O.M. Grey's Blog, page 22

The Power of Responsibility

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Indeed. But it’s the other way around, too:

With great responsibility comes great power.

As adults, we take responsibility for our actions. Or, at least, that’s what we’re supposed to do. As mentioned countless times on these pages, one of the hallmarks of a psychopath/narcissist is to not take responsibility. Ever.

And that’s so sad, really. For it is in owning up to our actions and words, taking responsibility, especially when we fuck up, that truly gives us power. That truly makes us trustworthy. That truly shows integrity, not to mention maturity.

I’ve quoted from the Yes Means Yes blog before, and I wish I could just copy and paste the entire thing here for you to read. Thomas is seriously my hero. This excerpt is taken from “There’s a War On, Part 7: There’s a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In.” And, yes, there is a war, and, yes, I’m joining the front ranks. (Emphasis mine)

The only way we can really change what goes on is to change the culture, to eliminate the dynamics that allow the abusers to blend in and make their conduct look normal. We need to create environments where the abusers stick out like a sore thumb. It’s not easy to say I fucked up. It’s uncomfortable. It’s easier not to take responsibility. That’s how children deal with it: they blame the dog, their sibling, or pretend they don’t know. Grown ups take responsibility. I just don’t think there’s any serious downside to admitting to mistakes, owning bad judgments. The harm is done; acting grown up about it can only help the healing.

I hear a lot of people who top saying that they’re afraid of the conversation that has started, that they are afraid someone will name them for having done something wrong. I understand that. I don’t like being criticized either. But there’s a huge difference between being criticized for fucking up and blowing a boundary, and being criticized for deliberately blowing a boundary. The first is just ordinary human fallibility, and the second is evil. I do not believe that there’s any reason to think that people are going to be shunned if they fuck up and own it. Shit, all the people I know who have made serious fuck-ups doing BDSM, if they’ve owned up to it, they’re good with the person on the receiving end. (It’s a lot like doctors in malpractice suits: the statistics show that doctors who admit mistakes tend not to get sued, even for serious mistakes, while those who act like assholes and try to shut down the discussion do tend to get sued.) There may be a few exceptions, but as a general proposition, there’s every reason from human experience to believe that saying, “I messed up” is not only the right thing, but the smart thing.

And what we end up with is an environment where people don’t try to sweep the past under the carpet, where a top can say, “yeah, that went really wrong, zie went nonverbal on me and I didn’t realize how deep zie was.” If we can all just say, “yeah, that happened to me once,” we have an environment that the predators can’t really operate in, because when three people say, “yeah, ze did that to me, too …” the game is up. People who admit mistakes and learn from mistakes tend not to repeat them. People who tend to repeat the same mistake … well, usually it’s not a mistake.

And as we create the freedom to air this stuff, we come to the hardest part. We have to start to listen to what the issues are and decide how to treat the people who keep having the issues. Nobody is going to show up with a score sheet or bingo card and make it easy, we’re just going to have to pay attention and think about who is acting in good faith and who isn’t. If we really want to make excuses for our friends, we always can. We can explain away an infinite number of fuck-ups and blowups and badly handled scenes if we’re determined to exonerate. When our friends fuck up, we need to expect them to act consistently with good faith. If they don’t, we need to be willing to change our understanding about their good faith.

If you decide that your friends can’t possibly be abusers, you’re part of the problem. If you decide that anyone who is an abuser can’t possibly be your friend, you’re part of the solution. It is up to you whether you want to listen to the survivors and expect better from tops, or whether you want to pretend that you “don’t do drama.”

All I’ve ever wanted is to be acknowledged, to be seen, for him to admit he treated me abusively and deeply, deeply hurt me, and that he was sorry. For him to show a shred of compassion and humanity to me. I believe he didn’t plan to rape me. I’ve said so before. Something clicked in him and he didn’t stop. I froze up in shock at first and then tried to stop him. He either didn’t notice because in his anger he wasn’t present with me, as he usually was, or he just didn’t care because he believed I deserved the punishment and had to be put back in my place, or he just was in an aggressive and angry dissociative state. The second assault was definitely a sadistic power trip as I cried all the way through and afterward. He got off on it, and that behavior was new to that last week. I had never seen that before; he was a different personality completely that last week. Callous and cruel. Dismissive and dehumanizing. Exploitative and abusive.

All I’ve ever wanted was some accountability, respect, and an apology, not only for the sexual assault, but for the cruel treatment on every level. Think how much pain would’ve been avoided had he just been kind, just acted like a human being, just taken responsibility for his part and sincerely apologized. Took the time to let the relationship evolve and fade with love instead of being cruel and demeaning and condescending and abusive. What a difference a few weeks and some kindness would’ve made.

All I’ve ever wanted was some kindness.

So, the wise and responsible thing to say (now publicly and privately) would be that boundaries were crossed in anger without first obtaining further consent; that the subsequent behavior was cruel and uncalled for; that it seemed easier just to run away and not deal with it, which was cowardly and cruel; that intimacy was falsely created, as there was never any intention of a committed, loving, invested relationship, and that’s a deeply horrific thing to do, especially under the pretense of love; acknowledgment of the profound damage done to another human being, body, mind, and soul; and a sincere apology coupled with the willingness to sacrifice something to help the survivor feel heard, loved, and safe again, like, for example, Burning Man. After all, she’s sacrificed so much, including 6 months of her life, her community, her home, and her state.

Not much, really, considering.

And, in doing so, the communities would offer even more love and support. And, more importantly, respect. It would be a huge stride forward in sex-positivity and responsibility. It would be a huge stride forward for creating a safe place for survivors to speak and be heard and be believed.

But…Oh, That’s Right…

I saw this on Facebook the other day, and it’s so very true.

Apologizing: does not always mean you are wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego.

Of course, nothing is more important than a narcissist’s ego. Even now, melodramatic protestations of innocence don’t speak to what happened, as I have done time and again on this blog, to the communities, and to friends. Rather the narcissist hides behind bravado, indignation, and reputation. In short: ego.

Never taking responsibility. Never apologizing. Always my fault, my responsibility.

Always. Always. Always.

So, look at yourself. Right now. Do you want to perpetuate rape and rape culture? No?

Look at who you’re questioning and who you’re supporting. Just look.

What questions are you asking?

Are you saying, “She must be crazy! I know so-and-so, and he’d never do that.”

Are you saying, “How absurd she’s falsely accusing him! How dare she!”

Are you saying, “There are always two sides to a story, and it was probably just a miscommunication, at worst. I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”

Are you saying, “She’s just vindictive and can’t let go.”

Are you saying, “How dare she accuse one of my friends of non-consensually crossing boundaries, especially using The R Word.”

Are you saying, “If we talk about this it will become a Witch Hunt.” (poor metaphor, btw)

Are you saying, “If we talk about this people will falsely accuse people of rape willy-nilly.” (What a Nightmare Scenario!)

If you are saying these things, you are perpetuating rape and rape culture.

Just. like. people. do. to. every. single. survivor. that dares to speak out.

Way to fall into stereotypes, people. Wow. Seriously.

If someone says, “I was sexually assaulted,” the first question should be, “why was a person continuing with sexual activity when zir partner did not want to?” (Meet the Predators)

That is the question. That is the only question, and if the man accused owns up and takes responsibility and speaks to it, then, yes, maybe a misunderstanding. Maybe a mistake. Maybe a really fucking huge fuck-up that’s unforgivable, but it’s something to at least take responsibility.

If the man accused goes into knee jerk defense, throws up gorilla dust, turns on the crocodile tears, and refuses to take any responsibility whatsoever. Then, well…

For those who do believe and support me, and there are many, albeit not publicly, I can’t ever express how much that means to me. You truly have no idea how just a few simple words “I believe you” helps get me through the next day. Please don’t hesitate to comment on this blog or email me.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for hearing. Thank you for not perpetuating rape culture.

From Meet the Predators:

If we refuse to listen, he can continue to pretend that the rapist is some guy in the parking lot late at night, when it’s actually him, in our friends’ bedrooms half an hour after last call. If we let that happen, we’re part of the problem.

The rapists can’t be your friends, and if you are loyal to them even when faced with the evidence of what they do, you are complicit.

Want to stop rape and sexual assault in our communities?

Change the culture. To rape again and again, these men need silence. They need to know that the right combination of factors — alcohol and sex shame, mostly — will keep their victims quiet. Otherwise, they would be identified earlier and have a harder time finding victims. The women in your life need to be able to talk frankly about sexual assault. They need to be able to tell you, and they need to know that they can tell you, and not be stonewalled, denied, blamed or judged. (Meet the Predators)

Speak out with me. Believe survivors, even when they accuse “the nice guy.” Ask the right questions. Don’t stand for rape and don’t be the person who makes it more difficult for a survivor to speak and have a safe environment. And don’t let the Austin Poly Rapist become this guy.

By taking responsibility, that won’t happen. Societal transparency makes everyone safer, the survivors and the accused. Be human. Be an adult. Be accountable for your actions. Take responsibility. And show some humanity and compassion for the survivor.

Filed under: Romance & Relationships Tagged: austin burner community, austin ecstatic dance, austin poly community, austin poly rapist, author, bdsm, broken heart, burning man, fear, flipizen, flipside, grief, healing, heartbroken, honesty, intimacy, love, misogyny, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, polyamory, rape, relationship advice, relationships, romance, sex, shattered

Drink the Kool-Aid

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” ~Albert Einstein

.

Ted Bundy.

Charles Manson.

Jeffrey Dahmer.

Jim Jones.

These are the names that come to mind when someone hears the word “psychopath” or “sociopath.” But the truth is, most psychopaths/sociopaths aren’t serial killers. Most psychopaths/sociopaths don’t break the law at all. Most are so smart that they know how to destroy people’s lives and stay just inside the law. Most are non-violent (physically), but they are very much so psychologically and emotionally.

Now, for clarity, even the psychiatric industry can’t agree on the definitions for these two terms. Sometimes they’re used interchangeably. Sometimes experts say that psychopaths are worse monsters, others say sociopaths are. Some say they’re synonymous with Antisocial Personality Disorder. Some say all narcissists are psychopaths, but not all psychopaths are narcissists. Some say it’s the other way around. Some say they’re two totally different pathologies. Some say all three are.

Part of the problem is that experts have had very few psychopaths/sociopaths to study, and when they do study them, they are so masterfully manipulative and convincing, even to the experts, they can’t get a clear diagnosis.

So, for the purposes of this essay, and I think I’ve used the terms this way pretty regularly (without going back over every post I’ve written to ensure that statement), I’m going to take Dr. Robert Hare’s definition of Psychopathy (Author of Without Conscience), as he’s one of the leading experts on the disorder. Similarly, I’m going to use Dr. Martha Stout’s definition of a sociopath (Author of The Sociopath Next Door).

You can read up about both terms on your own, but basically, neither a psychopath, sociopath, or narcissist has the capacity for empathy. They are extremely charming. Both those things are across the board and agreed upon by every source I’ve ever found. Here is how I’ll use the terms:

Sociopath: Without conscience. 1 in 25 people do not have a conscience at all. That’s 4% of the population. They are likely born this way or something happens very young when that part of their brain is damaged and doesn’t develop. They are incapable of empathy. They are incapable of human emotion, except anger and frustration. They can mimic all emotions, including love and empathy. They destroy people for fun. No remorse. No shame. No guilt. No responsibility for their actions. There is no cure.

So, know 25 people? Statistically, one is not bound by conscience. One is a sociopath, and you’ll likely never guess who unless s/he picks you as their next target.

Psychopath: Has a limited conscience. Between 1% and 5% of people are psychopaths, according to Hare and other studies. Psychopaths seem to be created by a significant childhood trauma. They are incapable of empathy. They have genuine emotions, but they are very shallow and short lived. They do not feel guilt or remorse. They do not take responsibility for their actions. They are glib and/or superficially charming. They have a grandiose view of self-worth. Pathological liars to the point they believe their own lies at times. Cunning/manipulative. There is no cure.

Intelligent psychopaths, those with higher IQs, especially if they are also attractive, seem to be more along the lines of the Narcissist. From my extensive research, I believe that Narcissism is a type of Psychopathy, not the other way around. Even on Hare’s famous checklist, Factor 1 is even called “Aggressive Narcissism.”

Those psychopaths with lower intelligence seem to be more of the antisocial type, especially if they’re not attractive. They have a tendency to break the law and be petty criminals and stereotypical con artists.

Narcissist: Again, type of psychopath. Intelligent, charming, and very attractive. Many narcissists are sex-addicts (somatic). I’ve read that all sex-addicts are narcissists, but I haven’t done enough research on the two to have a firm opinion on that. Narcissism is a Cluster B Personality Disorder, and there are two kinds of Narcissists: somatic and cerebral. There is also what’s known as the malignant narcissist, supposedly an extreme form of Antisocial Personality Disorder with a tendency toward joyful cruelty and sadism. Narcissists, more or less, fit the description of a psychopath, factor 1. There supposedly is no cure, but in my research and in my personal experience, I’ve met people who claim to have been cured or who can cure narcissism.

I use these latter two terms more or less interchangeably, as they’re virtually synonymous, or I’ll use them together like psychopathic narcissist or narcissistic psychopath. But that’s rather redundant.

Dr. Marth Stout, in The Sociopath Next Door says this about narcissists:

The condition of narcissism is particularly interesting and instructive. Narcissism is, in a metaphorical sense, one half of what sociopathy is. Even clinical narcissists are able to feel most emotions as strongly as anyone else does, from guilt and sadness to desperate love and passion. The half that is missing is the crucial ability to understand what other people are feeling. Narcissism is a failure not of conscience but of empathy, which is the capacity to perceive emotions in others and so react to them appropriately. The poor narcissist cannot see past his own nose, emotionally speaking, and as with the Pillsbury Doughboy, and input from the outside will spring back as if nothing had happened. Unlike sociopaths, narcissists often are in psychological pain, and may sometimes seek psychotherapy. When a narcissist looks for help, one of the underlying issues is usually that, unbeknownst to him, he is alienating his relationships on account of his lack of empathy with others, and is feeling confused, abandoned, and lonely. His misses the people he loves, and is ill-equipped to get them back. Sociopaths, in contrast, do not care about other people, and so do not miss them when they are alienated or gone, except as one might regret the absence of a useful appliance that one had somehow lost.

When I first read this description months ago, I cried. A lot. It was the kindest, most compassionate view of a narcissist I’ve seen, and I have so much compassion and love for the man. Even still. The description speaks of such an underlying confusion and inability to fix what’s broken because they just don’t know what to do. To them, nothing really exists outside themselves, not in any real way. They love, but they can’t empathize. I cried and cried. I wanted desperately to reach out when I first read this, and it took my entire support network to keep me from doing so.

But the ball was not in my court.

Anyway, I digress. Imagine that.

Dr. Stout’s description of the narcissistic individual is very kind and compassionate, and it differs from Dr. Hare’s description of the psychopath in that she insinuates that a narcissist cares and sees other people as more than just objects to be replaced. Most other (in fact all other) things I’ve researched on narcissists aren’t so generous. Again, because of their grandiose view of themselves, they rarely seek therapy unless forced to. So little is known in detail.

Most accounts of narcissists explain how they discard a person with as much ease as a used wallet, and with as much emotion.

Narcissists are created, usually by a profound trauma in childhood, like say the death of a close family member or severe emotional/physical/sexual abuse. They can also be created by overindulgence and special treatment of an only-child (usually) or by a narcissistic parent. At the time of the trauma, the self is rather split in two, one part hiding away and the second becoming the mask of sanity. Many narcissists are frozen at an emotional age, like for example 12, when the trauma happened. This, as well as severe sexual abuse, could explain the sex-addiction common with somatic narcissists. There is no cure for narcissism, at least that’s the general consensus, but it can be managed quite effectively with extensive therapy, starting with dealing with the initial trauma.

