I M Perfect lady

 

http://windsorstar.com/tag/ben-johnson

Above are links to the news story about a "fallen hockey player".

What is amazing to me, is how an act of rape is dealt with – in what is known as the rape culture.

What is rape culture?

Perhaps it is more the culture of denial.

How many, besides the court of Canada, believe that he did indeed rape this barely conscious girl?

How do we as a society treat these cases?

Who do we support and why?

How do we look upon the victim and seek all the ways she was 'asking' to be raped?

And, how do we also try and find all the good parts of the rapist as to minimize or reject his new label of rapist?

It appears that we as society, and his family, look for many ways to reduce the crime to nothing.  We seek to make her more worthy of rape and he less capable of doing it. To weaken reality to suit our various needs.

It isn't about reality, as much as it is about our various needs.

To me, only those who don't need him to be anything, can see clearer.

Those supporting his good image have the most to loose and their needs are high.

He was found guilty and sentenced for raping as Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe ruled… "the girl was unable to consent because she was “near-comatose.”

What I know to be true in sexual abuse cases is that the perpetrator is most often not believed, even when there are many who speak out about his abusive behaviors.

My father was a prime example of rape culture, in that the majority of his family supported him.  Only a few actually treating him like a rapist and not a father.

These not unusual cases, the 'fallen hockey player' and my father.

It is the rape culture.

We as a society, don't often hold them accountable for their behaviors.

Instead we seek to find ways to support them until the crime all but disappears from their character.

He, my father, didn't have to lift a finger to change his character.

His family did it for him.

His wife.

So too, is the 'fallen hockey player' able to do nothing…but, show in reality who he is, and have his family rush to deny it for him.

This rush to deny IS the rape culture.

The victim then is left alone in reality of just who this man is.

She sees him as the monster who preys upon "near comatose" women. Or, in my father's case little girls.  

The rape culture isn't about whether it was rape or not, it is more about how we change our minds about who this person is.  

Another part of the article that caught my eye, was by his lawyer, "Johnson who is now married, is not a risk to reoffend." 

How does this even come into whether he will offend again or not?

I do know, that it was shortly after he was found guilty that he married.

I thought, he is trying to paint a better image.  A married man.

My father was a married man too.  

That did nothing to stop him.

They speak of him losing his dream to play in the NHL.

There were many and are many, who had dreams for him.

And, none of them include him being a rapist.

Whose dreams refuse to be changed?

It isn't about the now, but the potential of who he was to become.

The victim's life is forever changed.

Her potential is greatly reduced, due to the affects from being raped.

How has his rape affected her world and who she will now be?

As we look at this case of someone familiar to us, whether it is because we too were raised in the FALC and know the culture in how men are superior to women, what do we see.  

Will we see how women in the church are treated.

How men dominate.

How sexual abuse is covered up and silenced.

What are we willing to lose to see the reality of a young man raping?

My world was completely turned upside down when I fully accepted that my father was a sexual predator. 

As the 'fallen hockey player' registers as a sex offenders list, will his family then see who he is?

My father was on a list. 

It didn't change his status from dad to sexual offender.

Many acts occurred; but few were seen.

For if you see them, you have to change your mind about the character of the man you thought you knew.

Denial is the culture of rape.

Only the strong will see and be able to change their image of him.

Very few will.

However, it doesn't mean that a rape didn't occur or that he is a rapist.

All it means is that you don't want to see him as a rapist.

Reality is there.

You want to deny it.

For your peace and perhaps a dream you once had.

You don't want to dream, a dream that is a nightmare.

Where dad's rape and molest little girls.

Where hockey players with the potential to play in the NHL rape near comatose girls.

You want a nicer reality, than what is.

To accept what is, means you lose your rose colored glasses.

Denial is a preferred place to live.

It appears nicer.

Reality unkind.

Brutal even.

I live in reality.

I find peace there.

Even when fathers and hockey players fall.

I won't raise a finger to wipe away their stains.

I am not responsible for how they act.

I am only responsible to see what is.

To hear the broken silence of victims.

We don't break dreams.

We live with nightmares.

Reality holds all.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

We deny nothing.