When a rape survivor and rapist came face-to-face
I was raised in a world where girls are taught that they get raped for a reason. Their skirt was too short, their smile was too wide, their breath smelled of alcohol. And I was guilty of all of those things, so the shame had to be mine.
It took me years to realise that only one thing could have stopped me from being raped that night, and it wasn't my skirt, it wasn't my smile, it wasn't my childish trust. The only thing that could've stopped me from being raped that night is the man who raped me — had he stopped himself.
These words are, at the same time, both empowering and saddening. Empowering because the words clearly suggest that a rape survivor bears no responsibility of what happened to them. It is saddening because we live in a world where, more often than not, rape is blamed upon the survivor as well, if not just upon the perpetrator.
These words were spoken by Thordis Elva, an award-winning writer, journalist and public speaker, who, in a TED Talk, did something absolutely extraordinary. She teamed up with Tom Stranger, a man who had raped her more than 18 years ago, and the duo talked about a pandemic that remains something of a taboo despite its reach – rape.
In a captivating and rather surreal talk, both Thordis and Tom begin to dissect the idea of rape, the conventional beliefs of how it happens and the notions people build around it. Tom raped Thordis in 1996, when they were both teenagers. It was their prom and both of them were inebriated. In a fit of masculine entitlement, Tom did not wait for Thordis’ consent to have sex with her.
They both admit that neither one of them for a long time did not acknowledge this as rape. This was, in Thordis’ own words, something that “didn't fit my ideas about rape like I'd seen on TV. Tom wasn't an armed lunatic; he was my boyfriend. And it didn't happen in a seedy alleyway, it happened in my own bed.”
For Thordis, the silence, and the instinctual victim-blaming (something that our society has internalised), led to a nervous breakdown. For Tom, the silence alienated him from his inner self. Both lived a life of darkness, until one day when Thordis decided to write to Tom and open her heart out, about what had happened and how she felt, almost nine years after the incident.
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| Photo: Screengrab |
The most unexpected thing happened then. She received a reply. A confession. This letter proved to be the turning point in both their lives, and it led to an eight-year-long chain of correspondence, and finally resulted in them facing each other. Being honest about their lives and trying to find a way out of their darkness.
Their conversations helped them realise a lot of things associated with sexual violence. In their TED Talk, Thordis touches upon something rather unique - the nomenclature of it all.
Given the nature of our story, I know the words that inevitably accompany it — victim, rapist — and labels are a way to organise concepts, but they can also be dehumanising in their connotations. Once someone's been deemed a victim, it's that much easier to file them away as someone damaged, dishonoured, less than. And likewise, once someone has been branded a rapist, it's that much easier to call him a monster — inhuman.
But how will we understand what it is in human societies that produces violence if we refuse to recognise the humanity of those who commit it?
And how can we empower survivors if we're making them feel less than? How can we discuss solutions to one of the biggest threats to the lives of women and children around the world, if the very words we use are part of the problem?
Thordis and Tom’s TED Talk is one of the most powerful attempts to create dialogue about sexual violence, consent and rape. They not only address the survivor, but also the perpetrator. They brush aside the instinctual need to exact revenge. Rather they attempt to find peace through words.
Maybe it is not something that would work for all. It’s something they admit themselves. But their story is one that gives hope. Hope that while sexual violence continues to reach alarming heights, there grows alongside an attempt to counter it through understanding, empathy and education.