Can’t run forever.

Unfortunately, so many people think “psychopath” means serial killer or psychotic axe-murder, and it does. Those are types of psychopaths (although they’re likely more sociopaths), but by far most psychopaths aren’t killers. They don’t break the law.

But they are no less dangerous.

Let’s have a look at what people said about Ted Bundy, a serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered over 30 young women and girls during the 1970s (wikipedia). He was “regarded as handsome and charismatic by his young female victims, traits he exploited in winning their trust.” Unlike the image of a “homicidal maniac,” he was attractive, self-assured, politically ambitions, and successful with a wide variety of women (that he didn’t rape or kill). He worked a suicide hotline in the early 70′s, and coworker said that he was “kind, solicitous, and empathetic.” His aunt one time witnessed a dissociative state in which he “seemed to turn into another, unrecognizable person…He turned into a stranger.” A prison official witnessed something similar: “He did a metamorphosis, a body and facial change…almost a complete change of personality” (wikipedia).

I’ve seen this happen, and it’s both terrifying and confusing. A man I once thought I knew has several symptoms of a psychopathic personality; i. e., aggressive narcissism. I saw this change occur briefly during the first sexual assault and then permanently (for me at least) starting the next day and for the rest of that last week, through the second assault and the end of the relationship. It was seriously as if he was a different person. He even looked like a different person, as I’ve said often on the pages of this blog. When I described his behavior to his ex, she said, “that doesn’t sound like [hisname],” and I said, “I know, that’s what I’m trying to say. Something changed. This isn’t [hisname].”

He’d also go into a dissociative state for sex. In his own words, time and again, he told me he could only truly be himself during sex. And there was a visible difference from the man in the bedroom to who he’d be when we’d get out of bed. Visible. He told me that even right after a sexual encounter, he often couldn’t remember what happened during sex just moments before. He even said he was in “a different state.”

Let me be very clear again, I am not even remotely suggesting this man is a serial killer, not by any means. Not even a little bit. Please don’t read into this. Seriously. But, unfortunately, the only wide evidence we as a culture have of psychopathic tendencies are those of high profile court cases like Bundy’s. Like I said before, the grand majority of psychopaths aren’t criminals in the legal sense. They aren’t physically violent. My purpose in pointing out the way others saw Bundy is how an entire community–even family members, spouses, GFs, friends, and coworkers–can be fooled by the very convincing mask sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists wear. Nothing more.

This is just about their skill at hiding their true selves. Nothing more.

Things aren’t black and white. There is a spectrum of psychopathic/sociopathic behavior, and Bundy is at the extreme end of it. There is a spectrum of sexual assault, and violent, forced stranger-rape, especially gang rape, is at the extreme end of it. It doesn’t mean “lesser” offenses aren’t perpetrated by psychopaths or aren’t considered sexual assault or rape. It’s a spectrum.

Now, the lets go down Hare’s psychopathic checklist:

Glibness/superficial charm. Check.
Grandiose sense of self-worth. Arrogance. Huge Check.
Pathological lying. Check. (And in my experience, they lie masterfully with half-truths or deceive as well as tell outright lies and hide things.)
Cunning/manipulative. Double and Triple Check.
Lack of remorse or guilt. Check.
Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric). Check.
Callousness; lack of empathy. Huge. Fucking. Check.
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions. Check. (paraphrased from a likely psychopath’s OKC profile “I take responsibility very seriously, therefore I avoid it at all costs.”

No empathy, but the narcissist wants plenty for himself. And he gets plenty too. After all, (everyone say it with me) they are very, very convincing. A narcissist can really turn on the tears when it suits him. One has turned them on for me, and I sure fell for it.

Hook. Line. Sinker.

Plus, psychopaths and sociopaths are surrounded by conscious-bound, loving, empathic people who haven’t seen behind the mask yet. Even when they catch a glimpse, they won’t believe it. So, of course they get empathy.

Dr. Stout says the sociopath’s greatest weapon is sympathy. They are masters at appearing to be the victim, turning entire situations around for their own benefit and playing on the heart strings of those around them. She calls this the “pity play.”

The most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy…When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless, and like so many of the other essentially positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups–social and professional roles, sexual bonds, regard for the compassionate and the creative, respect for our leaders–our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience.

But where is the empathy for others?

Here’s a story: two months after a specific narcissist split from his ex, they carpooled with another friend to an ecstatic dance retreat. On the way there, he spoke about how wonderful his life and his new relationship was (a woman he’s still with) in happy, excited tones. His ex, still in great pain from the breakup, had to listen to how easily he had moved on, feeling cast aside, replaced. She went to sleep because she couldn’t bear the pain. Just checked out. (Boy, can I relate.)

Where was his empathy then?

That same weekend, at the retreat, she broke down wailing and crying in the dance hall, in agony over the split and how easily and callously she had been replaced. While her community surrounded her and comforted her, much as they are doing for him now, he went out for a walk in the woods to get some peace and quiet.

Where was his empathy then?

As I cried and cried and cried during that last sexual encounter, more recently known as the second assault, he didn’t stop. Afterward, I continued to cry and apologize, terrified of losing such a significant relationship. Wondering what happened to the man who had told me he was happier when I was around and loved me and adored me and was crazy about me and attached to me just one week earlier, but he just got off and rolled over and went to sleep. Not saying a word to me other than to scold me for being upset.

Where was his empathy then?

Or, one of my favorite examples, is when he was so upset because I said I had felt neglected the night before. He asked me to take into consideration his feelings before expressing mine, which I, of course, always did. I took great responsibility for my emotions and for his. He scolded me in a cold, rational rage for not just talking to my husband about it and leaving him on his ego-high from the auction. I apologized profusely, swearing I’d do whatever I could to make that weekend perfect. The next morning, he raped me, punishing me for my horrific slight. Later that week, in the final devalue/discard, hours before the second assault, he said that he didn’t want to take my fears into consideration before doing or saying something. Huh. The exact. same. fucking. thing. he. asked. of. me. just days earlier.

Where was his empathy then?

Classic narcissistic behavior, when it’s about him (and, let’s face it, it always is), he expects concessions and responsibility and compassion. When it’s his “loved” one who’s hurting, it’s not his problem. Not his responsibility. When I was hurting or scared, there was no empathy. No compassion. It wasn’t his responsibility. It wasn’t his problem. He couldn’t be bothered.

Go talk to your husband, he’d tell me, I’m going to play ultimate frisbee.

And there are so many more stories and examples of where those came from. So many more.

So, yes, believe the narcissist. Empathize with him. Drink the kool-aid. It’s yummy yummy yummy (much as he tells you you are), but it’s drugged, helps you remain in the dark with blinders on. Helps you live that dream just a little longer, and I don’t blame you. That drug-induced dream is quite euphoric. Unlike that I’ve ever known or will likely ever know again. Such a sweet, transcendent drug. Ah, yes. That connection was so gorgeous…

But the withdrawals are a bitch.

Anyway. The point is…when I use the word psychopath or sociopath on the pages of this blog, I’m not saying “serial killer.” I’m using the terms as defined above, mostly: lack of empathy and/or conscience, those very things that make us human, along with the rest of the checklist.

It’s not all that absurd, really.

If the Vibrams fit…

-_Q

Related blog posts:

A Crack in the Fragile Shell
Authentic vs. False Self
Emotional and Sexual Predators
Emotional Vampires/li>;;
Love Bombing, Sex, and Flattery
Celebrating Arrogance
Insidious Lies

-_Q

For some very *very* interesting reading, check out these blogs and posts by sociopaths & psychopaths as well as others who are close to them. You can see for yourself how they think and how very well they manipulate.

SociopathWorld
Mask of Sanity
Psychopathy Awareness
Inside the Mind of a Psychopath
Experience Project: I am a psychopath
Love Fraud
Narcissism Revisited- extensive writings on narcissism by a cerebral narcissist
Psychopathy, the mask of sanity

Please remember that the definitions of these words vary from site to site, some use psychopath the way Stout used sociopath and sociopath he way hate uses psychopath. Forget about the label and look at the characteristics.

And…if you really, really can’t stand the use of the words psychopath, sociopath, or narcissist. Call them Darth Vaders or Dark Souls or Monsters or just “Players” or “Bad Boys.” A narcissist called by any other name does as much damage. Rape by any other name is still rape. Just learn to recognize these dangerous people (men and women) early so you can stay away from them and protect your hearts and your souls.

Filed under: Lost in the Aether, Romance & Relationships Tagged: austin ecstatic dance, austin poly community, austin poly rapist, austin polyamory, austin sex positive, austin yoga studio, author, blame, broken heart, charles manson, compassion, emotional rape, empathy, fear, grief, guilt, healing, heartbroken, human emotion, incapable of empathy, jeffrey dahmer, jim jones, lies, love, manipulation, martha stout, misogyny, narcissism, narcissist, narcissistic personality disorder, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, pathological liar, pity play, polyamory, psychological rape, psychopath, psychopathy, psychopathy checklist, rape, rapist, relationship advice, relationships, responsibility, robert hare, romance, self esteem, sex addiciton, sexual assault, shame, shattered, social responsibility, sociopath, sociopath next door, sympathy, ted bundy, without conscience

Out, Damned Spot, Out!

Each of these excerpts below are from other blogs talking about the topic of outing a rapist. I did all this research weeks ago and set this blog post up to publish about two weeks ago. Since then, my rapist outed himself, believe it or not, in a public forum by trying to protest his innocence.

It’s been interesting to say the least, and I just hear bits and pieces. I’m so not engaged. I’m free. See my post yesterday “The R Word” for more info on that.

So, yes, some good points here. Largely, why is a reputation of a possible rapist more important than survivors’ safety? Because if their behavior is close enough to be called into question, than that’s a huge red flag of a very dangerous person.

How to Out a Rapist

Excerpt:

Thanks to a widespread culture of victim-blaming and rape apologism, attackers usually have it pretty cushy. Victims are still not likely to report the assault and when they do they’re very likely to be blamed for it—an awful reality that re-traumatizes the victim and paves the way for future rapes.

So making the world more uncomfortable for rapists—letting them know that there will be consequences that include public shaming—is something I’m entirely at ease with. Especially considering how often women are silenced around issues of sexual assault. Sometimes that silence is enforced through a culture that makes women afraid to come forward, but sometimes that silencing is explicit.

In 2007, for example, a Nebraska woman and her attorneys were banned from using the words “rape,” “victim,” “sexual assault”—even “sexual assault kit” in a rape trial lest they prejudice the jury. From Dahlia Lithwick:

The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they’ll just have to read the witnesses’ eyebrows to sort out the difference.

Something tells me mugging victims have never been ordered not use the word “rob” when recounting the crime committed against them—but when it comes to sexual assault, logic and human decency always seem to go out the window.

We live in a country where a videotaped gang rape can result in a hung jury, where jokes about raping a woman are still considered hilarious and where the seriousness of sexual assault is so minimized that writing a research paper on rape is actually considered a reasonable punishment for attackers.

Rape survivors know that there’s a world of shame and stigma that awaits them should they speak up. In this kind of environment talking about sexual assault—let alone reporting it—is not just difficult, it’s straight up heroic.

Preventing victims from naming their attackers—or in this case, even acknowledging the assault—sends the message that rapists’ reputations are more important than a victim’s right to speak up. Savannah Dietrich refused to be silenced. Supporting victims’ voices should be a no-brainer—whether they’re on Twitter, in a courtroom or scrawled across a bathroom wall.

Publicly Outing Rapists

Excerpt:

Why is publicly outing someone who has perpetrated rape so often seen as hurting their reputation or stigmatising them?

My understanding of publicly outing someone as a rapist is so that everyone they come into contact with can know their history and choose their level of engagement with that person based on the reality of what they’ve done. Don’t people deserve to know if someone has perpetrated rape? Raping someone is an action that can never be undone, so why is it so wrong for the truth of that action to be public for the rest of the perpetrator’s life? It seems to me as if people think that once a perpetrator has been “held accountable” through some process for their actions, they should be able to earn a clean slate, their name should be cleared and their history erased as if they had never raped in the first place. But why would we want to actively and purposefully cover up the action of rape? What is the incentive in keeping these things quiet, or in providing a future to look forward to where the rape is no longer talked about or known? Shouldn’t it be the right of the community and of everyone who will meet the rapist in the future to be able to make their own fully-informed decisions about that person based on their current behaviour/actions AS WELL AS their past history? Shouldn’t it be the perpetrator’s responsibility to prove that they’ve changed through their current actions and behaviours ALONGSIDE the truth of their past, rather than simply trying to cover up their actions? Wouldn’t publicly outing them provide an actual incentive for them to change their actions, knowing that everyone will be holding them to what they’ve done and far less likely to let them get away with repeat behaviours? Are we choosing to gloss over the fact that most rape is not a stand-alone action but is actually a repeat action based on a series of beliefs and behaviours? Most cases, this one included, are not singular actions of rape. They are repeat actions based on repeat patterns. Shouldn’t it be a matter of public safety for a person who has raped to forever have to hold the public awareness of that action? It’s not like they didn’t do it. It’s not like once they’ve said sorry or taken some classes or done a few things to make up for it that their history is suddenly wiped clean of what they’ve done. Rape is real. It is serious. It is an action that can never be taken back, and an action that leaves a permanent and life-long impact on the person who was raped. Are these things that we’re choosing to overlook because we want for things to go back to “normal” once they’ve left the public sphere?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape

Excerpt:

Here’s how it works: As soon as a rape accusation makes it into the news cycle (most often because the accused is famous), it’s instantly held up against our collective subconscious idea about what Real Rape (or, as Whoopi Goldberg odiously called it, “rape-rape”) looks like. Here’s a quick primer on that ideal: The rapist is a scary stranger, with a weapon, even better if he’s a poor man of color. The victim is a young, white, conventionally pretty, sober, innocent virgin. Also, there are witnesses and/or incontrovertible physical evidence, and the victim goes running to the authorities as soon as the assault is over.

But let’s face it, actual rapes almost never match up to this ideal. Most rape victims know their attacker (estimates range from 75 percent to 89 percent), most rapists use alcohol or drugs to facilitate the assault (More than 80 percent, according to researcher David Lisak), not weapons, and most of the famous men whose accusers receive media attention aren’t poor men of color. But once the accusation hits the news cycle, whatever pundit gets there first uses the non-ideal details of the alleged assault to argue that surely, we shouldn’t take this seriously, and other pundits nod their head in agreement.

Piling on the accuser with victim-blaming language, or questioning why this account doesn’t match what we think sexual assault should look like, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Millions of people are watching and listening as these rape myths are repeated ad nauseam. A 2008 study by Renee Franiuk, published in the journal Violence Against Women, revealed that these narratives make victims less likely to take their own experiences seriously and more afraid of reporting what’s been done to them. Advocates echo these findings: “Media attention around cases such as Kobe [Bryant] and Duke [University], where victim blaming is intense and daily, makes our work even more challenging,” says Stacy Malone, executive director of the Victim Rights Law Center. “It can cause victims to question themselves and silence them into not telling their experiences and not seeking services.”

A Lack of Consequences for Sexual Assault

Excerpt:

Just more than half the 33 students interviewed by the Center said their alleged assailants were found responsible for sexual assault in school-run proceedings. But only four of those student victims said the findings led to expulsion of their alleged attackers — two of them after repeat sexual offenses. The rest of those victims said discipline amounted to lesser sanctions, ranging from suspension for a year to social probation and academic penalties, leaving them feeling doubly assaulted. An examination of Title IX complaints filed against institutions with the Education Department revealed similar patterns: Eight students whose complaints stem from reported acts of “sexual assault,” “rape,” and “sexual misconduct” objected to the school’s punishment of their alleged perpetrators. All but one of these eight complaints involved lesser sanctions than expulsion and three ended in no punishment after responsible students appealed. Survey respondents reinforced the belief that schools fail to hold abusive students accountable. One respondent summed up the sentiment this way:

Judicial hearings almost NEVER result in suspension, let alone expulsion. … Alleged perpetrators still remain on campus, in fraternities, and on sports teams.

