Dark and Light

Trigger warning for rape, domestic violence.

I saw it yesterday, the headline at the CBC news website. I read the story, which said there had been a gang rape in Pitt Meadows (a suburb of Vancouver). It said someone had filmed the rape. It said someone had put that video on the Internet.

Kids. Teenagers. At a rave/party. It is all, currently, “alleged” except for the posting-it-on-the-Internet part. The posting-it-on-the-Internet part is inarguable, as the video keeps appearing as fast as people take it down. It’s gone “viral.”

I felt ill, reading the story. I closed the tab because I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

My sons and I played inside yesterday afternoon because it was rainy. We did puzzles and read stories and played a game where we take turns pretending to be superheroes and rescuing trapped toys and putting the bad guys in jail. The whole time I kept thinking about the boys who raped that girl. I couldn’t stop. I smelled my kids’ hair and hugged them hard and I couldn’t stop thinking who are those bastards and how did they get that way and what do their mothers think .

I have never been raped. I only know what it is to be ogled, hooted at, thought of as public property. I know I am lucky. Now I am a mother of sons. People say at least you never have to worry about them. At least you don’t have to get out the shotgun when the boys come to the door. And I never say when what boys come to the door? These boys, my boys? Any boys? The bad boys?

How do I make sure these boys, my boys, are never those boys.

And you say – and I say, too- of course not. They are sweet and wonderful and smart and funny and respectful and polite.

But where do those boys come from. They come from somewhere.

The ones who think it is OK to rape.
The ones who think it is OK to watch.
The ones who think it is OK to film.
The ones who think it is OK to put the film on the Internet for the whole fucking world to see.

That’s a lot of boys.
And probably some girls too.

Because I am all clenched up about this and it’s not because I am insecure in my parenting or because I think there should be greater controls on what kids can post on Facebook, it’s because there is still shit like this going on in the world, STILL, after hundreds and hundreds of years of evolution and poetry and science, there is STILL THIS SHIT going on in the world, men and boys are STILL RAPING because they think it’s OK,

breathe

I direct you away from here, to a place I just visited for the first time today, called Violence UnSilenced. It is a safe space for people to share their stories of being hurt. It is a place that gives survivors a voice, that they might be supported by the community. If there is a light on it, maybe it will stop.