Philobiblon

“A young girl was raped not long ago while doing her paper round. In the news report, the police officer in charge stated: ‘This young woman’s life has been ruined.’ A rape counsellor was quoted and used exactly the same words…
My thought is this: if the act of rape is an expression of a need for power, wouldn’t that man — or any potential rapist — reading the report, receive confirmation that he has succeeded in what he has set out to do?… those most concerned for the victim seem, in a dreadful paradox, to be colluding in fulfilling his fantasies. And to what extent are we inadvertantly disempowering the child (and the rest of the female population) when we tell her that what has befallen her is irreparable? Every act of physical violence will have traumatic effects but what do we mean when we tell a young woman that her sense of self-worth can be destroyed by an act of enforced penetration? Are we really meaning to say that a woman’s central identity resides in her genitals?”
From Don’t by Jenny Diski, Granta, 1998, p. 137