By contrast, some students, including Margaux, reported dropping out because of what they considered lenient discipline for their alleged perpetrators, whom they feared seeing on campus. Others said their alleged attackers violated school-imposed sanctions, often with little repercussion.

Victim of a Notorious Gang Rape Breaks Silence

Excerpt:

Alisa was just 16 on July 5, 2002, when she was sexually assaulted while unconscious in the Corona del Mar home of then-Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl. The details of what happened to her that night — she was videotaped while being assaulted on a pool table and penetrated with a lighted cigarette and pool cue — were played out in the courtroom and in the media and later sent her over the edge.

“That one night turned my whole life and existence upside down,” Alisa said. “I lost myself, my hopes and dreams — and there was even a point when all I wanted to do was die.”

But Alisa decided to go head-on and testify against her attackers, Haidl’s 17-year-old son, Greg, and his two buddies Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann. Her decision to speak out resulted in torment and humiliation on the witness stand, bouts of depression and drug and alcohol abuse.

This is what happens in societies and communities that are light on rapists. They are giving rapists the green light to do it again. And again. And again. They are saying their reputation is more important than the trauma caused to the victim. And subsequent victims. They are saying they’d rather doubt the victim than doubt the rapist.

Brutally raped three times, but no, they’re not “dangerous.” Insufficient evidence.

Do you know that one of my rape survivor therapists told me that in the US a judge *has* to tell the jury that of the man thought it was consensual, even with overwhelming evidence of violence an DNA, etc., they *can not* convict him.

Seriously.

So. It comes down to the word of the rapist. I’m amazed that even 3% see jail time. It’s no wonder my case didn’t have enough for a criminal case. Only 14% of reported cases ever make it to trial.

And 97% of rapists walk free because so many people won’t believe that one of their “friends” might be a rapist. One in 16 men are rapists, and I’m guessing that’s very conservative with drunken sex and coercion on college campuses. Know 16 men?

Do the math.

SASS
Sexual Assault Survivors Speak

Filed under: Romance & Relationships Tagged: austin poly rapist, author, bdsm, broken heart, fear, grief, healing, heartbroken, honesty, infidelity, intimacy, love, misogyny, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, open, open marriage, passion, polyamory, rape, rape culture, rape survivor, rapist, relationship advice, relationships, sex, sexual assault, shattered

The R Word

Cry rape.

How I loathe that phrase. It’s a misogynistic utterance that perpetuates rape culture and suggests that women lie about being raped. *Few* (about 1.5% of reported cases) women lie about rape. Anyone who lies about rape is the lowest form of life, in my opinion, except, of course, for a rapist, himself. But a person who lies about rape is pretty close to that level of low life.

I’ve been extensively researching rape and sexual assault in our society for the past six weeks. Some of my findings and sources I’ve shared on this blog, and I’ll continue to do so. I’m aware of the staggering statistics. I’m aware of how people react, and I understand why victims stay silent. But, even so, I’m not staying silent. Never again.

Two weeks ago, a fellow survivor and new friend invited me to talk with other survivors on a FB group discussing how to have the conversation about sexual assault and policing predators in our communities, as I’ve been talking about on this blog. She said my input could be really powerful, and she encouraged me to join if I felt safe in doing so. The importance of the discussion is paramount, and I’m thrilled to see the local burner community discussing it. I hear that the poly community is still spending a lot of energy on whether or not to have the discussion rather than having it, but that’s neither here nor there. And it’s really none of my concern anymore.

Although my new friend had started several threads and posted a link to my blog post to help get the conversation started, I knew that my ex might be a part of the group, so I didn’t accept her invitation at first. I just didn’t feel safe. Last week, however, after deciding to leave for CA two weeks early due to the unending fear of being in Austin because of these assaults, I wrote to her and asked her if she thought it would still be powerful for me to comment on the group. I felt inspired to hear her reports about how the discussion was going, and I wanted to commiserate with fellow survivors and be a part of the conversation I helped start. After checking with her that my ex wasn’t a member of the FB group, and she said he wasn’t, I decided to join the discussion.

It was indeed powerful! It was so beautiful! Survivors had a safe place to speak and community support, and I was part of it. There were survivors on there who hadn’t spoken out in over 30 years who felt safe to do so. Through this discussion we all felt safe. We shared opinions and stories, mostly privately because of sensitive information, but some publicly as well, keeping real names out of it. As you all well know, I’ve never disclosed the identity of my ex on this blog, real or playa name. Never.

For the first time in 5+ months I felt safe and heard and supported and loved.

But the safety for all of us was short-lived.

The last thing a survivor wants is to have her rapist show up.

But, of course, that’s what happened.

Again.

And, just as all my research over the past month showed is par for the rape culture, the community openly supported him. He protested his innocence and called out for support, and he got it. He offered to meet everyone to see what a great guy he is, and I’m sure he charmed them all. That’s what psychopaths do. He’s still in the conversation, although most of the survivors stopped talking, as they no longer felt safe either. That’s the last I saw anyway. Maybe they’ve come back by now. I don’t know.

I can’t know.

Because I, of course, had to leave the group. Just like I had to leave the poly community and dance community and stay away from Flipside. Just like I had to stay away from Barton Pool and most of the greenbelt. Just like I had to leave Austin. Just like I had to leave Texas. I’ve been afraid to go anywhere. My world has gotten smaller and smaller. I went through extensive therapy and counseling and healing and such to deal with the PTSD and fallout of the trauma this man caused.

Rape destroys lives.

Now, 2000 miles away, I’m finally starting to feel safe. I no longer have to look over my shoulder wherever I go.

I’m free.

For those of you who follow this blog, you know the struggle I’ve had over the past six months. Several times on this blog I explained, without getting too graphic, what happened, what 8 different sexual assault professionals said was rape. I’ve also said several times that no legal line was crossed.

Eight. different. sexual. assault. professionals. used. The R Word.

But he and the people who support him are acting as if I just woke up one morning and decided to accuse someone of rape. It’s absurd. Of course, I don’t blame anyone for believing him, as he is very charming and convincing, as I’ve said countless times. But if I was going to lie about it, I’d have a much better fucking case than I have. If I was going to lie about it, there would be a criminal investigation right now. And I wouldn’t have had to lie much either. Just the insertion of one little two letter word, and there would be a criminal investigation right now.

I didn’t lie.

I told the police exactly the way it happened.

I told all eight sexual assault professionals exactly the way it happened.

I told them what happened: they said it was rape. All eight of them.

They used the R word.

Again, I really don’t blame you for believing him. I still want to believe him. More than anything in the world. I would give everything I have, save my husband, for it to be all a big misunderstanding somehow, and I’ve said that several times on this blog over the past six months, too.

But not one kind word in nearly six months.

I didn’t come out of this relationship calling him a monster. I loved him and defended him for months.

MONTHS.

My therapist had to work weeks with me for me to even begin to see the underlying abuse. Because something wasn’t right. I felt violated. Assaulted. Abandoned. And I couldn’t understand why. Even though I felt like what we shared was transcendent, the loss of such a short-lived relationship should not have affected me so profoundly. But it did.

My therapist at the time said it was as if he was tearing the very fabric of my soul.

And yet, I still defended him. And yet, I still called out for any sign of a misunderstanding. Again. And again.

Nothing.

And yet, I still wanted to believe. Fuck. I still want to believe.

Ah, yes. The joy of the trauma bond.

But, I won’t believe. Not now. It’s too late.

So, those of you who doubt me and my story, please remember this:

Rapists almost NEVER admit to rape.

Especially if you call it “rape.” 1 in 8 will admit to rape if you describe the scenario but don’t use the R word.
This is not fun for me. I’m in survival mode, nothing more. I’ve been barely functional for the five-plus months, and now I finally know why…because I was raped. Only it was so masterfully enveloped in a consensual encounter and explained away afterward, that I questioned it for months. And months. Adding to the confusion and trauma. I haven’t been able to have sex for six months with any semblance of an emotional connection without crying, not even with my husband. Even the few times I’ve had casual NSA sex, it’s been extremely difficult to keep it together. I can’t even watch sex scenes in movies. This is the reaction of someone who has been raped.
I don’t lie. And those of you who know me, know that. You know my level of integrity. I still have people who knew me from HS tell me that I’m one of the most genuine people they’ve ever known. And if you know me, you know that’s true. Remember, I’m not the one who deceives lovers about having HSV2. He is.
Psychopathic Narcissists are charming, manipulative, and convincing. They are arrogant. They don’t take responsibility for their actions. They are incapable of empathy. His post on that group shows that he’s been reading this blog the entire time. He knows the kind of agony I’ve endured, and he hasn’t offered one kind word. Not one kind word. And then to show up in a place where survivors *had* a safe place to discuss and make it unsafe for me and for them, chasing his victim and other survivors away. That is a man with no empathy. Period.
Just because he hasn’t raped you doesn’t mean he hasn’t raped someone else. Like this guy, “married to a beautiful woman” who has no idea about the women (yes, plural) he’s raped, he’s “known for being a great guy, friendly and easy to get along with, a community/political activist, a fervent volunteer in the community, and a person who rises through the ranks quickly due to successes at work.” Sound familiar?
The community will likely never see the monster, as one has to get very close indeed to see the monster within. One therapist suggested that’s what the first assault was for, as punishment for getting too close. Who knows.
Think about the last six months, each time you were out with your friends or making love or laughing or dancing or swimming or something simple like going to a restaurant without having to look over your shoulder in fear…each time you loved and kissed and flirted and hoped…if you were falling in love, meeting someone new and exciting, dreaming of your new future, bringing each other to orgasm, I was doing one of the following: hiding away out of fear; breaking down; crying; talking to sexual assault professionals, therapists, lawyers, or cops; shielding my eyes so I didn’t inadvertently see his car when I had to drive past his exit on the way to work; in a state of catatonia; crying; having a panic attack; in yet another therapist’s office; crying; reading up on psychopaths or sociopaths or narcissists or sexual assault, as it was the only way for me to get through the next few minutes without breaking down again, without missing him so much I was nauseous, without remembering how blissful it was, without questioning how he turned on a dime, without realizing it was all I lie.

That’s what I was doing.

As much as I’d like to tell everyone exactly what he did to me and show everyone what he’s capable of, it’s not safe for me to post that here in detail. And If I’ve become anything through this ordeal, it’s self-protective. I have alluded to the assaults before in poetry as well as other blog posts, so you can look there if you choose.

For so long I just wanted to die, to fade away, to disappear.

But now, I’m not going to disappear.

Fuck no, I’m not.

Now I’m not going to give up or give in. Now I’m rebuilding my life after being forced to move 2000 miles away just to feel safe outside my own home. Now I know what sexual assault looks like, even the “gray” area, and I’m going to teach others.

Now I found my voice again. I’m no longer scared. I’m no longer frozen in shock.

I have found my voice again.

And I will tell anyone who will listen. Silence is the abuser’s greatest weapon.

So, did I “cry rape”?

No.

Neither instance was legally sexual assault, and I have never said it was.

Eight sexual assault professionals, including a legal advocate, a lawyer, and a PTSD/sexual assault recovery specialist said the first instance was rape. Forcible rape. And that’s when I started using the R word. Seven of the eight said the second instance was sexual assault, the eighth said it was sexual abuse. The cops said both instances in legal terms were “sexual exploitation” and “domestic violence.” Every single professional I’ve spoken with, including the cops, recognized the mind and actions of an abuser.

So, whether or not you call it “rape” or “sexual assault” or “sexual abuse” or “domestic violence” or just a real sadistic fuck using emotional manipulation and violent, angry sex to punish and hurt another person, it all adds up to the same thing: this is a dangerous man.

One of the reasons he’s so dangerous is that this monster hides behind such loving affection, happy-go-lucky attitude, a deep spiritual facade, and oh-so-rational words, that no one will ever suspect it. So, of course…

The community supports him and shuns me.

He laughs and smiles and jokes with them.

Of course he does, he hasn’t been traumatized.

He has “three wonderful relationships.”

Of course he does, he hasn’t been traumatized.

He goes to burning events and to dances and to Bedpost and to poly dinners.

Of course he does, he hasn’t been traumatized.

He goes on runs and hikes and swims without looking over his shoulder in fear.

Of course he does, he hasn’t been traumatized.

He has sex and cuddles and laughs and orgasms with his lovers.

Of course he does, he hasn’t been traumatized.

These things and more he and his assaults, body and soul, have robbed from me.

And all this time. All this agony. All this public processing. All this struggle. All this fear. Where one kind word from him could’ve eased so much of it. One “I’m sorry, let’s talk” could’ve saved me weeks of anguish and suicidal ideation. Thousands in counseling. It could’ve save me days of catatonia. Disassociation. Weeping for hours, days, weeks. Unable to write fiction. Unable to work. Unable to cook. Unable to pay bills. Unable to function. Suicidal to the point that my husband was terrified of getting off the phone with me, because what had happened to me was worse than death. Loss of hope. Loss of self. Loss of control. Loss of safety. All, by the way, common symptoms of PTSD and Rape Crisis Syndrome.

Playing with someone’s heart is not a game.

Playing with someone’s soul is not a game.

Violating previously established boundaries and sexualized aggression for punishment is not a game.

It’s rape.

And yet, nothing.

Not one kind word. Not one call. Not one text.

But even if he had texted or called, it still wouldn’t have changed the assaults. Admission and an apology, or even just acknowledgment of my anguish, would’ve gone a long way, though. It would have at least showed me he cared. That it wasn’t all a lie.

But it was.

Every “I love you.” Every “I adore you.” Every “Look into my eyes.” All of it.

That’s how much he loved me. And that’s how much he loves you, too. Just wait and see. You’re just a placeholder, just as I was, there until he’s bored or you no longer adore him unquestionably or just because he feels like it (because it is all about him, after all). I only hope you don’t let him in as deeply as I did, and it may not be as bad for you. That’s the thing that makes me cry still all these months later (and yes, I still cry every. fucking. day): I will never let anyone in as deep again. I may never trust anyone again, not after this deeply profound betrayal.

Thanks to him.

That’s his lasting gift to me.

So, no. I’m not “crying rape.”

I’m using the word eight. different. sexual. assault. professionals. used.

I’m using the word that describes what he did to me on every level of my being: psychological, spiritual, emotional, and sexual.

I’m surviving. I’m protecting myself. I’m using the only thing I have: my voice.

And, I refuse to stay silent.

-_Q

Filed under: Lost in the Aether, Romance & Relationships Tagged: apology too little too late, austin ecstatic dance, austin poly community, austin poly rapist, austin polyamory, author, broken heart, burning flipside, commitmentphobe, commitmentphobia, cry rape, emotional rape, Facebook, false accusation, fear, grief, healing, heartbroken, love, misogyny, narcissist, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, polyamory, psychological rape, psychopath, rape, rape culture, rape survivor, rapist, relationships, sex, shattered, sociopath, spiritual rape

“Look Into My Eyes” in SNM Horror Mag!

I’ve just seen that my poem “Look Into My Eyes” (along with many other fine dark poetry) is featured in SNM Horror Mag’s Dark Poetry section!

Yay me!

Filed under: News & Reviews, Short Fiction & Poetry Tagged: broken heart, fear, grief, heartbroken, intimacy, love, misogyny, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, poem, poet, poetry, polyamory, psychological rape, rape, sacred sexuality, shattered, soul rape, spiritual rape, tantra

A Letter to The New Girlfriend(s) of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

I didn’t write this letter, but I did put a personal contribution at the very bottom. This rather long letter below is taken from “About Relationships.”

