Diary of a Kinky Librarian

Reading the chapter on rape in Cunt of course got me thinking about things that have happened to me. Inga Muscio makes the point that silence is what allows rape and assault against women to continue. She quotes Ursula K. LeGuin, “The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women.” And this is too true. I’ve never filed charges against the man who raped me or the man who sexually assaulted me at a sex party. A few months back I finally referred to Jefferson, the man who assaulted me, by name in this blog. That took me two years to do. For the rest of the time I was virtually silent. I was left to deal with the after effects of what he did to me while he went on with his life like nothing happened. I did speak up and confront him and others who attended his parties on what he did right after, but I got rebuffed as “crazy” because no one wanted to look at what had happened that night. I only wish I had been less scared and decided to file charges against him come hell or high water. I only wish I was less scared now.

I love Muscio’s idea that rape should be handled by what she calls “Cuntlovin’ Public Retailation” – in other words women should band together to publicly denounce rapists (en masse), to embarrass them at their homes, places of work, etc. We should not be silent as to what these men have done to harm and shame us. And we should stand up for any woman who’s gone through this as rape affects us all. Every person who has a cunt has to worry about going out alone at night, going out dressed seductively, just simply existing in the world we live in because at any given point in time a man can decide that he has to exert control by raping a cunt. The fact that this behavior is so terribly condoned by our society (yes, I feel that it’s condoned) disgusts me. You can bet such deep humiliation of men would not be tolerated in our society. But destroying a woman’s sense of safety, her sense of power over her life, that happens with only silence greeting it.

I’m tired of being silent. But of course I’m still afraid. If I wasn’t afraid I’d sit here and publish the real names of the men who’ve taken away my right to choose what happens to my cunt. I’d link to the one who has a blog. But even just putting his name up here terrifies me – even though very few people read this blog. It would have been really terrific had I published who did it on my old blog, read by 100 people a day, back when the assault actually happened. But I was even more afraid then than I am now. And so I remain virtually silent.