Every day you open the paper, turn on the news, look at the news in the internet and there are stories of sexual assault. Sexual predators seeking children on the internet, sexual slavery running rampant through every country, stealing the innocence from young boys and girls. There are mass rapes on the ivory coast as part of the war tactics, raping girls, women, boys and babies. There is a huge problem in the Arab nations raping unprotected women and children. There was recently a journalist that was gang raped covering a celebration for Egypt’s liberation. What do all of these have in common? Not sure? Really?

None of this is actually about sex, it is merely a by product, because it is a way it can damage you. It is the most personal way someone can hurt you and it will effect you for your entire life. Rape has almost nothing to do with sex, it has everything to do with power. Power over another individual, showing another being that they have total control. There was actually a doctor that worked in Africa that developed a female condom that had teeth. A woman could wear this and if she were raped it would not only protect her from sexually transmitted diseases, but it would require the rapist to go to a hospital to get it removed. This would not only give an identity to the rapist, it would protect the woman from disease. They actually were not certain this was a good idea because they thought it may get more women killed. If that is not about power , I don’t know what is.

Think rationally about the general psyche of the rapist. They very seldom will select a person that can or will be able to fight back. There are multitudes of studies that give you statistics on this or that. There are millions of people, men especially that will tell you how, it is somehow the victims fault. I actually read a local news article less that six months ago that a man in his sixties was arrested for molesting his two year old granddaughter. His defense was that she initiated it. She was two. Could anyone, in any conscience even think of this? Yet, that was his excuse. But what was it actually about? She was a defenseless person. She was someone that he could dominate, brutalize and he thought that either she could not tell anyone or that no one would believe he did this. I have seen articles in the news where men have raped children under the age of one. Do you really think this is about sex?

Jeffery Dahmer was probably one of the sickest men society has ever produced, but one of the most upfront about what it was about. He understood what he did was wrong, but it didn’t stop him. It was all about power over someone else. Sex has very little to do with this horrendous crime. It is completely and unconscientiously about expressing power over someone else. It is about inciting fear into the soul of another person that they cannot eradicate. It is about damaging someone else to a point that they may never be able to trust another person, they view everyone else as a possible threat. This is because, for the most part, these were people that were just minding their own business. They were being the people they thought they were supposed to be, it never occurred to them that this threat was present in their lives until it was too late.

Yet, even to this day, women are affected to where they are rejected or treated as outcasts because they were victims of a demented and sick personality. There are children, both boys and girls, that will view themselves as less of a person for their entire life, not as good as other people because they have suffered without anyone knowing. They will feel that is all they are worth, especially if this is a person that they were suppose to count on. Their lives will never be the same. There are women that thought they were going on a date to find themselves victimized and are too afraid of how they will be treated if they tell anyone. This is not only a misunderstood crime, it is one that is still largely unreported. This is a crime that affects more people than anyone will ever be able to report because of the fear of the stigma that goes with it. It is less frightening to live with the pain, and the worthlessness that you know, rather than to bring the pain in the open and have the wounds bleed time after time.

I have heard time and again how, “she shouldn’t have dressed like that”, “ what was she doing there anyway?”, “ what was she thinking going out with him?” Think about it, we have all heard these statements. Is it really the victim’s fault? It’s a sad statement of society when it’s a victim who is at fault, even if a child, who got victimized because they chose to believe in the goodness of people and trust someone.