Pretty accurate.

-_Q

A Letter to The New Girlfriend of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

by Dr. M. Analise Torelli, PhD.,MA,MSW,BS.

Dear New Girlfriend,

Let me preface this letter to you by acknowledging that you will not believe a word of it…just yet. Not for months, or even a year or two…or three…In fact, you may read it and go running to your amazing new man, your special King and newly found ‘soulmate’ for some reassurance that none of this is true. And he WILL tell you it is all a lie. He WILL deny everything. And I also expect that he will tell you it’s all the imaginings of his bitter ex-psycho GF. Oh yes, he will say, you are SO much better, his Princess, his One and Only Truest Love. And he will warn you not to ever believe a word of anything ANYONE ever says about him…unless it is all GOOD, of course! If you find out my real name, he will convince you most of all that you must never listen to a word I say or write, and that you should never EVER try to talk to me. You will believe everything he tells you. You will. I know. Because I did too. Once Upon a Time.

Right about now YOU, as the next one in line, are feeling like you hit the jackpot and won the lottery all at once. You could not be happier! You are happy, just deleriously HAPPY! You are dancing on cloud nine and ten and counting all your lucky stars. In less than a few weeks since you met Mr. Wonderful…online…of all places, you think you’re so completely ‘in love’ that you hardly know what to do with yourselves. You almost hold your breath until the next time you are together. He takes your breath away to just see that million dollar smile of his! Your heart just melts at the very sight of him. Already you are almost inseparable. In such a short time, days, or mere weeks, you crave him, and you are together every chance you can get. You have already been on some of the most romantic dates of your life in just a few weeks of first meeting. He is Romeo…and you are his new Juliet! The ‘ONE’…in a line of others before you who were also the “ONE’. But let’s not go there just yet. Let’s just stay with this dream for a little while. It feels SO good. How do I know? Because I was in that exact same Fairy Tale dream, not as long ago as you may have been told.

Right about now you are telling yourself, “Yes, but I am different than you”, even ‘better’ somehow. You say to yourself “I am the girl he always dreamed of”, and you know this because he tells you so. You are the one he has been waiting for all his life. The one who is so special, that only you can heal his troubled heart. YOU’RE the one to make him happy, his ‘everything’! He says it all the time. So it must be true. You know, without a doubt that you are meant to be together. It is fate and destiny. What did he ever do without you. You are his precious angel. It is the truly truest TRUE love story, if ever there was one! Even better than in the movies. He is your leading man. You are his leading lady. Your stomach is full of butterflies, you hardly sleep, you hardly can eat, and he is on your mind day and night. Well, those aren’t really ‘butterflies’ girl, that’s your ‘gut instinct’ giving you warnings. But you won’t pay attention. And neither did I. It’s all so deliciously GOOD!

Spoiler Alert: It feels SO good, because it is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…none of it is true, it’s just his Dr. Jekyl side that he lets you see at first. His best side, his ‘good’ image and persona are all he allows you to see right now. It’s his best BAIT to lure you in unsuspecting. Keeping you unaware of his true nature,…what you do not know are his dark secrets that he keeps hidden about himself. His Mr. Hyde side is the REAL DEAL and is saved for later, for when he grows tired of you (and he will, even if you cannot imagine it right now), he will show the dark abusive side only much later, when you begin to see that the reality and this dream are two different things. Only when you begin to question him. If you saw his real persona, the dark and dangerous Mr. Hyde side, you would RUN!…okay, you can go back to the dream now…

Close your eyes and count all those thousands of yummy kisses he has given you by now. Oh yes, if there is something he is an expert at, it is those kisses. (I will not tell you that they will dwindle and stop eventually. Right now you only imagine kissing him FOREVER and ever and ever!) Why! Sometimes you feel you can almost fly!, and you are probably floating on air everywhere you go. Your head is up there in the clouds. You see rainbows and sunshine and shooting stars. But you have no idea how thin that air will get one day. And I really don’t want to warn you. Not yet. I truly DO wish that the dream you are currently dreaming was as real as it seems to be for you. I do. I really really do.

It goes something like this; Every waking moment you have thoughts of HIM. Magical, wonderful perfect HIM. And your world has suddenly, VERY suddenly, taken on the rosiest hue! You are in Heaven. He is an Angel, brought to you by God himself as a gift, just for YOU! You must’ve been rewarded (finally! whew!) for something you did right. Your prayers have been answered…at last! He is a dream. A God. A funny cuddley snuggley playful little boy sometimes. How cute is that?! So thoughtful and loving and tender and sweet. So affectionate, he can’t keep his hands off of you. Oh! you feel so good and happy just to BE with him. And you tell him…and tell him…and tell him, ALL the time, just how amazing, sexy, smart, handsome, remarkable, perfect and special…and essential…he is to you already. In just a few short weeks. You feel you have always known him. You BELONG together. He has become your EVERYTHING very quickly. You have been swept off of your feet…literally! And there is your Prince right there to catch you! What a lucky lucky girl you are. Luckier than anyone in the entire universe. Lucky lucky YOU! You hum and sing as you skip down the street. It’s all SO hunky dorie wonderful. And the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause and Leprechans really DO exist after all! Isn’t it incredible? This must be REAL love!

You are certain that there is no other man on earth more attentive and more of a gentleman. There is no one EVER who could be SO much fun. Everywhere you go he is always holding your hand, or his arm is around you and he is constantly kissing on you,…oh yes!…all those wonderful delightful sexy kisses. Again, on every street corner, everywhere you go. Nonstop kisses. You can’t get enough of him. Right? You haven’t felt this way in the longest time and never thought you would feel this way again, but here you are…already so deeply in love with the ‘love of your very life’.(in record time! WOW, is this what swooning feels like?) Am I right so far? He is just that special. He is already your drug and you are addicted to him, to his very touch, his stories, his wit and humor, his compassion, his utter CHARM…to HIM…the whole package. Come to think of it, his charm is so utterly charming itself, could there be anyone more charming than he is? What a Prince among Princes, and YOU are his Princess in your very own real life Fairy Tale Love Story. How do I know this? Because it was the SAME dream, the same Fairy Tale Love Story…the same exact things he said and did with ME. But don’t believe that. Right now, anything I say to you cannot be true. I am the Evil Witch EX who just wants him back and is sorry she ever left him. (NOT!) Isn’t this who I am in the Dream?

By now he has told you all the ‘stories’ of how his EX’s were so horrible to him, that they just did not appreciate him, and they neglected his ‘needs’ and were abusive and critical and made him feel very bad about himself. If he hasn’t yet, he WILL very soon. Perhaps right now he is pretending everyone is friendly so you aren’t scared away. He knows to disparage one’s EX is a big RED FLAG and on the list of things NOT to say to YOU!…Most likely he has ignored this dating rule though. You will come to notice with time that the ‘rules’ don’t apply to HIM.

Oh! how those witches, those critical nags, haranged him and took everything from him and made him cry. His poor heart was broken, stomped on and smashed to a million peices by those psycho bitches! Awwww, how could they hurt such a wonderful darling adorable man such as he? Oh yes! Did I mention that they all had ‘issues’ and too many ‘problems’ and were ‘bad’ people? Oh sure, they were all probably, just like he says, even ‘psychopaths’ and liars themselves. They just never could ‘trust him’(don’t ask yourself why that is just yet, it may take you out of the dream you are in! Blame them too! Cling to his version that it was ‘all their fault’) Yes! It must be true, because even his family is backing him up on this as they all nod in unison when he tells you how terrible his last relationship was…the one with ME…just before YOU. Couldn’t be the entire family is just that much in denial and dysfunctional…right? I can assure you they are all well aware of the trouble he has caused, but their lips are sealed…They have found ways to punish him and cut him out within their circle, but they will never let you know this…let’s not go there right now either. Right now YOU are the CURE. They are counting on this working out…THIS time he has found someone so special that he could NEVER raise his voice or fist to you, but if he does, it means you were not the right ‘ONE’…nevermind that if it doesn’t work out, HE and THEY will blame YOU next. You did not hear this from me.

Go back to the Dream…and your dream man…and those dreamy dreamy kisses….

Don’t you agree that it is such a pity that this perfect man kept finding Miss Wrong all of his life. I mean, the poor pitiful fella has just had the worst luck with women hasn’t he? He has tried and tried with those witches. He certainly has. He never gives up, even if it means stalking them…but that’s also for much later. YOU are here now to change all that for him and make him so so so happy! He deserves the BEST! And the BEST IS YOU! WooHoo! Yep! Never fear…YOU are here to rescue him and make him feel better. You won’t make the same mistakes like they all have made. You will treat him better than all the rest…because you are the right ‘ONE’. After all he and his family say you are SO much better than any of his EX’s…and you believe it. I remember this part of the dream too. When I was told that I was “a breath of fresh air compared to his last girlfriend” as they all nodded in unison and made remarks about her that I almost could not hear under their breath. Yeah. Poor Prince Charming. All of his Ex’s were just awful. So terrible. Just horrible. But too bad for THEM now! It’s their loss! It’s all in his PAST! He’s all YOURS now! Wheeeeee!

Well, let’s not burst your delightful bubble just yet. It’s fun for me to reminice too. To remember the same EXACT things I felt, as I write this letter to you. Oh yes, I remember it all too well. In exactly the very same way. And that’s because he did exactly the SAME things. Said the very same things. Went on the very same dates, to the very same places. Held MY hand in the same way in the car with the same music on too. Looked into my eyes and kissed me a billion times. Just like he does with you. Pay attention here. He did the exact SAME things, and I felt the EXACT same way you do right now. A couple of years from now, (give or take) this point will be important to you as you sort your way out of the ashes of your life, the damage and cognitive dissonance that you will be left with after the dream is over and you wake up to the nightmare you are really in. Right now there is nothing I can say to you that you will believe. In fact, you must already view me as the sour or bitter EX. That’s the role I am cast in now, in this story you share with HIM.

You have probably been told that the break up was mutual, or even that HE broke it off and he tells you he is sure that I still ‘want him’. Am I close? It would take a miracle on the MOON for him to EVER be truthful and tell you that it was his RAGE, his lies, his ‘keeping his options perpetually open, his words, his neglect…the hours on porn and singles sites, his abuse, his excuses, the cheating, his always blaming others…that cost us our ‘Dream’. The truth is that I left and moved so far away…SO far away, where I was safe from both his lethal violent side and his charm. I am not angry, and I certainly don’t want to be with him. Hello? Pay attention to logistics here and wonder why a woman would move SO far away and leave behind such a ‘wonderful man’, and everything she loved?!! I wrestle with myself not to say this. But the truth is that of all the people I have met in my entire life, I wish with all my heart that I had never met him. NEVER. Not ever. I could not mean this more. And because I truly thought I loved him once too, that makes me incredibly sad.

His lies robbed me of the information I needed to make the important choices for my life and those I love…his lies cost ME dearly. His abuse ripped my soul and took my health. I lost my confidence and my always cheerful personality. I lost the ability to trust…so much so that I became an Investigator to help restore truth in other people’s lives. He took from me what I deserved to know. That he was a violent man and had a record of abuse a mile long. I would never have had coffee with him, let alone give him a second look if I had known. And he knows this. He knows this about YOU too. And he will do anything to keep you from knowing the truth, including denigrating me and calling me a liar and saying that I am ‘crazy’ and ‘jealous’ so you will not believe me. I am risking much to try to save you. But you will only realize this later…later when the dream you are in right now comes to an end. I am sad to tell you that it WILL. One day it will. Because if it doesn’t, you will not survive. Either emotionally and spiritually…or even worse…physically. When you wake up one day and see the damage he has really done and does still to everyone who dares to truly love him, including YOURSELF, that’s when your heart will be broken too.

Another SPOILER ALERT: Now comes the part where you must wake up! But you can save this part for when you are ready. Don’t read any further if you want to sleep in just a little bit more. I wish you were ready for some reality right now as I would like to find a way to protect you and spare you from the destructive nightmare that your ‘dream’ WILL become. I wish your dream would last forever. You won’t believe this either, but I do. There will come a day when small chinks in his armor will begin to show thru. A precurser to the big ones. It might happen sooner, or it might happen later. The timing is not relevant. What matters is that just like everything else is the same in this dream you are in at ‘the beginning’, so will ‘the ending’ be…the very same…a nightmare. Perhaps some details will change here and there…but it WILL end, and you will be hurt. Your sweet and giving heart that’s so full of love and stars for him, so full of unabashed joyful promise, so innocent of what’s to come…will one day feel as if it has been broken beyond repair.

NO! you say?! This is real and it will never end. It’s too bad I feel this way, but it will never be like this for YOU. Ah! sweet girl, it will. Unfortunately, it will. He might try harder this time and do better. The dream may last longer this time with you. He may be determined that this time you won’t leave him. Rejection and abandonment are his biggest fears…right up there with exposure. But the minute you become familiar, perhaps a little boring, or doubt him or question him, or wonder and ask for some clarity about his behavior, he will begin the dance of devalue and discarding you. Oh he will NOT discard or leave you. He won’t break up with you all at once. Instead he will begin to torture you with abuse and neglect and blame, cheating and lies. Then when the push and pull, hot and cold rollercoaster ride he takes you on begins in earnest, you will feel it. And it will hurt. If you are anything like ME, (and you are) you will try to fix things, make things go right. You will lay awake in bed alone and long for him to return to that man you first fell in love with at the beginning when your dream was so new and so wonderful. But at this point you will rarely see him again. Instead, he has become the REAL persona that he IS. Mr. Hyde. If the lovely Dr. Jekyl ever comes back, it will only be at brief intervals, until he vanishes forever. Things will never be the same after this. They can’t. Now you know too much about him and he must be sure no one else will know. Now you become the ‘crazy one’ who ‘harangues’ him…and very soon you will be in my shoes…IF you can escape…

Oh, He WILL be Dr. Jekyl AND Mr. Hyde for you off and on, for a while…and then he will turn sour, sullen and furious!…and then sweet and attentive again, then suddenly rage, then just as quickly smile and kiss you, and then grab you by your hair and threaten to throw you down the stairs, then wrap you in his arms and say he is sorry and he loves you and it will never happen again. Then even the fake apologies will stop. Then he will be protective of you…then barrel down the street at 160 kilometers/hr in a rage when he thinks someone cut him off and risk your life. You will begin to notice that he is SO easily offended. He expects absolute ‘respect’ and to be noticed and if his ‘Dr.Jekyl’ act doesn’t garner the attention and admiration he seeks from others, then his ‘Mr. Hyde’ true self will angrily demand that they notice him! Did I mention the temper tantrums? Oh yes! THOSE! No mere 2 year old could out-do HIS ‘pitching a fit’! Yes! The tantrum part is a lot of fun. Very entertaining. He will whine and mutter and hiss and spit too. And when this happens, you will be shocked. To hear a grown man, nearly 50 years old…whine like a little girl, well it’s all so NOT pretty to see. This will continue…In cycles. Wash, rinse and repeat!

He will scream at you, laugh at you and put you down. The tantrums will get louder and longer. He will step on the toes of tiny little elderly ladies and scream at THEM in the street in front of many witnesses. He won’t care! His perfect ‘Father of the Year’ act will falter and he will rage at and hit his kids right in front of you. He’ll no longer try to hide it. He will complain about every other thing and break objects when he is angry. Then he’ll smile and make a joke. He will neglect you for days and then romance you for a few hours. Up and down and all around. Small things at first, then HUGE! He will make you doubt yourself, mock you and tell you how stupid and inadequate you are. He will play mind games in earnest and play them to WIN. And he will be creul. He will slowly, ever so subtly, erode away your dignity and confidence. He may eventually beat you and bruise you too, as he has done this in every other longterm relationship. But he has been in trouble for abuse and violence so many times now that he’s on the radar of the local law enforcement. So it’s possible he may not go quite this far…with YOU…as he knows the next time he gets violent, he will go to JAIL! Literally! But you will be abused. You will cry as much as you smile at this stage. Then, if you don’t leave him at this stage, you will lose that smile, completely.

