Beginning to understand: Rape

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend and we differed, perhaps, for the first time, because he was a man and I wasn’t; I insisted he needed to be in my shoes to understand. His point was that reaction to rape needed to be unemotional; women need to consciously separate stigma from the whole idea to combat such offences. If we (women) looked at a rapist as we would look at a thief or even perhaps a plain murderer, we would put up a better fight, using our heads more than anything else.
I think it’s a little like saying men shouldn’t take bastardy or cuckoldry too seriously.
I then came upon an author who said she managed to write about one of her experiences of abuse in a novel. It wasn’t realistic, the fiction went beyond what had happened to her. And it wasn’t even rape. As a 17-year-old, she was “trapped” in the room of a boyfriend’s friend who was much older. As her boyfriend presumably slept in the adjacent room, this man insisted on giving her a massage. The fight lasted all night after which the man turned away and slept. Years later, she happened to come across him and questioned him bluntly. He made an excuse – “I was so messed up then” – and left immediately. The author smiled, relieved that she’d faced up to him even if years later.
Any man would react that all that the girl had to do was leave or take up her boyfriend on that. I agree. But at 17, I don’t remember being particularly bold. In most instances of physical teasing, I felt insulted most of all. As a child, a man (in his 30s) once tried to befriend me. I was attending music classes then, my father used to drop me off at the school in the morning and pick me up about an hour later. On that particular day, I happened to be early. I was new to the place and this man said I could ask him for any help I needed. Not even vaguely did I understand why a grown-up was being so considerate when I felt his hands moving up my thighs beneath my frock. I made an excuse and ran. Fortunately, I didn’t come up against him a second time; I am not sure what I would have done.
I must have been 10 or 11, I didn’t understand what was going on. Nobody in the family hugged or kissed much so physical touch in itself was a little weird. So I wondered if I was just uncomfortable although the man meant good. And if he didn’t, did he pick me because I appeared most meek? I wasn’t old enough, maybe, to feel insulted. I felt thoroughly ashamed. Like I had done wrong. I told nobody. I only told my father I did not want to go in early for music classes. I suppose I did manage the situation pretty well, I managed to fend off abuse. But it bothers me still. Not anger, only a strange sense of shame, and, fear.
There are other instances I remember, in school, on buses. Nothing traumatic but brief moments when I wondered what pleasure men got in abrupt groping or brushing or plain dirty talk. Or was it that I was being subjected to it, whatever IT was?
A few months ago, I was on a night bus. I was dozing off when I felt something creeping up my breast. Bugs I thought. Then realised that the passenger behind me had taken the trouble to lean all the way front from his semi-sleeper chair to have some fun. For a change, I felt anger before anything else. I asked him, loud enough, across the seat if he had a problem keeping his hands to himself. It didn’t work, he was at it again. I didn’t quite expect a busload of half asleep people to do anything about it. So I got my seat changed and sat behind the driver so I could catch some sleep in peace. Again, maybe I fended off a situation but something niggles still.
But maybe, a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have said anything to him at all. Was it the education, was it a salary that made me independent, was it plain fending for myself in a metro that made me slightly confident? I don’t know. At least, I have the satisfaction of looking the bastard in the face.
I think rape is only a difference of degree. You sexually assault a woman to make a point, you rape her, it has the same impact, again, only different in degree. It isn’t the plain physicality of the violence. A gash across the arm isn’t the same as a stranger clutching at your hip or posterior. It is perhaps something that sounds dangerously close to honour (that very feudal concept) but it’s not. It is something more intrinsic, something that separates the sexes. If it wasn’t why isn’t there anything comparable that a woman can do to a man? Why don’t I just grab a man’s balls in public to humiliate him or show him I’m smarter?