The Non-Rape Near the Dock: What a Shock!
EUGENE, Ore. — Police officers in Eugene have a dilemma. Someone was sexually assaulted, but not raped. What a shocker. In this day and age? No way. It should not be a shocker to learn that there is a rapist in training running around in Eugene, seeing what he can get away with, and with each assault his sense of power and control over his victims must be growing.
I should know. Some intelligent perpetrators who use the system to get away with a long drawn out process of raping and pillaging can grow very powerful if given enough time and support form our society.
On Sunday morning, November 12, 2017, while the good citizens of our beautiful village were all in church, like I was, one lone woman was down near the boat ramp at Alton Baker Park, in broad daylight mind you, enjoying the sun, water, and colors of fall. Then, just look what befell her: A non-rape assault that involved violence. A raping of the sense of safety.
“This was a daytime thing,” Eugene Police Sergeant Dale Dawson said Monday. “It was a beautiful day at the park yesterday.”
Mr. Rogers agrees. Yes, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. I would have loved to be taking my own children for a walk in the park, feeding ducks, telling stories and talking about life. But, instead, I was in church praying for them. They were all abducted out of my life by a legal alien.
Dawson reports that the crime was out in the open, in broad daylight and that it was actually really surprising to him. Really? As apposed to what?
As apposed to sexual crimes that take place behind the walls of families that appear “normal” and nice on the outside? I have dealt with police officers who assess a situation where their personal relations with the offender overrides their ability to remain objective. Thank goodness for Officer Dawson, I don’t believe he is one of them.
Sometimes, husbands can be perpetrators of sexual crimes and have a beautiful , young submissive wife hanging on their arm who sacrifices decades of servitude to supporting their recovery from a childhood full of trauma and abuse. Sometimes, only for the husband to turn around and assault and shock the senses of common decency of the one trying to help them, and then make off with the “goods”. Sometimes, the “goods” are their children, and their target becomes an ex-wife who later feels raped by a society that watches the whole thing unfold with an inordinate amount of “Bystander Effectiveness Syndrome.”
Sometimes, a victim doesn’t realize the PTSD that can occur in the aftermath of a shock to the senses. Sometimes, it takes a little time and distance to recover from abuse and gross injustices. In this recent case, the attacker left the scene. I am sure the victim may not feel so comfortable in going back to her regular routine of feeling safe in our community while out and about in broad daylight.
I should now. Neither do I.
Victims usually go to hospitals and get treated for injuries, unless they are led to believe that rape within a marriage is not really a rape. Unless they are led to believe that domestic violence is acceptable as long as it is within reasonable limits, and there seems to be a logical explanation behind the behavior. Unless, of course, as a manner of survival, the victim becomes an actress extraordinaire because little children are needing to believe that their daddy is a hero. Sometimes, self-made heroes need to paint someone as a villain.
I never took myself to a local hospital over a decade ago when my assault occurred. I was never treated for my injuries.
I didn’t need a rape kit for a possible DNA match. My rapist fell under the legalities of taking what was rightfully his to begin with; I was his submissive wife and I was the one who dragged him to church and who wanted a big, loving family. I worked so hard to please that angry man, and there just wasn’t anything I could do well enough to garner those precious words: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all!” I think he may have had mommy issues that became, and are still being, projected onto me.
But, after all, no one held a gun to my head. No one forced me to marry my boyfriend when I was 19. No one held a crystal ball in front of either of us that foretold our futures. I just trusted the process of growing up. I still do to this day as I continue to grow up in this scary world full of predators and victims.
I realize that no one forced me to go out on that sweet little picnic with Bartles & Jaymes many years ago with my then husband who would become my rapist, and I trusted my ex-husband’s judgment in everything. I had no choice, since he had more money and power than me. I still have to trust his judgment, even when I don’t, because he still has more power and money than me. But, I gave it all away. I was told to. He now has full custody of our children as I am realizing the full extent of his agenda of erasure and destruction of my parenting abilities.
I was groomed by society to submit to my “protector”, though. I was groomed by pastors who told me to submit to my husband in everything, just like Sarah did to Abraham and called her husband, “Lord.” I am still groomed to trust those in higher positions of power than I am. I am still told to trust the “professionals” in this world who have earned their right to play GOD with our lives, even when they may not know the whole TRUTH and nothing but the WHOLE truth.
I guess it was my fault that once upon a time, I was a “jest a purty liddle uneducated Oregonian teenager” who had been raised by a godly logger as a dad, and a hard-working housekeeper as a mom, to believe that everyone was truly loving and good-natured at heart. They were the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it worse than they did. I will do the same, but I’m beginning to learn to draw some healthier boundaries today.
But, I am sensitive. I guess it was my fault I had my senses shocked to no end when I discovered that I had married a philanderer and someone who misunderstood the message, of “NO,” but instead believes that with enough support, he could run a mafia mentality in a fairly large family, or a cult-like mentality all within a small fishbowl of small towns held in the beautiful and diverse state of Confusion, known as Oregon.
I guess it’s my fault that “Under state code: it’s unlawful sexual penetration,” Sgt. Dawson said. “And it’s a sexual assault, but rape? No, I wouldn’t classify it directly as that.” Really? Well, I have news for some men out there. There is more than ONE way to rape a woman. Strip her of the dignity to enjoy being a loving mother while using character defamation, along with character decimation, and then draw it out over a few decades. That sure is a rape of the senses. Take away a woman’s sense of safety in a public park and then downplay it. That’s a rape of common decency.
Sgt. Dawson calls Alton Baker park a safe place where he routinely runs. With officers who have that attitude toward the safety of their citizens, and toward those women in particular (although men can be victims just as well)who routinely jog among wolves, I am glad that I am not a fan of jogging anymore. Besides, it’s boring and too hard on the knees and joints, in my opinion. I am more of the kind who enjoys dancing with wolves.
Paula Luginbuhl and I may want to hire bodyguards in this day and age, in this community of Oregon with its often male-privileged, patriarchal “good ol’ boys” mentality. Maybe some police officers need even more training so that they can look at true victims of the rape-shock cultural syndrome and begin to feel differently about the world in which victims are often forced to operate.
Women are survivors. We survive a lot. We often survive childbirth many times over. We often make it back from the brinks of death many times over. I should know. Men are survivors, too. They have to live with us, and we sometimes have high standards. We expect to be treated with dignity and honor. Especially if we are the ones who bore their babies and their abuse while they were too busy playing at being GOD in their children’s and powerless wive’s lives.
Luginbuhl reports that she feels concerned and disturbed. It’s an unsettling feeling to know that she can be targeted as a victim for someone else’s sexual fantasies, and then feel her sense of security at having been assaulted and violated afterwards.
A year and a half of feeling safe in our parks under the fantasy of a delusion in this world of hurt and trauma? Try going through that for twenty years; it’s no walk in the park.
I am tired of walking through this world feeling a sense of fear and impending doom for both myself and my children. I also do not like the feeling of having the enjoyment of being a a caring mother to my children ripped away from me while healing up from trauma, and under financial duress and while dealing with behavior in my children and myself that others may not fully understand.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to live in fear and not do the things I usually do but maybe be more aware,” Luginbuhl said.
Like Luginbuhl, I, too, am beginning to rethink which way I travel. Today, I am more aware of others’ shared trauma in this life than I was before, when I was sequestered behind the walls of my home, going through domestic terror of a different sort. Today, I am a well-trained soldier who has gone through a hellish boot camp.
And I was worried that going to church was going to expose me to the possibility of a church shooting! Talk about sailing between the Scylla and the Charybdis!