Your health and appearance will suffer. Your relationships with your family and friends will suffer too because they will begin to notice things about him that they don’t like, and will be puzzled that you stay with him. You will reach out to them and tell them about some problems and things he does, and they will get tired of hearing it when they offer their advice and support and yet see that you stay with him for more. This is when you begin to lose your dignity. You will even question your own sanity to stay with this man, who once was your Prince, who’s issues clearly go beyond the problems of someone who told you he maybe “wasn’t perfect” sometimes.

He will eventually be who he IS. Nothing you can do will prevent his eventual transformation back into ‘Mr. Hyde’. He IS a very unstable, angry, violent and selfish man with a personality disorder and character flaws that you cannot heal. And being with him will destabalize YOUR life, even your children’s lives and affect them!… If you don’t believe this right now, promise yourself that you will get out immediately at the first sign that what I am telling you is true…For THEIR sake, if you can’t leave him for YOURS! After quite a while of this stage, when you keep trying harder to please him…meeting all his needs…you will notice he will be up all night,…night after night on porn for hours. Hours and hours and hours. Looking like an absolute BOZO the CLOWN totally oblivious you are standing thereas he’s stupidly staring at, talking to and masturbating to some naked women on a computer screen with his pants around his ankles. Just like some common heavy breathing pervert. Yep! That’s the same Prince Charming you are with…right this minute! Take a good look! Not quite the picture of who he seems to be right now, is it? There will be hang up calls and calls from Other Women asking for him and wondering who you are? You will begin to recognize the signs of deceit,(such as, leaving in the morning wearing his ‘special underwear and after-shave on Tuesdays and Thursdays and returning home smelling like…well…SEX…later ) You WILL begin to notice things are a becoming a little ‘different’, even though he is well practiced at hiding and denying that he cheats…And DO listen girl. No matter what he says, how he lies, how he denies…he DOES cheat. And he WILL eventually cheat on YOU.

Oh yes, sorry to let you in on his dirty little secret life so soon. You see, no amount of your ‘trying’ and loving him really really good and really really hard,…will change this about him. Eventually he WILL seek more attention from others. It does not matter how pretty you are, or what a good cook you are, or how sexy and wonderful you are in bed or in the kitchen. It doesn’t matter if you are as gorgeous as ‘Hollie Berri’ or ‘Elizabeth Hurley’ and ‘Christie Brinkley’. Being one of the prettiest, smartest and wealthiest, most talented women in the world won’t spare you or make you more special to him…later…when the newness wears off…and it will!. It won’t matter if you dye your hair like mine and make yourself over to look like ME! (nice try BTW, coz now you kinda look like my cousin) His need for attention and validation is endless and vast and no one woman can fill him up…right now he assures you that you are all he needs…but it’s just another one of his lies.

There is so much more to tell you, but I will spare you the rest, I think you have heard enough to figure your way out, eventually…when you need to save yourself! I can only hope that you have paid attention. But I’m fairly certain that you won’t, just like I wouldn’t have either. Right now you love this Fairy Tale True Love Story and imagine with all your might that you really truly love him. That what you have with him was ‘meant to be’. You have no idea that the man you love right now does not exist. You will cling to this ‘dream’…and HIM for dear life.

You think he loves you. He tells you he loves you SO much. You believe it with all of your heart. And it is so sad for me to tell you this too, but he does NOT know how to love anything or ANYONE…but himself. He can sure fake it to be even better than the real thing though! He is not really Prince Charming, andmore than a Narcissist. Because he is also violent and has been in trouble with the law so many times, because of this he is technically classified as a Psychopath. I can assure you that he is dangerous, in SO many ways. Your spirit, soul…heart and body are in mortal danger, the longer you are with him. So please. Just for a moment, stop to ponder this. Right now, He has convinced you…ever so swiftly…engaged you SO fast…bonded with you so tightly…WHY the rush?, is it because you and HE are just that special? Is there really such a thing as ‘fate’? Or was it his intention to romance you so quickly that your head would be in the clouds and you would not pay attention to those ‘Red Flags’..in hopes that you might never find out the truth that this ‘dream’ he created for you was well practiced with all the manipulations he perfected on the “ONE”s before you. He hopes you will not see these truths about HIM. The truth is that you are really in a nightmare and you won’t know it….until the damage is done and it’s too late for you too…

That’s one truth I hope with all my heart…that doesn’t turn out to be true…

XO,

The EX-Girlfriend

-_Q

Go to the original site for a reading list to help you spot the psychopath.

Also, if you’re one of my ex’s “three wonderful relationships” or someone even newer than that, for he must already be bored with them (or soon will be: 80+ women in 15 yrs), add the following onto the dream described above:

multiple energy orgasms
big blue eyes crying about how much he hopes his ex is okay
how all his exes couldn’t deal with the non monogamy because of their jealousy, how they wanted “all of this” for themselves, but you’re different
body buzz
“are you here yet?”
telling you that although he has other GFs, this bond is deeper and more special. In fact, he doesn’t even know why he stays in that other relationship because he’s not turned on by her and often feels obligated to have sex with her. He cant be vulnerable with her and she just won’t open up to him. But, he decides, he’ll keep her around because he wants the “option to be sexual with her when he wants to be” (and, yes, he really said that. And, yes, he’s still with her.)
“spiritual” sex unlike that you’ve ever known
“Look Into My Eyes“
lapping up your nectar while still maintaining eye contact
telling you how yummy you are
how great your communication is
how your souls come out between you and merge

It’s all a lie…

By the time he’s telling you “I love you” several times a day, how he adores you and is crazy about you and is attached to you. When he starts missing you when you’re not there. When he says he’s happier when you’re around than when he’s alone, which is so scary for someone as independent as he is…when these things happen, the end is nigh.

As for when you wake up to see the monster one day, and you will (you’ve likely already seen glimpses that you’ve dismissed) replace the physical violence described above with this:

if you ever dare to question him while he’s on an ego high, expect to be punished by rape, just on this side of the law so you cant actually do anything***, followed by the coldest cruelty you’ve ever experienced, devaluing and discarding, after a second sadistic sexual assault, that is. It’s truly horrifying when he finally let’s you show emotion, how much he gets off on the pain he’s causing. Truly horrifying.

Just keep admiring him, worshipping him, letting him do whatever he wants whenever he wants no matter who it hurts or humiliates, praising him, fucking him on his terms, pretending that you don’t see the Jekyll & Hyde behavior, pretending that you’re not aware of the increasingly overt emotional abuse, pretending that you don’t see the drastic personality shift the moment he’s no longer in “romantic mode,” excuse away how he can only truly be himself through sex (ignore that it’s a dissociative state common to severe sex addiction), pretend that its okay he deceived you about his STD weeks or months because it’s such a low risk of transmission he’s justified in making that decision for you, let him blame you for everything because it could never, ever be his fault or responsibility, let him put you on the back burner while he looks for something new and better, dehumanizing you because you have the audacity to have fears and insecurities and doubts and misunderstandings, accepting the scraps he throws your way, and you’ll be just fine.

You might even last a year that way. Or if you’re really, really unfortunate, three. And by that time, you’ll be so completely trauma-bonded and brainwashed into his reality, you’ll let him keep you on the side tossing scraps your way now and again. And although you’ll try to get away to heal, he won’t let you by that point. He’ll convince you to take the “love” on his terms, making you watch him fall “in love” again and again with new replacements, always keeping his reserve supply (you) on hand in case one of them has the audacity to tell him they felt neglected one night.

Just to be extra safe, open your legs for him if you must, but don’t open your heart to him and for God’s sake don’t open your soul.

But I don’t blame you for believing. I really don’t. He’s *very* convincing and skilled at what he does.

When your life has been shattered and he’s off to find his new, better victim who is “100% genuinely happy all the time,” I’ll be here to help show you how to pick up the pieces. Please don’t hesitate to contact me then.

Sincerely,

One of the *many* “crazy” exes

(Um, not the one who threatened to burn his apt down, who he had to call the cops on. No, not that “crazy” ex.)

(Oh! And not the “crazy” ex who has been his “stalker” for 5 years…just to be clear)

-_Q

***but just because he didn’t cross the legal line doesn’t mean you weren’t assaulted. Don’t let him explain it away or justify it by saying “I hope it’s okay if i got a little rough” after the assault. After you froze in shock at the sexualized aggression. After he crossed specific boundaries you had in place. After you tried to get him to stop or not be so violent. That’s assault. That’s rape.

And if you’re openly crying and terrified and he doesn’t stop and console you, then it’s at best emotional sadism and at worst sexual assault.

If you feel violated or assaulted, talk to a rape crisis center and tell them what happened. File a police report anyway. I did. For both instances. Then they can see a pattern of behavior. Stand up for yourself and your body.

Filed under: Romance & Relationships Tagged: author, bdsm, broken heart, commitmentphobe, emotional abuse, emotional rape, fear, grief, healing, heartbroken, honesty, intimacy, love, mind fuck, misogyny, narcissist, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, polyamory, psychological rape, psychopath, ptsd, rape, recovery, relationship, relationship advice, relationships, sex, sexual assault, shattered

A Letter to The New Girlfriend(s) of Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde

I didn’t write this letter, but I did put a personal contribution at the very bottom. This rather long letter below is taken from “About Relationships.”

Pretty accurate.

-_Q

A Letter to The New Girlfriend of Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde

by Dr. M. Analise Torelli, PhD.,MA,MSW,BS.

Dear New Girlfriend,

Let me preface this letter to you by acknowledging that you will not believe a word of it…just yet. Not for months, or even a year or two…or three…In fact, you may read it and go running to your amazing new man, your special King and newly found ‘soulmate’ for some reassurance that none of this is true. And he WILL tell you it is all a lie. He WILL deny everything. And I also expect that he will tell you it’s all the imaginings of his bitter ex-psycho GF. Oh yes, he will say, you are SO much better, his Princess, his One and Only Truest Love. And he will warn you not to ever believe a word of anything ANYONE ever says about him…unless it is all GOOD, of course! If you find out my real name, he will convince you most of all that you must never listen to a word I say or write, and that you should never EVER try to talk to me. You will believe everything he tells you. You will. I know. Because I did too. Once Upon a Time.

Right about now YOU, as the next one in line, are feeling like you hit the jackpot and won the lottery all at once. You could not be happier! You are happy, just deleriously HAPPY! You are dancing on cloud nine and ten and counting all your lucky stars. In less than a few weeks since you met Mr. Wonderful…online…of all places, you think you’re so completely ‘in love’ that you hardly know what to do with yourselves. You almost hold your breath until the next time you are together. He takes your breath away to just see that million dollar smile of his! Your heart just melts at the very sight of him. Already you are almost inseparable. In such a short time, days, or mere weeks, you crave him, and you are together every chance you can get. You have already been on some of the most romantic dates of your life in just a few weeks of first meeting. He is Romeo…and you are his new Juliet! The ‘ONE’…in a line of others before you who were also the “ONE’. But let’s not go there just yet. Let’s just stay with this dream for a little while. It feels SO good. How do I know? Because I was in that exact same Fairy Tale dream, not as long ago as you may have been told.

Right about now you are telling yourself, “Yes, but I am different than you”, even ‘better’ somehow. You say to yourself “I am the girl he always dreamed of”, and you know this because he tells you so. You are the one he has been waiting for all his life. The one who is so special, that only you can heal his troubled heart. YOU’RE the one to make him happy, his ‘everything’! He says it all the time. So it must be true. You know, without a doubt that you are meant to be together. It is fate and destiny. What did he ever do without you. You are his precious angel. It is the truly truest TRUE love story, if ever there was one! Even better than in the movies. He is your leading man. You are his leading lady. Your stomach is full of butterflies, you hardly sleep, you hardly can eat, and he is on your mind day and night. Well, those aren’t really ‘butterflies’ girl, that’s your ‘gut instinct’ giving you warnings. But you won’t pay attention. And neither did I. It’s all so deliciously GOOD!

Spoiler Alert: It feels SO good, because it is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…none of it is true, it’s just his Dr. Jekyl side that he lets you see at first. His best side, his ‘good’ image and persona are all he allows you to see right now. It’s his best BAIT to lure you in unsuspecting. Keeping you unaware of his true nature,…what you do not know are his dark secrets that he keeps hidden about himself. His Mr. Hyde side is the REAL DEAL and is saved for later, for when he grows tired of you (and he will, even if you cannot imagine it right now), he will show the dark abusive side only much later, when you begin to see that the reality and this dream are two different things. Only when you begin to question him. If you saw his real persona, the dark and dangerous Mr. Hyde side, you would RUN!…okay, you can go back to the dream now…

Close your eyes and count all those thousands of yummy kisses he has given you by now. Oh yes, if there is something he is an expert at, it is those kisses. (I will not tell you that they will dwindle and stop eventually. Right now you only imagine kissing him FOREVER and ever and ever!) Why! Sometimes you feel you can almost fly!, and you are probably floating on air everywhere you go. Your head is up there in the clouds. You see rainbows and sunshine and shooting stars. But you have no idea how thin that air will get one day. And I really don’t want to warn you. Not yet. I truly DO wish that the dream you are currently dreaming was as real as it seems to be for you. I do. I really really do.

It goes something like this; Every waking moment you have thoughts of HIM. Magical, wonderful perfect HIM. And your world has suddenly, VERY suddenly, taken on the rosiest hue! You are in Heaven. He is an Angel, brought to you by God himself as a gift, just for YOU! You must’ve been rewarded (finally! whew!) for something you did right. Your prayers have been answered…at last! He is a dream. A God. A funny cuddley snuggley playful little boy sometimes. How cute is that?! So thoughtful and loving and tender and sweet. So affectionate, he can’t keep his hands off of you. Oh! you feel so good and happy just to BE with him. And you tell him…and tell him…and tell him, ALL the time, just how amazing, sexy, smart, handsome, remarkable, perfect and special…and essential…he is to you already. In just a few short weeks. You feel you have always known him. You BELONG together. He has become your EVERYTHING very quickly. You have been swept off of your feet…literally! And there is your Prince right there to catch you! What a lucky lucky girl you are. Luckier than anyone in the entire universe. Lucky lucky YOU! You hum and sing as you skip down the street. It’s all SO hunky dorie wonderful. And the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause and Leprechans really DO exist after all! Isn’t it incredible? This must be REAL love!

You are certain that there is no other man on earth more attentive and more of a gentleman. There is no one EVER who could be SO much fun. Everywhere you go he is always holding your hand, or his arm is around you and he is constantly kissing on you,…oh yes!…all those wonderful delightful sexy kisses. Again, on every street corner, everywhere you go. Nonstop kisses. You can’t get enough of him. Right? You haven’t felt this way in the longest time and never thought you would feel this way again, but here you are…already so deeply in love with the ‘love of your very life’.(in record time! WOW, is this what swooning feels like?) Am I right so far? He is just that special. He is already your drug and you are addicted to him, to his very touch, his stories, his wit and humor, his compassion, his utter CHARM…to HIM…the whole package. Come to think of it, his charm is so utterly charming itself, could there be anyone more charming than he is? What a Prince among Princes, and YOU are his Princess in your very own real life Fairy Tale Love Story. How do I know this? Because it was the SAME dream, the same Fairy Tale Love Story…the same exact things he said and did with ME. But don’t believe that. Right now, anything I say to you cannot be true. I am the Evil Witch EX who just wants him back and is sorry she ever left him. (NOT!) Isn’t this who I am in the Dream?

