Rapers & Rape Guards

Whatever his name is, he's still out there, raping 1 in 4 women living in Sweden.  It's 1 in 5 in the US.  And get this, about 35% of women raped as minors will be raped again as adults.  So yeah, you can get struck by lightening and raped twice, more often in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why are rapers called rapists?  Rapist sounds like specialist, gynecologist, psychologist, psychiatrist.  Raper is nothing special, but you'll need at least one specialist when Raper gets through with you.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about rape kits sitting for years on shelves, untested.  Law enforcement's excuse was that the testing was just too expensive (meanwhile, they're polishing their new shiny semiautomatic weapons).  I bet they wouldn't say that if more men were raped.

Men do get raped (1 in 71), which isn't far from their breast cancer odds (1 in 100).

Women are also more likely to be raped (1 in 6) than get breast cancer (1 in 8).

My own rape kit, which is an assortment of hairs and body fluids collected in the emergency room, sits on a shelf in Houston, Texas.  It's covered with thirty years of dust, never tested.  Raper is 30 years older than he was the morning he broke into my apartment.  If the fact that he raped someone else one week before me is any indication of his usual frequency, I don't want to do the math to determine how many more victims he assaulted these past 30 years.  Even if he were caught, only 3% of Rapers ever see the inside of a jail cell.

Quail Walk Apartments let me out of my lease after the rape.  It was simple.  I walked into the leasing office the next day, sat in a chair across from Lisa-the-apartment-lady and said, "I can't live here anymore.  I was raped."  That last word got tangled in my mouth for a minute, just like it did when I called the police the morning before.

"I'm afraid," I'd told Lisa-the-apartment-lady, but I stopped there.  The rest of it was too weird, that I was afraid Raper could still get into my apartment through the tiny air vents, that no matter how many times I checked the door and window locks, I feared Raper could unlock them somehow, perhaps with telekinesis.  The apartment just wasn't safe anymore, especially since many Rapers return to the scene.  Plus, everywhere was a memory, the kitchen where he searched for a knife, the bedroom where I fought him, the floor where he bound my hands and mouth with electrical tape, the bathroom where the rape occurred, or the end of it anyway.  Worst of all was the living room I crossed to unlock the front door when my boyfriend, a policeman, called to say he was on his way.

The boyfriend was late.  He had another girlfriend, I would later find out.  He gave Raper his opportunity, he and I, the ditz who unlocked the door. 

Raper raped another girl down the street, in a local park beside a recreation center.  There were no Rape Guards on duty.  They should have been stationed as frequently as fire hydrants and flagpoles, churches and Starbucks. 

A Rape Guard should have been alerted had the girl pressed a little button implanted somewhere on her body, a place Raper would never find it, perhaps under her right clavicle or beneath her bellybutton.  Maybe hers was a dental implant, a lever she could flip with her tongue and bite down.  Silently, the nearest Rape Guard would have been notified, could locate this latest victim by the signal of her rape prevention implant (RPI). 

But Rape Guards didn't exist back in 1984.  Oh yeah, they don't exist now either.  One can't even Google "rape guard" and see it appear as one word, like "lifeguard."  There's a RakeGuard.com website which is, ironically, a poker tournament site.

She hugged her Raper, that other girl.  She hugged Raper, maybe to save her life or miraculously, out of compassion and empathy.  I remember being shocked by this.  She mentioned it nonchalantly as she and I sat with a sketch artist working with the police.  We were there to describe the 5'9" white male with frizzy blondish hair.  He had a tan.  He smelled almost sweet, like exertion sweat, not nervous sweat.  He wasn't nervous at all.  Just determined. 

He's still out there, probably forever, but let's at least get his name right.  Raper makes rape sound more common, more everywhere, like a bad rash, like it is.  Raper sounds more like dangers waiting to pounce, like they are.  It sounds like both acting alone or in a group, one big party or a genocidal war game -- Let the rapes begin...  It's bride kidnappings, honor killings, bride burnings, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, human trafficking, ritual servitude (sex slaves).  It's all rape.

Raper is what we call him now, like driver or baker, shooter or taker; loser, hater, killer.  Raper is ancient, patient, and nowhere near retirement.  He can't tell you why he rapes, why women, especially, have it coming.  We won't forget his name, but he'll never know ours, the 1 in 4, the 1 in 5, the too many to count because not all want their names on kits collecting dust, collecting stigma and shame.  Why the shame?  There's a lot in a name.

What was the name of that other girl in the park?  Oh yeah, same as mine.  Nobody.