Oh hello!
So today will kind of be a different post. A picture, but not one that necessarily has to do with Ireland, although it is still something that I am experiencing while I'm out here.
So this is a picture of the book that I am reading right now. I started it sometime last week I believe, and I've been reading it on and off whenever I get the chance. I bought this book from Barnes and Noble before I left the states so I could read it while I'm out here. I was really excited to read it before I had started it, but now that I am almost 100 pages in, I'm not as excited to read it when I get the chance to.
The book is exactly what it says it is, interviews with convicted rapists (convicted, not alleged). The authors went to different prisons and interviewed 25 inmates about their views of rape and also about their specific cases and their experiences with it. There was only 15 interviews published in the book out of the 25 interviews they did, and before each one they explain what specifically that person is in jail for (ex. forced, aggravated rape, etc.), and how long and where they were when the book was published in 1980 (on parole, eligible for parole, prison for life, etc).
Before I started this book I knew that it would be hard to read, but I thought that it would be enlightening and good to know this information. But now that I've read about 6 interviews, I've really realized just how hard it is to read something like this. The first two interviews were really scary and really graphic, and honestly they scared me. The other night I made the mistake of reading the book before bed, and it was all I could think about as I was trying to go to sleep (not a good idea!). It's scary for a bunch of reasons.
First it's scary because you are pretty much hearing EXACTLY what these rapists did in their specific cases, and exactly what was going through their head at the time. In the first interview in the book, the rapist talks vividly about the rape he was sent to jail for; meaning he explained how he went about finding this woman, what he was looking for, how he got into the house and everything. In this specific case, this guy just picked a woman out at the racetracks, followed her home and then waited outside her house and watched people go in and out until he thought she was alone. Then, this guy literally walked right inside through the open back door, hid under the dining room table when he thought he heard someone and followed this woman upstairs into her bedroom. This guy and most of the others had been rapists since they were young (one even as young as nine years old) and they were only caught on one of their rapes because that woman actually reported it. Most admitted multiple rapes but said that the women wouldn't report it.
It's really scary and really hard to read. I totally underestimated how tough this book would be to read.
The other thing that is really scary is that these guys don't think they are rapists. The authors asked each of them this, and all of them said no. They don't think they are rapists - one even said that he thought he was a lover of women. They think that rapists are those guys that jump out of the bushes or in an alley way, or do something "immoral," like rape a mother or a woman who has a family.
Only a couple of these guys will have remorse about the rapes that they committed, while others won't. This one guy that I just read about had literally no shame in what he did. While he was talking about his rapes he was smiling and talking about it confidently with the interviewers. Another guy even said that he hated women so much when he committed his rapes that he couldn't even sit down and talk to them without thinking that they were lower than him. He said that he considered himself a "lover of women" at that point because he had realized that he had done something wrong and he wanted to talk to women and tell them about everything he was thinking. Another guy was raped when he was younger, then he grew up to and started raping women and would do everything to those women that that woman did to him when she raped him.
So first of all, this book is hard because of the content of it. I literally start feeling sick to my stomach when I'm reading some of these accounts, and in others I can actually picture what is happening - it's just awful. I can't read more than one interview at a time because it is just so dense that I have to sit there and comprehend everything that I had just read.
Another thing that is super hard is that I think about what I would have done if I was in that situation with one of those men. Like, what would I do if that were to happen to me? Would I fight or would I just let it happen and pray that he didn't want to kill me? Some guys tell the authors that there wouldn't be anything a woman could do to stop it, or that screaming would just make it worse, or that they should just submit to it.
And they all talk about the specific kinds of things they look for in women, or how they target them, and all of them are different. Some of them look for big butts, or big chests, or women who look like their mothers, etc.
It's so frustrating from a woman's point of view because I wonder what I would have done or what I would do if this were to happen. But it's like a Catch 22 because every guy is different, and every motive is different, and these crimes are so individualized that you don't have one foolproof way to avoid this or stop it if it is happening.
One guy was talking about how women who are "half-dressed" are asking for it, and if he wouldn't have done it then someone else would have or if it was ANY woman who was half-dressed it would have happened. It just takes away our agency. Like if I go out wearing a cute dress or something, that means I'm asking to be raped?? Do I not have the right to dress how I please? Or do I always need to censor myself and what I wear because I'm scared that I'm going to get the wrong kind of attention from a guy? It's ridiculous. And it's so frustrating because it feels like there is LITERALLY nothing you can to avoid something like that or stop it. You just feel helpless.
The other night while I was trying to go to sleep after reading the book, I was trying to reassure myself that something like that wasn't going to happen to me. I was thinking things like, "oh that won't happen to me because I'm not New York (where those interviews took place)," but that is just stupid because rapists don't just live in New York. I also thought, "oh he won't be able to get to me," but I'm living on the ground floor while in Ireland (which really makes me uncomfortable), and, realistically, if someone had targeted me or any other woman, than if he really wanted to, he could find a way to get to us.
I want to read this book and I really want to finish it, but I don't want to be scared and paranoid of things going on around me. I mean, I think I'm doing everything I CAN do, here or anywhere else I am; I pay attention to my surroundings, keep my window locked/shade pulled, basically just being smart. But it still makes me think...this could literally happen to anyone, so it is very possible that it could happen to me or one of my friends.
I don't want any of you to get worried (specifically you Dad), but these are just the thoughts that are going through my head while I'm reading this.
Anyway, I'm going to bed! I'll post something tomorrow!
Until then.
;)
