Beyond jokes: Rape in the words of a victim

Marie* walked back to her tent that morning unsure of what happened the night before.

 

She’s had drinks with strangers. It’s nothing new since she travels alone most of the time. This time, however, she was with a childhood friend who invited her to a popular surfing spot. It was a few days after Christmas and she was trying to make the most out of the year’s end.

 

Her friend woke up as she entered the tent. Her friend then turned to face her and asked, “what happened to you last night? Where did you sleep?”

 

She shrugged. She didn’t know how to respond. To begin with, she wasn’t even sure what happened.

 

“You got really drunk last night. If I were a bad person, I probably would have raped you,” her friend said before going back to sleep.

 

“Hey, I wasn’t that drunk,” she answered. But, at that moment, she knew something was wrong.

 

 

Philippine laws leave little room for doubt when it comes to the definition of rape. According to the Anti-Rape Law of 1997, rape is committed when a man has sexual intercourse with a woman through force, threat or intimidation; or when the woman is deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious. Rape is also committed  when a man has sex with a woman through fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority.

 

When the victim is below 12 years of age or is demented, that is statutory rape.

 

It’s a common misconception that rape only happens to females. Philippine law also defines rape as a crime against persons committed by anyone who, under any of the circumstances mentioned, “shall commit an act of sexual assault by inserting his penis into another person’s mouth or anal orifice, or any instrument or object, into the genital or anal orifice of another person.”

 

A human rights worker, Marie knew by heart the definition of rape. But it wasn’t until she heard her friend say the word that she realized what happened to her.

 

 

“It took a while before I was able to say the word myself,” Marie said. “When I came out to my friends as a rape victim and survivor, I initially told them I was sexually assaulted, as if ‘sexually assaulted’ sounded a bit more dignified than ‘raped.’ It’s silly, now that I think about it, but I really felt awkward saying ‘I was raped’.”

 

Most rape victims are known to resort to denial. The refusal to acknowledge what happened is part of an “acute phase and long-term reorganization process” called the rape trauma syndrome or RTS. First described by psychiatrist Ann Wolbert Burgess and sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, RTS is not considered a mental disorder or illness, rather it is a natural response to the trauma caused by rape.

 

Her family, however, still doesn’t know she was raped, Marie said. “I don’t want to tell my family because I don’t want them to blame themselves or, worse, to blame me. I know for a fact that rape is never the victim’s fault, but how do I even begin to explain that?” 

 

“My brother knows, though,” she said. “He found out through Facebook.”

 

 

After telling a handful of her friends, Marie came out as a rape victim through a Facebook status that, save for her brother, filtered out her family and their family friends. She did it a time when a public official was being criticized for a comment he made about rape, and she felt it was necessary to remind the people in her social circles that rape is real and can happen to anyone.

 

“At the time, I was already explaining rape to people and why it should be taken more seriously,” Marie said. “But then there was this person who said rape jokes are funny and he can’t avoid making them even though he knows it’s wrong because, at the end of the day, all everybody wants is a good laugh. That really triggered me. I decided to write about my experience hoping people would at least have an idea of what it’s like before joking about rape,” she said.

 

She’s heard people joke about rape and she’s always called them out, taking the time to explain the gravity of rape and why it’s never a laughing matter.

 

“It’s not funny, it never is. I can’t understand how people can joke about a woman struggling to preserve her sense of self and dignity, you know? It’s dehumanizing. And not just rape, but other forms of violence against women like sexual harassment and assault, even catcalling. We’re not objects to be ogled at, we’re not objects to be touched on a whim, and we’re not objects one can use as one pleases,” she said.

 

“We’re women, and we deserve respect as much as every other person out there.”

 

RELATED: QC cracks down on catcalls, other forms of harassment

 

After she posted her status, people reached out to comfort her. But what she didn’t expect was that people would reach out to tell her about their own experiences. 

 

“Men and women reached out to me to tell their story; some of them saying I’m the first person they told. I always knew I can’t possibly be the only one, but learning that my friends were also raped and struggled the same way I did hit me harder than I thought it would. I tried to find comfort in the fact that at least some weight was taken off their shoulders, but for a week I couldn’t sleep. I found myself crying at work in the middle of the day. It threw me off,” she added.

 

In a press release on April 20, Center for Women's Resources executive director Jojo Guan said that "reducing the issue of rape to ridicule is alarming because the reality shows that every 53 minutes, a woman or child is raped.”

 

Based on CWR's research, the number of recorded rape cases increased by 92 percent to 9,875 in 2014 from 5,132 in 2010. 

 

In 2008, the Women’s Safety Module was introduced into the National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office to capture the extent and types of violence experienced by women aged 15-49 years old.

 

The module revealed that one in 10 women has experienced sexual violence, and one out of 25 women who have had sex were forced into it during the first time.

 

RELATED:'One woman or child is raped every 53 minutes'

 

Rape was once a crime against chastity, meaning rape is only committed against virgins. The first amendment to the law penalizing rape in the Philippines was in 1997 and it reclassified rape as a crime against persons instead of a crime against chastity. 

 

The Anti-Rape Law also expanded the definition of rape to include various forms of sexual assault and incest rape, and provided stiffer penalties for offenders who are members of security forces like the military and police.

 

However, advocates pointed out loopholes in the new law as soon as it was ratified, including “forgiveness clauses” that remove criminal liability if a wife raped by her husband forgives the offense, or if a woman marries the person who raped her. 

 

Women’s rights advocates said that these further expose a woman to the danger of domestic violence.

 

Amendments have been proposed in recent years, including one that seeks to amend the forgiveness clauses filed by Gabriela Rep. Emmi de Jesus in the 16th Congress as its principal author. That bill was referred to the House committee on the revision of laws

 

In the 15th Congress, Zamboanga City Rep. Beng Climaco proposed an amendment to “raise the age of statutory rape from the present 12 years old to 16 years old.”

 

In the 13th Congress, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago sought to incorporate the Supreme Court ruling that said “insertion of one’s finger constitutes ‘rape through sexual assault’” to avoid inconsistent interpretations of the phrase “any instrument or object” in the Anti-Rape Law.

 

No amendments have been made to the law in nearly a decade since it was enacted.

 

*Name changed to protect the victim's identity

 

Marrian Pio Roda Ching, 28, is a human rights advocate who has done work in reproductive health, gender rights and the Bangsamoro. She is currently a senior writer at the Bureau of Public Information-ARMM. She wrote this piece to help inform the public about women's struggles and about human rights other than freedom of expression.