Thursday, July 13, 2006
So: Nicole
By Jocy L. So
Unraveling
IT WAS a balmy early evening. The sun had gone down and a soft and hazy darkness enveloped the city. I was walking alone towards Anda Street for a class. The ground was cracked and uneven so I looked down periodically, careful not to trip and make a spectacle of myself in public.
Suddenly a thick, throaty voice whispered near my ear, "Sabay ko sa imo, ga?" I glanced up as the man who spoke passed by, unhurried and unaffected. He did not touch me, nor did he say anything overtly rude or lewd, but the fact that he, a stranger on a street, felt very much free to invade my private space and reverie to whisper into my ear unnerved me. Moments later, I wondered whether I should've whacked him with my thick Business Statistics book.
Later that night, I had a brief conversation with friends about Nicole, the woman who accused US servicemen of raping her. Someone, a guy, mentioned that she had supposedly been raped before, and to be raped twice is highly unlikely. The guy's tone suggested that he finds Nicole lacking credibility, her story unbelievable. Perhaps she's making it up to frame the Americans and extort money.
Recently, a colleague told me that his relatives mentioned that Nicole had an unsavory reputation in her hometown. She's a flirt. After all, she went to a bar by herself, drank and spoke with the Americans. She's asking for it, right?
Did she ask for it? Does anyone deserve the right to be raped and violated? When I walked alone that night I had on a big unfeminine backpack, a light brown teacher's uniform, and my usual geeky glasses. Was I asking for it when that man whispered into my ear? Was it my fault because I am a woman walking alone in a crowded area during the early evening? Similarly, do terrorists have a right to bomb Madrid, London, and now Mumbai killing innocent civilians just because their governments are allies of the US? Does anyone, ANYONE deserve to be a victim of any kind of violence?
Why is it easier to doubt a rape victim when it is the accused rapists standing on trial? Rape is not about passion or desire, it's about power. That's why there are old women, babies, and young children both girls and boys who get raped. Did they ask for it? Did they deserve it? Some of these rape and incest victims are raped repeatedly by different men, is that their fault? Do we even understand what kind of emotional and psychological trauma rape victims go through? Why is it so easy to dismiss them, to doubt them, to paint them as the criminals?
Shouldn't we ask instead who gave rapists the right to violate their victims?
Most rape victims are women, and most rapists are men. I don't need to give you any statistics to prove that. Most rapes are not reported. Looking at what is happening to Nicole, you can see why most rape victims will not step forward. Put yourself in their shoes. You've been violated, hurt, your dignity stepped and spat on. Your sense of security, your sense of self compromised. Then you have to go public and reveal all that happened. And you feel ashamed because many people will look at you differently, accusingly as if you are the one who did something wrong. People will question you, put you on the stand, unearth your past, display the unsavory behavior, and experiences in your life that you may have already left behind. You have to be in the same room as your violator. You have to relive what happened by narrating what happened to you, again and again and again.
In college, my friend was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. She had gone to a frat party where we suspected someone or a group of people had slipped something into her drink and once she was groggy induced her to drink more alcohol. We don't know whether that's all that happened to her. She doesn't really remember anything about that night. I hope that is the extent of what happened to her. My friend did not deserve to be drugged. Even if she attended that party, dressed seductively, accepted a drink, whatever she did, unless she CONSENTED to anything, she did not deserve what happened to her. And neither does Nicole.
Jocy L. So teaches at Davao Christian High School
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 13, 2006 issue)
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