband, the son's father. My son was 3 years old.

When I returned, the man bragged to me that he had taught my son how to take a shower. He bragged and I was expected to feel appreciation. I did express some appreciation outwardly (as I should have because I was appreciative of the babysitting part itself, I just had never intended the shower taking learning experience for my son) but inwardly was infuriated and still am when I think back to it. It is perfectly OK for a 3 year old boy to take baths! There is no developmental milestone of learning to take showers when you are 3 years old.

I feel equally infuriated on account of the "date rape" and on account of "Look how great I am - I have taught your three year old son to take showers!"

The common denominator is that the feeling of being so infuriated tells me that the man is unpleasant, has bad manners and no tact, is arrogant and full of himself and I should not have associated with him in the first place. I am also mad at myself for associating with him because I did not like him that much but he was around being a neighbor and a classmate so I went along.

From that I have learned the lesson that I need to follow my gut feeling and be more intentional and discriminating in deciding whom to associate with.

That lesson is broad, general, and not specific to sexuality.

In other words, I have not experienced anything bad in the realm of sexuality following the date rape, have never been in any way triggered by sexual situations or anything like that, and 2-3 weeks after the date rape started a new sexual relationship with the would be and now ex 2nd Husband which turned out to be awful in non-sexual ways but was fine sexually. So I have not suffered anything negative sexually. I was just infuriated beyond belief.

Several months ago I looked up the definition of acquaintance rape on RANN which I considered authoritative and learned that what happened to me in 1997 does to fit the definition because there was no threat of force. In other words, the situation of exploiting the lack of assertiveness on the part of the woman is not criminal per today's standards. OK. Still, since I lived under the impression that it was an acquaintance rape, my reactions might be viewed as valid possible reactions to rape, and, again, they are not in any way sexual.

I have also fought several true attempts at rape - meaning, when men tried to physically force me into the act. Those experiences have never affected me negatively in the realm of sexuality in any way, because I have always been able to enjoy sex with my boyfriends/husbands who were not raping me but having consensual sex with me.

To sum up, in my experience, the issue is not sexuality but abuse of power and control as well as violence.

That said, you will see on this board that other women have been deeply troubled by rape and have been unable to de-couple violent rape from consensual sexuality.

As another analogy, my late grandparents were once attacked in a small forest that was on the way from their house to the closest train station. They had to give all the cash from their wallets to the attackers (it was a very long time ago before plastic money and checkbooks). So they were violated. But they continued to walk through that forest for decades. In the process of walking through the forest they would from time to time run into strangers. They were never triggered or frightened by the strangers. They interpreted the bad experience for what it was - a bad thing happening and there is always a risk of bad things happening in your life and no reason to become paranoid of innocent people, and most people are innocent.

A rape is definitely much worse than having to surrender all your cash, but having to surrender all your cash in a forest where worse things can happen was still unpleasant and qualified as a violation.

Sorry but this man comes across as downright creepy. And I say this as a man myself. The only time I may say something along those lines was if I was in a realationship with a woman and said it in a joke way. There's a time and place. You're pouring your heart out about being raped and this man either has very poor social skills or he's deliberately getting some sort of pleasure out of making you feel uncomfortable. I seriously think you should get away from this man because I would not trust this man if I was a woman. He seems to be making jokes about you being raped. He's no friend, he's making lightwork over something that has affected you very badly and I'd be concerned if I were you that he may be into rape himself. He probably isn't a potential rapist but I wouldn't take the risk.

Get the hell away from him and don't entertain being near him again. He doesn't seem like someone you need to be around.

Okay hamster, but you haven't said anything that makes it okay to tell a rape victim that you want to masturbate to her photo. I predict that for 98% of rape victims it's going to trigger her, and anyway any guy who does that, just from the possibility it would trigger her, is either massively insensitive or cruel or both. We'd have to take a survey.