By now he has told you all the ‘stories’ of how his EX’s were so horrible to him, that they just did not appreciate him, and they neglected his ‘needs’ and were abusive and critical and made him feel very bad about himself. If he hasn’t yet, he WILL very soon. Perhaps right now he is pretending everyone is friendly so you aren’t scared away. He knows to disparage one’s EX is a big RED FLAG and on the list of things NOT to say to YOU!…Most likely he has ignored this dating rule though. You will come to notice with time that the ‘rules’ don’t apply to HIM.

Oh! how those witches, those critical nags, haranged him and took everything from him and made him cry. His poor heart was broken, stomped on and smashed to a million peices by those psycho bitches! Awwww, how could they hurt such a wonderful darling adorable man such as he? Oh yes! Did I mention that they all had ‘issues’ and too many ‘problems’ and were ‘bad’ people? Oh sure, they were all probably, just like he says, even ‘psychopaths’ and liars themselves. They just never could ‘trust him’(don’t ask yourself why that is just yet, it may take you out of the dream you are in! Blame them too! Cling to his version that it was ‘all their fault’) Yes! It must be true, because even his family is backing him up on this as they all nod in unison when he tells you how terrible his last relationship was…the one with ME…just before YOU. Couldn’t be the entire family is just that much in denial and dysfunctional…right? I can assure you they are all well aware of the trouble he has caused, but their lips are sealed…They have found ways to punish him and cut him out within their circle, but they will never let you know this…let’s not go there right now either. Right now YOU are the CURE. They are counting on this working out…THIS time he has found someone so special that he could NEVER raise his voice or fist to you, but if he does, it means you were not the right ‘ONE’…nevermind that if it doesn’t work out, HE and THEY will blame YOU next. You did not hear this from me.

Go back to the Dream…and your dream man…and those dreamy dreamy kisses….

Don’t you agree that it is such a pity that this perfect man kept finding Miss Wrong all of his life. I mean, the poor pitiful fella has just had the worst luck with women hasn’t he? He has tried and tried with those witches. He certainly has. He never gives up, even if it means stalking them…but that’s also for much later. YOU are here now to change all that for him and make him so so so happy! He deserves the BEST! And the BEST IS YOU! WooHoo! Yep! Never fear…YOU are here to rescue him and make him feel better. You won’t make the same mistakes like they all have made. You will treat him better than all the rest…because you are the right ‘ONE’. After all he and his family say you are SO much better than any of his EX’s…and you believe it. I remember this part of the dream too. When I was told that I was “a breath of fresh air compared to his last girlfriend” as they all nodded in unison and made remarks about her that I almost could not hear under their breath. Yeah. Poor Prince Charming. All of his Ex’s were just awful. So terrible. Just horrible. But too bad for THEM now! It’s their loss! It’s all in his PAST! He’s all YOURS now! Wheeeeee!

Well, let’s not burst your delightful bubble just yet. It’s fun for me to reminice too. To remember the same EXACT things I felt, as I write this letter to you. Oh yes, I remember it all too well. In exactly the very same way. And that’s because he did exactly the SAME things. Said the very same things. Went on the very same dates, to the very same places. Held MY hand in the same way in the car with the same music on too. Looked into my eyes and kissed me a billion times. Just like he does with you. Pay attention here. He did the exact SAME things, and I felt the EXACT same way you do right now. A couple of years from now, (give or take) this point will be important to you as you sort your way out of the ashes of your life, the damage and cognitive dissonance that you will be left with after the dream is over and you wake up to the nightmare you are really in. Right now there is nothing I can say to you that you will believe. In fact, you must already view me as the sour or bitter EX. That’s the role I am cast in now, in this story you share with HIM.

You have probably been told that the break up was mutual, or even that HE broke it off and he tells you he is sure that I still ‘want him’. Am I close? It would take a miracle on the MOON for him to EVER be truthful and tell you that it was his RAGE, his lies, his ‘keeping his options perpetually open, his words, his neglect…the hours on porn and singles sites, his abuse, his excuses, the cheating, his always blaming others…that cost us our ‘Dream’. The truth is that I left and moved so far away…SO far away, where I was safe from both his lethal violent side and his charm. I am not angry, and I certainly don’t want to be with him. Hello? Pay attention to logistics here and wonder why a woman would move SO far away and leave behind such a ‘wonderful man’, and everything she loved?!! I wrestle with myself not to say this. But the truth is that of all the people I have met in my entire life, I wish with all my heart that I had never met him. NEVER. Not ever. I could not mean this more. And because I truly thought I loved him once too, that makes me incredibly sad.

His lies robbed me of the information I needed to make the important choices for my life and those I love…his lies cost ME dearly. His abuse ripped my soul and took my health. I lost my confidence and my always cheerful personality. I lost the ability to trust…so much so that I became an Investigator to help restore truth in other people’s lives. He took from me what I deserved to know. That he was a violent man and had a record of abuse a mile long. I would never have had coffee with him, let alone give him a second look if I had known. And he knows this. He knows this about YOU too. And he will do anything to keep you from knowing the truth, including denigrating me and calling me a liar and saying that I am ‘crazy’ and ‘jealous’ so you will not believe me. I am risking much to try to save you. But you will only realize this later…later when the dream you are in right now comes to an end. I am sad to tell you that it WILL. One day it will. Because if it doesn’t, you will not survive. Either emotionally and spiritually…or even worse…physically. When you wake up one day and see the damage he has really done and does still to everyone who dares to truly love him, including YOURSELF, that’s when your heart will be broken too.

Another SPOILER ALERT: Now comes the part where you must wake up! But you can save this part for when you are ready. Don’t read any further if you want to sleep in just a little bit more. I wish you were ready for some reality right now as I would like to find a way to protect you and spare you from the destructive nightmare that your ‘dream’ WILL become. I wish your dream would last forever. You won’t believe this either, but I do. There will come a day when small chinks in his armor will begin to show thru. A precurser to the big ones. It might happen sooner, or it might happen later. The timing is not relevant. What matters is that just like everything else is the same in this dream you are in at ‘the beginning’, so will ‘the ending’ be…the very same…a nightmare. Perhaps some details will change here and there…but it WILL end, and you will be hurt. Your sweet and giving heart that’s so full of love and stars for him, so full of unabashed joyful promise, so innocent of what’s to come…will one day feel as if it has been broken beyond repair.

NO! you say?! This is real and it will never end. It’s too bad I feel this way, but it will never be like this for YOU. Ah! sweet girl, it will. Unfortunately, it will. He might try harder this time and do better. The dream may last longer this time with you. He may be determined that this time you won’t leave him. Rejection and abandonment are his biggest fears…right up there with exposure. But the minute you become familiar, perhaps a little boring, or doubt him or question him, or wonder and ask for some clarity about his behavior, he will begin the dance of devalue and discarding you. Oh he will NOT discard or leave you. He won’t break up with you all at once. Instead he will begin to torture you with abuse and neglect and blame, cheating and lies. Then when the push and pull, hot and cold rollercoaster ride he takes you on begins in earnest, you will feel it. And it will hurt. If you are anything like ME, (and you are) you will try to fix things, make things go right. You will lay awake in bed alone and long for him to return to that man you first fell in love with at the beginning when your dream was so new and so wonderful. But at this point you will rarely see him again. Instead, he has become the REAL persona that he IS. Mr. Hyde. If the lovely Dr. Jekyl ever comes back, it will only be at brief intervals, until he vanishes forever. Things will never be the same after this. They can’t. Now you know too much about him and he must be sure no one else will know. Now you become the ‘crazy one’ who ‘harangues’ him…and very soon you will be in my shoes…IF you can escape…

Oh, He WILL be Dr. Jekyl AND Mr. Hyde for you off and on, for a while…and then he will turn sour, sullen and furious!…and then sweet and attentive again, then suddenly rage, then just as quickly smile and kiss you, and then grab you by your hair and threaten to throw you down the stairs, then wrap you in his arms and say he is sorry and he loves you and it will never happen again. Then even the fake apologies will stop. Then he will be protective of you…then barrel down the street at 160 kilometers/hr in a rage when he thinks someone cut him off and risk your life. You will begin to notice that he is SO easily offended. He expects absolute ‘respect’ and to be noticed and if his ‘Dr.Jekyl’ act doesn’t garner the attention and admiration he seeks from others, then his ‘Mr. Hyde’ true self will angrily demand that they notice him! Did I mention the temper tantrums? Oh yes! THOSE! No mere 2 year old could out-do HIS ‘pitching a fit’! Yes! The tantrum part is a lot of fun. Very entertaining. He will whine and mutter and hiss and spit too. And when this happens, you will be shocked. To hear a grown man, nearly 50 years old…whine like a little girl, well it’s all so NOT pretty to see. This will continue…In cycles. Wash, rinse and repeat!

He will scream at you, laugh at you and put you down. The tantrums will get louder and longer. He will step on the toes of tiny little elderly ladies and scream at THEM in the street in front of many witnesses. He won’t care! His perfect ‘Father of the Year’ act will falter and he will rage at and hit his kids right in front of you. He’ll no longer try to hide it. He will complain about every other thing and break objects when he is angry. Then he’ll smile and make a joke. He will neglect you for days and then romance you for a few hours. Up and down and all around. Small things at first, then HUGE! He will make you doubt yourself, mock you and tell you how stupid and inadequate you are. He will play mind games in earnest and play them to WIN. And he will be creul. He will slowly, ever so subtly, erode away your dignity and confidence. He may eventually beat you and bruise you too, as he has done this in every other longterm relationship. But he has been in trouble for abuse and violence so many times now that he’s on the radar of the local law enforcement. So it’s possible he may not go quite this far…with YOU…as he knows the next time he gets violent, he will go to JAIL! Literally! But you will be abused. You will cry as much as you smile at this stage. Then, if you don’t leave him at this stage, you will lose that smile, completely.

Your health and appearance will suffer. Your relationships with your family and friends will suffer too because they will begin to notice things about him that they don’t like, and will be puzzled that you stay with him. You will reach out to them and tell them about some problems and things he does, and they will get tired of hearing it when they offer their advice and support and yet see that you stay with him for more. This is when you begin to lose your dignity. You will even question your own sanity to stay with this man, who once was your Prince, who’s issues clearly go beyond the problems of someone who told you he maybe “wasn’t perfect” sometimes.

He will eventually be who he IS. Nothing you can do will prevent his eventual transformation back into ‘Mr. Hyde’. He IS a very unstable, angry, violent and selfish man with a personality disorder and character flaws that you cannot heal. And being with him will destabalize YOUR life, even your children’s lives and affect them!… If you don’t believe this right now, promise yourself that you will get out immediately at the first sign that what I am telling you is true…For THEIR sake, if you can’t leave him for YOURS! After quite a while of this stage, when you keep trying harder to please him…meeting all his needs…you will notice he will be up all night,…night after night on porn for hours. Hours and hours and hours. Looking like an absolute BOZO the CLOWN totally oblivious you are standing thereas he’s stupidly staring at, talking to and masturbating to some naked women on a computer screen with his pants around his ankles. Just like some common heavy breathing pervert. Yep! That’s the same Prince Charming you are with…right this minute! Take a good look! Not quite the picture of who he seems to be right now, is it? There will be hang up calls and calls from Other Women asking for him and wondering who you are? You will begin to recognize the signs of deceit,(such as, leaving in the morning wearing his ‘special underwear and after-shave on Tuesdays and Thursdays and returning home smelling like…well…SEX…later ) You WILL begin to notice things are a becoming a little ‘different’, even though he is well practiced at hiding and denying that he cheats…And DO listen girl. No matter what he says, how he lies, how he denies…he DOES cheat. And he WILL eventually cheat on YOU.

Oh yes, sorry to let you in on his dirty little secret life so soon. You see, no amount of your ‘trying’ and loving him really really good and really really hard,…will change this about him. Eventually he WILL seek more attention from others. It does not matter how pretty you are, or what a good cook you are, or how sexy and wonderful you are in bed or in the kitchen. It doesn’t matter if you are as gorgeous as ‘Hollie Berri’ or ‘Elizabeth Hurley’ and ‘Christie Brinkley’. Being one of the prettiest, smartest and wealthiest, most talented women in the world won’t spare you or make you more special to him…later…when the newness wears off…and it will!. It won’t matter if you dye your hair like mine and make yourself over to look like ME! (nice try BTW, coz now you kinda look like my cousin) His need for attention and validation is endless and vast and no one woman can fill him up…right now he assures you that you are all he needs…but it’s just another one of his lies.

There is so much more to tell you, but I will spare you the rest, I think you have heard enough to figure your way out, eventually…when you need to save yourself! I can only hope that you have paid attention. But I’m fairly certain that you won’t, just like I wouldn’t have either. Right now you love this Fairy Tale True Love Story and imagine with all your might that you really truly love him. That what you have with him was ‘meant to be’. You have no idea that the man you love right now does not exist. You will cling to this ‘dream’…and HIM for dear life.

You think he loves you. He tells you he loves you SO much. You believe it with all of your heart. And it is so sad for me to tell you this too, but he does NOT know how to love anything or ANYONE…but himself. He can sure fake it to be even better than the real thing though! He is not really Prince Charming, andmore than a Narcissist. Because he is also violent and has been in trouble with the law so many times, because of this he is technically classified as a Psychopath. I can assure you that he is dangerous, in SO many ways. Your spirit, soul…heart and body are in mortal danger, the longer you are with him. So please. Just for a moment, stop to ponder this. Right now, He has convinced you…ever so swiftly…engaged you SO fast…bonded with you so tightly…WHY the rush?, is it because you and HE are just that special? Is there really such a thing as ‘fate’? Or was it his intention to romance you so quickly that your head would be in the clouds and you would not pay attention to those ‘Red Flags’..in hopes that you might never find out the truth that this ‘dream’ he created for you was well practiced with all the manipulations he perfected on the “ONE”s before you. He hopes you will not see these truths about HIM. The truth is that you are really in a nightmare and you won’t know it….until the damage is done and it’s too late for you too…

That’s one truth I hope with all my heart…that doesn’t turn out to be true…

XO,

The EX-Girlfriend

-_Q

Go to the original site for a reading list to help you spot the psychopath.

Also, if you’re one of my ex’s “three wonderful relationships” or someone even newer than that, for he must already be bored with them (or soon will be: 80+ women in 15 yrs), add the following onto the dream described above:

multiple energy orgasms
big blue eyes crying about how much he hopes his ex is okay
how all his exes couldn’t deal with the non monogamy because of their jealousy, how they wanted “all of this” for themselves, but you’re different
body buzz
“are you here yet?”
telling you that although he has other GFs, this bond is deeper and more special. In fact, he doesn’t even know why he stays in that other relationship because he’s not turned on by her and often feels obligated to have sex with her. He cant be vulnerable with her and she just won’t open up to him. But, he decides, he’ll keep her around because he wants the “option to be sexual with her when he wants to be” (and, yes, he really said that. And, yes, he’s still with her.)
“spiritual” sex unlike that you’ve ever known
“Look Into My Eyes“
lapping up your nectar while still maintaining eye contact
telling you how yummy you are
how great your communication is
how your souls come out between you and merge

It’s all a lie…

By the time he’s telling you “I love you” several times a day, how he adores you and is crazy about you and is attached to you. When he starts missing you when you’re not there. When he says he’s happier when you’re around than when he’s alone, which is so scary for someone as independent as he is…when these things happen, the end is nigh.

As for when you wake up to see the monster one day, and you will (you’ve likely already seen glimpses that you’ve dismissed) replace the physical violence described above with this:

if you ever dare to question him while he’s on an ego high, expect to be punished by rape, just on this side of the law so you cant actually do anything***, followed by the coldest cruelty you’ve ever experienced, devaluing and discarding, after a second sadistic sexual assault, that is. It’s truly horrifying when he finally let’s you show emotion, how much he gets off on the pain he’s causing. Truly horrifying.

Just keep admiring him, worshipping him, letting him do whatever he wants whenever he wants no matter who it hurts or humiliates, praising him, fucking him on his terms, pretending that you don’t see the Jekyll & Hyde behavior, pretending that you’re not aware of the increasingly overt emotional abuse, pretending that you don’t see the drastic personality shift the moment he’s no longer in “romantic mode,” excuse away how he can only truly be himself through sex (ignore that it’s a dissociative state common to severe sex addiction), pretend that its okay he deceived you about his STD weeks or months because it’s such a low risk of transmission he’s justified in making that decision for you, let him blame you for everything because it could never, ever be his fault or responsibility, let him put you on the back burner while he looks for something new and better, dehumanizing you because you have the audacity to have fears and insecurities and doubts and misunderstandings, accepting the scraps he throws your way, and you’ll be just fine.

You might even last a year that way. Or if you’re really, really unfortunate, three. And by that time, you’ll be so completely trauma-bonded and brainwashed into his reality, you’ll let him keep you on the side tossing scraps your way now and again. And although you’ll try to get away to heal, he won’t let you by that point. He’ll convince you to take the “love” on his terms, making you watch him fall “in love” again and again with new replacements, always keeping his reserve supply (you) on hand in case one of them has the audacity to tell him they felt neglected one night.

Just to be extra safe, open your legs for him if you must, but don’t open your heart to him and for God’s sake don’t open your soul.

But I don’t blame you for believing. I really don’t. He’s *very* convincing and skilled at what he does.

When your life has been shattered and he’s off to find his new, better victim who is “100% genuinely happy all the time,” I’ll be here to help show you how to pick up the pieces. Please don’t hesitate to contact me then.

Sincerely,

One of the *many* “crazy” exes

(Um, not the one who threatened to burn his apt down, who he had to call the cops on. No, not that “crazy” ex.)

(Oh! And not the “crazy” ex who has been his “stalker” for 5 years…just to be clear)

-_Q

***but just because he didn’t cross the legal line doesn’t mean you weren’t assaulted. Don’t let him explain it away or justify it by saying “I hope it’s okay if i got a little rough” after the assault. After you froze in shock at the sexualized aggression. After he crossed specific boundaries you had in place. After you tried to get him to stop or not be so violent. That’s assault. That’s rape.

And if you’re openly crying and terrified and he doesn’t stop and console you, then it’s at best emotional sadism and at worst sexual assault.

If you feel violated or assaulted, talk to a rape crisis center and tell them what happened. File a police report anyway. I did. For both instances. Then they can see a pattern of behavior. Stand up for yourself and your body.

Filed under: Romance & Relationships Tagged: author, bdsm, broken heart, commitmentphobe, emotional abuse, emotional rape, fear, grief, healing, heartbroken, honesty, intimacy, love, mind fuck, misogyny, narcissist, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, open marriage, passion, polyamory, psychological rape, psychopath, ptsd, rape, recovery, relationship, relationship advice, relationships, sex, sexual assault, shattered

Sixteen Years Later…

Since I came out recently as a rape survivor, admitting to myself and to the world what my ex did to me, I’ve been overwhelmed with the vast amount of survivors who have reached out to me in support and solidarity, both online and off. I’ve been astounded at the statistics.

Last week I had lunch with a friend whose 23 year old daughter committed suicide two years ago. She’s still not through the traumatic aftermath. She will unlikely ever be. After I told her my story, she told me how she was raped in college. Then she told me how her daughter was raped by her own cousin at the age of 12. That was when the emotional problems started. She had been suicidal for years, and she finally succeeded. And it all started with rape.

I’m surrounded by rape survivors, it seems, and I never knew it. Not until I came out. I live with two rape survivors. I met another one last week. Several have come forward over the blog and via email. One of my best friends is a rape survivor. A close family member survived attempted rape in college.

It’s baffling.

This is a cultural issue in the wider scope, and a community issue in a more narrow one. So everyone who is turing a blind eye in the Poly community or BDSM community or in any local community, sex positive or no, you are part of the problem.

Yes. This is horrible. This is a fate worse than death. This is not sex-”positive.” And certainly you want to believe there aren’t predators in your community. You don’t want to believe that one of your friends has been raped or has raped. If you know more than three or four women, they likely have been. As far as the men, do the math. You likely know a rapist, especially if you are part of a sex-positive community like Polyamory, Swinging, or BDSM, as those open, honest, and trusting communities attract predators.

You definitely know several rape survivors. I guarantee it. You will be shocked and appalled when you finally have the courage to have this conversation with yourself, with your loved ones, with your community.

It can happen to you. It can happen to your wife, sister, daughter, friend, lover. In fact, it probably already has.

It. Can. Happen. To. You.

It happened to me. Twice. And by a deeply loved and trusted lover, just a short five months ago. And I’m 42. I thought I was safe. I’ve been married for 12 years. I never walk alone at night. I’m even hyper-aware of my surroundings when alone during the day. I’m way older than the 18-24 high risk of rape age. I don’t go to parties where I could be drugged. I never take a drink from a stranger. I don’t even get drunk or do drugs. I was safe. I was in love. I was happy.

But my rapist, like over 80% of assaults, didn’t jump out of the bushes or attack me on a trail. My rapist didn’t use a knife or force. Like the rapist who raped his 13 year old sister-in-law in the article below, my rapist used my trust and my love to rape me. I not only knew my rapist. I loved him. I trusted him. And it’s taken me five-plus months to accept that he’s a monster because my heart still wants to believe otherwise. I don’t want to be a rape survivor. This is not fun for me. I don’t want to believe he’s a rapist. I want to believe it’s a misunderstanding somehow.

But it’s not. Certainly not after trusted friends, colleagues, and half a dozen sexual assault professionals say: You were assaulted. This was rape.

Contrary to popular belief, rapes aren’t usually premeditated. Mine wasn’t. Something in him clicked during a consensual sexual encounter, and he became violent. I tried to stop him, in shock, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t plan to rape me, but when he turned angry and violent, he knew exactly what he was doing. The second time, he knew I was terrified and vulnerable and crying openly, and even more horrifically, he enjoyed that part of it. He got off on my pain.

One of my favorite quotes from Thelma and Louise: “In the future, when a woman is crying like that, she isn’t having any fun.”

Rape is not a private issue, it’s a cultural one. Help me put the shame on the rapist, not on the survivor. Help me out rapists in our community, starting with mine and the other survivors who have come forward in the comments on this blog.

The law can’t protect me or these other survivors. The law is years behind us. But we can protect each other. For those of you who don’t know the identity of my rapist, ask around. Ask me. But the law keeps me from publicly outing him. Isn’t that interesting? What he did to me, an insidious and sadistic psychological, spiritual, and sexual rape isn’t illegal, for he stayed just within the law for the physical assaults, but telling people in a public forum is. The subsequent fallout and months of recovery, months of struggling with PTSD, months of therapy and suicidal ideation as a result of this inhumane attack on every level of my being by this psychopathic predator isn’t against the law, but warning others from having to suffer the same fate is.

Is this our society?

I’m afraid it is, and it’s called The Rape Culture.

We MUST STOP looking at the women who get raped and start looking at the men who rape. Any woman of any age (any man of any age, too) can be the target for rape. The common denominator here IS THE RAPIST.

This article below was written sixteen years ago. One in four, it says. I’ve seen estimates ranging from 1 in 3 women to 1 in 5 women. Nothing’s changed there.

Then, society had a tendency to blame the victim. Nothing’s changed.

Then, rapists were given light sentences and, lo-and-behold, raped again. Nothing’s changed.

My rapist will rape again, Austin Poly Community. Austin Ecstatic Dance Community. Austin Sex-Positive Community. Austin Burner Community. Go to Bedpost Confessions? So does he. Every month. Go to Flipside? So does he. Wake up and see him for who he is before you are the next victim who finally gets it because it has happened to you. Let’s build a community of the future now and protect our own from predators like him.

Because so far, nothing’s changed in 15 years. Why? Because WE WON’T TALK ABOUT IT. We won’t address the issue. We downplay it: “Oh, I know [rapist's name] and he’s a nice guy. I’m sure he didn’t mean to rape her. I mean, he probably was just drunk or just got carried away. It was a mistake.”

Shit like that.

Fuck that.

Just put the shoe on the other foot for a moment, and see how absurd those comments are, in this amazing response to the Daniel Tosh bullshit. Thank you, Curtis Luciani.

Pay close attention to how the article starts. It is so common it doesn’t even make the news. Then pay close attention to what the rapist says in this piece below. How he downplays his behavior, much the way society does. Perhaps much the way you do.

Don’t do that anymore.

Oh, and a little tip, as stated in the article below, men *rarely* admit to rape. Yes, they seem nice and charming and funny on the surface. You have to get in very, very deep to see that darkness they hide. To see what they’re capable of. So, please don’t be fooled. People love to point out the handful of women who lie about being raped. It’s 1.5% that lie about being assaulted. Compare that to the 97% of rapists that still walk free. Do the math. Believe the survivor. Protect your community.

-_Q

Reprined from Rape, the Most Intimate of Crimes (emphases mine)

by Mary Dickson

© 1996

It’s a story so common, it never even made it into the newspapers. A 49-year-old woman who lives in a middle class neighborhood on one of Salt Lake City’s busiest streets let her dog out one warm fall night as she always did. When he began barking furiously in the driveway, she ran outside to see what was wrong. As cars sped by, a masked man grabbed her and put a knife at her throat. Without saying a word, he pulled her by the arm, pushed her into her house and threw her on the bed. The dog ran in the house behind them, barking frantically. The man threw the dog against the wall, then raped the woman. He told her that if she screamed, he would “Nicole” her. Gritting her teeth, she focused on the small can of mace attached to her keychain on the table in the next room.

“I know that I will never, ever be the same person again. In fact, after it happened, I asked both my daughter and my sister if I looked different. Because I felt like I was so changed, it must be on my face,” she says. “All women are vulnerable like I am. And if they don’t realize it, they should. Because you never know what’s going to happen. You never ever know when it’s going to happen. And you always need to be checking your back. I have mace on my keychain, but you don’t run outside to see what your dog’s barking at with your mace in hand. And maybe you should. Maybe you should go everywhere with it in your hand.”

While her attacker remains at large, the Salt Lake City woman struggles to get over what happened to her. “I will always feel like I’m not safe,” she says. “That’s my big issue — trying to continue to feel safe in my own house. I will always be looking over my shoulder and checking the back seat of my truck and always trying to second guess where somebody could be hiding.”

Most women live in fear of incidents like this. We feel at risk because we are. We know the statistics. By some estimates one out of four women will be the victim of sexual assault in her lifetime. Each year women report almost half a million rapes and sexual assaults, according to the most recent U.S. Justice Department survey. In family-oriented Utah, a state perceived as a safe place, more than 4,000 rapes were reported last year. During one weekend alone, the Salt Lake City-based Utah Rape Recovery Center saw 29 victims.

While overall crime has decreased in Utah in recent years, reports of rape and sexual assault are on the rise, giving the state one of the highest per-capita rates of rape in the country, ahead of New York, Washington D.C. and California. It’s difficult to know, however, if rape is increasing, or if the crime is being reported more. Women who have been brutalized are more likely to report a rape than women who don’t show outward physical signs of the attack. The majority of rapes, particularly acquaintance rapes, still go unreported. By most reports, three-fourths of rapes are committed by a man the woman knows — a fact society is not willing to accept.

“We want to feel safe so we want to believe that rapists have a particular profile in terms of they’re easy to identify — they wear trench coats, they live under the viaduct or hang out in vacant buildings and have crazed looks in their eyes,” says Abby Maestas, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center. “And that’s not true. What we have found through the clients that are served at the Rape Recovery Center and through studies, is that a rapist can be anyone — a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a neighbor, a brother, a son.“

C.Y. Roby, executive director of Intermountain Specialized Abuse Treatment Center, agrees. “We have a tendency to look on it and say, well in order to keep safe, what I need to do is stay out of the park at night, stay out of the dark alleys at night and I won’t end up being raped. And yet, the vast majority of rapists are known to the victim.”

Diana met her boyfriend in college. He was handsome, charming, and funny. He seemed like he had it all together. Then she began to see another side of her boyfriend. He would become angry and then he’d become violent. After two years, Diana told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. He became obsessive, following her everywhere she went, registering for her classes, and taking a job where she worked. The stalking went on for 10 months, but no one thought much of it.

Then one night as she was writing a letter, she turned around to find him staring at her. “I screamed because the look on his face scared me so much,” she recalls. “He had a knife in his hand, and he cornered me, put his arms around me, put the knife up to my neck — it was an eight-inch hunting knife — and he said if I screamed again, he was gonna kill me.”

During the attack, Dianna tried to stay detached. “I felt like if I didn’t stay calm that he would kill me. That I just was better off going along with whatever he said and did and that way it would be over with. If I would have fought, I think I would have been killed. I always thought of myself as physically fit, as a strong person. I’m 5’9″ and weigh 140 pounds, but he threw me around like I was a paper doll. I felt like the only thing I could do was just try to block blows. I felt very small and insignificant and weak. He had so much rage and anger that I couldn’t do anything to match it.”

Dianna’s rapist escaped through a window when he heard her roommate come home. When police arrived, they warned her she could be killed the next time. Fearing for her life, she dropped out of college and completely broke her routine. She pressed charges, but regrets she didn’t push for a harsher sentence. Her rapist was only placed on probation. “I couldn’t go anywhere without worrying about him popping up from behind a building or from behind a bush,” she says. Just three months after raping Dianna, he was charged with forcible sexual abuse of another woman.

“I couldn’t go anywhere without worrying about him popping up from behind a building or from behind a bush,” she says. Not only did the rape make Dianna feel more vulnerable, she was also hurt by the reaction of others. “The reaction of my landlord was that I who had caused the problems, that he hadn’t had problems until I moved to there, and that he had to fix the door and he was kind of mad at me. The reaction of my neighbor was pretty non-chalant, like maybe I deserved it. I found out when I told other people that the stigma is still very strong.”

We live in a culture where we are taught that we have choices about our lives and that we’re responsible for what happens to us. As feminist author Gloria Steinem says, “If you are beaten, you’re said to have incited it, if you’re raped you’re said to have invited it. We all know that these things run very deep in the culture.”

“From the time a child is very, very small, we’re teaching that they’re responsible for the things that happen in their life both positive and negative,” says C.Y. Roby. “So when a rape situation occurs, usually what I see going through a victim’s mind is what did I do that was wrong.”

It’s not only the victim who blames herself. Society is quick to blame her as well. “Even the innocence of children is questioned,” says Maestas. “Often times I have sat with a police officer or a client and have heard that a four-year-old girl was responsible for seducing her perpetrator who was an adult. Now what are we saying? What we’re saying is that we don’t know how to take responsibility as a society. Therefore, we will continue to blame the victim.”

Rape is a devastating crime. Some women are badly injured. Some become pregnant. Some contract HIV. But the emotional trauma can be worse than any physical injury. Women who are raped have nightmares, panic attacks, waves of self-doubt, an overwhelming sense of distrust. The lives of women who are raped are forever changed. Some say they will never be the same, that it’s like dying. “I know that I will never really recover from this,” says Maggie. “The impact will always be with me and I will never trust the same way and I know I can’t even be tested for HIV for six months. So I have to even keep that in mind. I’ll never be able to get away from this.”

After being raped at a party, one Salt Lake woman spent 18 months in intensive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. “I managed to continue working for almost a year following the attack, but I was marginally functional,” she says. “Finally I quit my job.” She says she has only recently found the “hope and courage to face both the world and myself.”

Who is most likely to be assaulted or raped? Maestas stresses that rapists choose those who are vulnerable, which is why children and even the elderly are at risk. Her staff has worked with victims of all backgrounds and ages, including a 94-year-old woman who was raped and a three-and-a-half-week-old baby who was sexually abused. Half the victims the staff served in emergency rooms were under 14 years of age.

“I think that anyone is capable of rape and I think frankly that anyone is capable of being a victim,” says C.Y. Roby. “I don’t think that there’s anything you can do to ultimately thwart being victimized, possibly with the exception of locking yourself in a room and you’re the only one with a key.”

Dr. Michael Ghiglieri, an Arizona biologist who has written extensively about male violence, is more specific. He cites a 10-year study looking at more than a million cases of rape in the United States. “It’s unfortunately a huge sample of victims,” he says. “And it turns out that 88 percent of these women are between the ages of 12 to 28. Three quarters of all victims fell between the ages of 18 to 25. So rapists are seeking the women that men everywhere are seeking.”

Dr. Ron Sanchez is a supervising psychologist at the Utah State Prison who works with sex offenders. “From my experience, there’s a wide variety of reasons that sex offenders choose victims. They can range in age from very young to old. There may perhaps be a focus on a particular eye color or hair color or body type. But there is certainly no one female profile they would go after.”

Rapists, notes Sanchez, can be calculating and planning, often stalking their victims. Maggie suspects that the man who raped her had been watching her. “It wasn’t unusual for me all summer to run outside and change the water, so I’ve been very nervous that perhaps it was somebody in the neighborhood that had been stalking me, and knew that I lived alone.”

Sanchez says rapists are often very impulsive. For example, they might see a woman who is alone, such as a motorist stranded on the side of the road, and “seize the opportunity.” “As I’ve worked with rapists, I’ve asked them how do you go about gaining access to houses and many of them said they would look for an open window or unlocked door and just go in the house,” he says. “I was amazed to find out how many houses that they encountered had doors unlocked. So I think a simple thing of locking your doors and windows is a deterrent.”

Locking doors and windows is an easy enough thing. A woman alone instinctively bolts the doors and windows even on a sweltering summer night. For most women, such precautions become second nature. Ask a woman what she does to protect herself and she’ll tick off a list of specifics: never leaving a building without her keys in hand, looking over her shoulder in the parking lot, scanning faces on an elevator, avoiding parking terraces. Yet, despite all the precautions, women can still be at risk. As Maggie reminds, “when you’re at home changing your water, how are you to know you should be watching out?” It’s a reality that makes her and other women resentful. “First of all, it’s evenings that I lost,” she says. “And now it’s like even freedom around my own home. And it seems like we just keep having more and more things that we have to watch out for and more and more freedoms we’re losing just because of our gender. I don’t know where it’s going to end.”

In her book, Sex, Art and American Culture, Camille Paglia calls these “somber truths” women must accept. “Feminism keeps saying the sexes are the same,” she writes. “It keeps telling women they can do anything, go anywhere, say anything, wear anything. No, they can’t. Women will always be in sexual danger.” She may be right, but that doesn’t necessarily make rape a woman’s responsibility.

Gloria Steinem poses the real issue at the heart of the rape dilemma. “We have to stop talking about who gets raped and talk about who rapes. Somebody is doing these things. And we have to identify who they are.” Who is that somebody? Why do men rape women? And how do you stop them?

“The fact is testosterone is a real kick-starter for violence,” offers biologist Ghiglieri. “It’s a kick starter for every male trait, not just violence, it is the responsible hormone for making males. It does affect behavior, it actually forces aggressive behavior. Of course, as humans we do have the choice as individuals whether we are aggressive or not. But the fact is testosterone does affect male attitudes and the propensities to violence.”

Ghiglieri has become convinced that violence is a male tactic. “I think in general if you want to get the simplest perspective on it, male use violence to control females and they do it very often and they control those females for sexual reasons. It’s done in every species.”

From his work with sex offenders, C. Y. Roby has also seen “a lot of desire to dominate or control others. “To a certain degree, I think it’s something that we’ve learned socially,” he says. “Males often grow up and realize that the way to get what they want is through aggressive means.”

Michael Kimmel is a sociologist at the State University of New York who has received international recognition for his work on men and masculinity. He says violent men often view their actions as revenge or retaliation. “They say, women have power over me because they’re beautiful and sexual and I want them and they elicit that and I feel powerless,” he says. “Just listen for a minute to the way in which we describe women’s beauty and sexuality. We describe it as a violence against us. She is a knock-out, a bomb-shell, dressed to kill, a femme fatale, stunning, ravishing. I mean all of these are words of violence against us. It’s like, wow, she knocked me out. So the violence then, or the aggression or the sexual violence is often a way to retaliate.”

Philip is a 29-year-old man even prison workers at the Utah State Prison say is a charmer. He is serving time for sexually abusing his step-daughter. He says anger over a divorce led to his crime. “I wasn’t thinking about her whatsoever, just she was there,” he says. “Somebody to vent my anger, my frustrations, and my anxieties and pain. I didn’t think about her, and if you ask the majority of people who are here on this same crime, they would tell you probably the same thing. They didn’t really think. They just want somebody to vent their anger out on. A lot of people who do sex crimes, do these crimes out of anger. Now sex and anger go hand in hand.” [note by OMG: this is what happened to me. He punished me for making him angry.]

Roby sees several kinds of sex offenders. Those, like Philip, for whom sexual assault is an extension of rage; those who have a need to control of have power over their victims; and those who derive sexual pleasure out of inflicting pain on others. Many of the rapists he’s worked with also seem to have been motivated by sex. “Most of the individuals that I’ve worked with saw having sex with a woman as basically their final validation of them being a man. So they would decide prior to the time they went out and actually committed the rape that they were going to be sexually involved with some woman,” he says. “The woman no longer really had a choice to make in that kind of relationship, but I don’t think they started out saying what I want to do is to degrade or humiliate some other individual.”

Approximately 25-26 percent of the inmate population at the Utah State Prison are sex offenders. Dr. Ron Sanchez is the supervising psychologist who works with them. “I think sex is part of it. I think it’s a vehicle for their aggression. There again, it’s not just about sex. Many of these individuals, at least on the surface, have relationships with women and are having sex on a regular basis, but for some reason have chosen to go out victimize people in this fashion.”

Since the 1970s when Susan Brownmiller published her ground breaking book, “Against our Will,” rape has been viewed as a crime of control and violence. But Michael Ghiglieri disagrees. He says men may use violence and force as a tool, but what they’re after is sex. “That whole power and control thing as an end in itself is a myth. Power and control is used as an instrument to accomplish a sexual event with an unwilling victim. And to leave out that sexual event is to completely forget what the crime was, which was a copulation was stolen from a woman against her will. To take the motive out of the actual definition is crazy. It essentially places women in a place where they no longer understand the motive of the rapist. It’s an immense disservice to women.”

While some feminists are adamant that rape is not about sex, Jane Caputi, a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, claims it’s specious to separate violence and sex. “I would disagree with some of the early feminists who would say rape is a crime of violence, not a crime of sex. Because, unfortunately, in this culture sex is completely interfused with violence, with notions of dominance and subordination. Our gender roles are constructed so we have these two genders, masculine and feminine, that are defined by one being powerful and one being powerless. So, powerlessness and power themselves become eroticized.”

She points to popular culture, which reflects and perpetuates this intertwining of sex and violence. “It makes it glamourous, it eroticizes that kind of violence against women and makes it appear consensual, as if women seek this out and want it,” she says. “We all know the notorious General Hospital scene where Luke raped Laura and then later married her and so it made it seem as though rape was a kind of courtship ritual. Gone with the Wind is, of course, classic in that we see a scene of marital rape and the woman is made to smile as if seeming to enjoy it.”

The media, biology and culture may be contributing factors, but the majority of men — those who are the product of the same biology, the same culture — don’t rape women. The causes of individual pathology are far more complicated. To understand rape, it’s important to look at the men who rape. According to Ghiglieri, approximately 90 percent of convicted rapists are young men, most of them troubled. Ron Sanchez says sex offenders cut across all racial, economic and social lines. Convicted sex offenders include physicians, truck drivers, utility workers, and teachers, single men and married men with children. Yet Sanchez sees some general patterns. Rapists tend to be antisocial. Many have a mixed criminal history and a pattern of victimizing people. They’re aggressive and have problems controlling their anger. They lack adequate communication skills which contributes to their feelings of rage and frustration. They’re often sensitive to rejection and insecure about their own masculinity. They also have distorted views about women and sex. Most have been sexually deviant since adolescence. [Note by OMG: the ones who get caught. The ones who don't have similar tendencies and problems, but they are more intelligent and charming, often, so they stay just within the law or use their skills of manipulation and/or fear to remain free.]

“Many of the rapists have what we call thinking errors or criminal thinking,” where they have a tendency to distort reality,” he says. “For instance, they might interpret the way she responds to them in a very friendly manner by saying “Hi”, they might interpret that as that they’re interested in him, as having sex with him to be blunt.”

One thing universally common to rapists is that they don’t think about what their victim goes through. “As you can imagine, committing that type of crime against another human being requires a tremendous amount of detachment, of dehumanizing that individual,” says Sanchez.

Tony is serving time at the Utah State Prison for sexually abusing his 13-year-old sister-in-law. But he doesn’t think it was rape. “I believe she consented but her boyfriend at the time didn’t like it,” he says. “My mom was a cocktail waitress so I’ve been around females portraying themselves as sex objects. I seen my mom in her skimpy outfits which that was the type of work she chose. After seeing women like that in magazines, on billboards, and casinos wearing hardly anything, you grow up after 23 years pretty much thinking that’s what a lot of these women bring on themselves. They want to be an object. You go to different parts of the country and women don’t want to be recognized that way. So I’m a monster here, but yet I’m normal in Nevada.”

He admits that his victim didn’t deserve what he did to her and calls it a “selfish act on my part,” though he minimizes his crime and its impact. “I can’t put mine in the same category as a violent crime. Mine wasn’t violent. I didn’t break in to do the crime. I didn’t use a weapon to do my crime. I just used the trust I had in my victim. That was my weapon….She’s gettin over it. She’s gotten over it. She’s movin’ on. She’s goin’ to college. She’s doing’ good.” [OMG: Notice the justification]

Getting at the real motives of rapists is difficult since rapists typically do not admit their crimes. They often find excuses, and experts say they don’t always tell the truth. “Rapists rarely want to admit that they raped at all let alone why they might have done it,” says Ghiglieri. “Oftentimes, the only confession of these people comes out during rehabilitation programs that they’re put through in social services. These rapists will learn what they’re supposed to say, which is, ‘I’m a victim of society, we live in a macho society that made me the way I am, women are too attractive, and they’re not available to me, and it’s the woman’s fault,’ and on and on and on.”

So why don’t rapists admit their crime? Ghiglieri says it has to do with a very simple fact — “A man who rapes, among men, is probably the most hated individual that can exist in a male society,” he says. “It’s actually dangerous to admit that you raped anyone. So men don’t admit to rape, even in prison, because of fear of retribution by men who aren’t rapists.”

Most rapists are never caught, and conviction rates for those apprehended are notoriously low. According to Department of Justice statistics, 48 percent of accused rapists were released before trial. Of those tried, only 54 percent were sentenced to prison. Even more troubling is that the average sex offender may commit hundreds of crimes in his lifetime, which means that the vast majority of rapes go undetected and unpunished.

Ron Sanchez says that during therapy, offenders admit crimes they’ve committed as children, teenagers and adults — sometimes disclosing as many as 50 or 60 other crimes, which escalated in seriousness. “Many of them began voyeuring in homes, then eventually escalated to burglaries, even breaking into houses at night while people were sleeping, then escalating to the point of fantasy, fantasies about rape and eventually planning and committing rape.”

According to Sanchez, sex offenders tend to be compulsive and repetitive, the kind of criminals who are hardest to treat. A 1989 study by the American Psychological Association found no evidence that the rate of recidivism for treated offenders was any lower than it was for offenders who received no treatment.

“We need to be realistic about what therapy can do,” he says. “When we talk about treatment, we’re not talking about a disease or an illness that we can cure with an antibiotic or something like that. It boils down to a personal choice.” Treatment, he says, can work well for individuals who are motivated and want to change, but it’s difficult to treat sex offenders who have been abusing women for a number of years or who have multiple deviancies. Still, Sanchez believes therapy for sex offenders if crucial, if for no other reason than to identify who is not likely to change so that they remain separated from society.

If we are really serious about curbing this kind of violence against women, most experts say the punishment for such crimes must be harsh. “If a rapist gets away scott free or gets away with minor punishment, that means rape is a viable sexual strategy for a large number of men. Rape is inevitable if we don’t punish it,” says Ghiglieri.

“Everything we know tells us that they only begin to take it seriously when there are very serious consequences,” insists Steinem.

Michael Kimmel calls it a matter of carrots and sticks. “I think the stick is we need very strong laws with uncompromising enforcement all the way through the legal system so that we make it clear as culture that we won’t stand for this. As a culture we can say the way we try to say around murder for example, or auto theft for example, ‘this is beyond the pale, you cannot do this. We will come down so hard on you, you won’t want to do this.’ O.K. that’s the stick. What’s the carrot? If we as men make it very clear to the women in our lives that we don’t support men’s violence against women, that we are actively opposed to it, that we are willing to confront other men who we see doing aggressive things, then our relationships with women will actually improve.”

Mary Dickson is the writer and co-producer of the PBS documentary film, No Safe Place: Violence Against Women, produced by Colleen Casto.

No Safe Place: Violence Against Women is made possible in part by a grant from the Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation and the Dr. Ezekiel R. and Edna Wattis Dumke Foundation. The documentary is a production of public television station KUED in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Filed under: Romance & Relationships Tagged: austin ecstatic dance, austin yoga studio, author, bdsm, bedpost confessions, body choir, broken heart, curtis luciani, daniel tosh, deception, ecstatic dance, fear, grief, healing, infidelity, misogyny, non-monogamy, o.m. grey, olivia grey, open, polyamory, rape, rape culture, rape survivor, rapist, relationship advice, relationships, sex, sexual assault, shattered, survivor, violence

Avalon Revisited (Podcast) – Chapter 17 & 18

Arthur Tudor has made his existence as a vampire bearable for over three hundred years by immersing himself in blood and debauchery. Aboard an airship gala, he meets Avalon, an aspiring vampire slayer who sparks fire into Arthur’s shriveled heart. Together they try to solve the mystery of several horrendous murders on the dark streets of London. Cultures clash and pressures rise in this sexy Steampunk Romance.

Contains Adult Content.

Avalon Revisited – Chapter 17 & 18

Download: AR_Podcast_CH17-18.mp3

Buy your copy of the award-winning, Amazon.com Gothic Romance bestseller Avalon Revisited via Amazon or Barnes & Noble in paperback, on the Kindle or Nook, or on Smashwords in various eBook formats. Also available: Author-Signed through the publisher.

-_Q

Avalon Revisited Podcast

Subscribe in a reader …. or in iTunes

Filed under: Podcasted Fiction Tagged: arthur tudor, audiobook, author, avalon, avalon revisited, bdsm, bdsm erotica, bdsm erotica novel, bondage, book, ecstasy, england, erotic, erotica, henry VIII, hyde park, king henry VIII, london, masochism, o.m. grey, olivia grey, paranormal romance, passion, podcast, podiobook, renaissance, sadism, sadist, sado-masochism, sex, spring-heeled jack, steampunk, vampires, victorian, victorian brothel

Inside the Mind of a Monster

This is beyond appalling.

A serial rapist talks about his many rapes and how he knew women weren’t into it.

Oh yes, they know, even if they say they don’t. They know.

Mine did, too.

There is a thread on Reddit with rapists speaking out on why they did it.

It’s astounding.

Inside the mind of a monster. Still think it’s not the community’s responsibility to warn

Filed under: Lost in the Aether Tagged: author, i can't live like this anymore, i want to die, o.m. grey, olivia grey, rape, rape culture, rape survivor, suicidal ideation