A Female Predator or Rape Trauma Syndrome?

I will never forget the earth-shattering, panic-inducing moment when my own body appeared to have betrayed me-yet again. Roughly six months after escaping from the sex slave trade, I was sitting on my mother’s couch, alone, watching a midnight movie titled “Bastard Out of Carolina”.  A specific scene caught my attention.  While a woman gave birth to a new child in the hospital, her husband waited in the car with his stepdaughter. Without warning, the man pulled the little girl named ‘Bone’, onto his lap; consequently raping her.  

Now, most people’s reaction to this harrowing storyline would be of outrage, disgust, disbelief (and I would hope, impressed with the actress/actor craft!) My body’s reaction, however, was entirely different.

Privately, I became aroused by the carnal, and all too familiar sight I was witnessing. As I laid on the virginal white couch with its pastel cushions, my breathing quickened, my breasts swelled, and wetness seeped between my legs; causing anxiety to flood my body, freezing me to the spot, until my brain began to shriek like a possessed banshee, driving me out of the house and eventually, my mind. 

“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.” Jessica Rabbit , WB. 

Despite the assumptions of those around me concerning my sexual prowess; the sad and hidden truth was that I had never taken part in sober, consensual intimacy or sex. All I had known was coercion by substance, gang rape, and prostitution. Shame persuaded me to bury my secret beneath smiles and laughter; inadvertently sentencing my already restless 17-year-old mind and body, into fear and loathing.  

Was I a female sexual predator because the idea of rape turned me on?  

For years this thought would catch me off guard, surfacing when I least expected it —reading a book, watching movies, my fantasies during a sexual encounter. These  thoughts always caught me off guard, pushing me to search for answers, and here’s what I found.  

The majority of public opinion regarding the ‘typecast’ sexual predator has long been saturated in judgment, reducing these individuals down to vile and sick human beings in possession of no moral consequence. Yet objectively lurking behind that stance, has also been some not so subtle, double standards. Such as, to be raped is often rationalized as the responsibility of the victim (i.e. what did she wear, how was she behaving, who was she hanging out with) Another and mayhap far more damaging standard was that rape was generally, as well as during archival times lawfully, considered a crime only committed against women by men.  

The delusion that women could not be predators, and men could not be raped was spoon-fed to the masses through gender stigmatism.  

Often accompanying the subject of rape is the generally common assumption that one must be ‘penetrated’, I feel that this is due to gender stamping. Grossly ignored has been the fact that physical overpowerment is not the pinnacle in all abuse cases, but empowerment.  

Emotional manipulation, deception, intimidation, fear, guilt, physical impairment, mental incapacity, manual stimulation and more kept the ever-rising number of  shame and guilt-ridden victims quiet, especially boys raised to be men; thought incapable of being raped. To be male was to be the aggressor, the conquer, virile  and therefore treated as invulnerable.  

The human body (male and female) when placed under extreme stress, fear, or stimulus has been known to respond physically by attaining erection and even orgasm, regardless of any genuine arousal. The physical responses can lead to confusing emotions, that left to grow under the tier of shame, can even call into question one’s sexual orientation—all of this and more allowing for the female predator to slip into myth. 

If you look at rape throughout history, it has absolutely nothing to do with gender, how a person dressed, the way they spoke, or even where they happened to be at the time. Rape was (and to this day, is used) as a way to extract submission. A way to exercise one’s dominance and power. Not just over another human being but more often than not - over the perpetrators very own life.  

Image from Pinterest, artist unknown

One of Psychology’s longest-standing debates is that of Nature vs Nurture. The argument takes place around whether a humans development is predisposed in his DNA, or if the majority is influenced by environment and life experiences.  

But what if we took out the word versus, inserting instead that Nurture creates Nature and Nature configures Nurture. Existing in harmony, they are always transforming one another.   

We can all agree that the brain is a complex, and thus far mysterious organ in the human body. While the brain controls everything we do - not all action is conscious or voluntary. When the dynamic interplay between mind and body becomes compromised, it can destroy one’s whole outlook and experience of the world in extreme cases.  

Scientifically it has been proven that trauma, at any age, is capable of compromising communication between the limbic system (the emotional brain and home of the amygdala) and the cortex system (responsible for memory, perception, attention, awareness, thought and consciousness). When a synaptic transmission is shut down due to trauma the amygdala fires up,  becoming overly reactive, as you are no longer able to find reason, organize or problem-solve in the manner that involves conscious perception. The amygdala engages the survival mechanism of fight or flight; creating emotional memory through perception alone. Emotional memory is subconscious, therefore incapable of introspection, i.e. ‘act now think later’. Sometimes, or during repetitive (also referred to as complex) trauma, the brain can become ‘stuck’ in the flight or fight mode. Adaption to the intricate interpretation of information regarding its surroundings includes normalizing the outlook concerning its circumstantial habitat while also relying solely on the emotional memory (triggers) to act as an early warning system and ensure survival.

We’ve all heard of muscle memory; we know that muscles can store ranges of physical motion. Were you aware that muscles can also hold emotions, even  misinterpreted ones? Emotional memory or perceptions of an experience are carried by the neurones in our brain and stored on a cellular level in our body. These emotions can create blockages of energy atop our main organs, causing stress and imbalances. If a stressor becomes ongoing, the body will attempt to ‘adapt’. Adaptation can include borrowing other energy resources and releasing hormones until all other energy is depleted. When the compensations become unsustainable, unidentifiable illnesses and more psychosomatic conditions can arise.  

In summary: consistent abuse and enormous amounts of stress lead only in one direction: exceeding normal homeostatic limits, thus initiating corresponding  compensations. Change in your brain and body chemistry can lead to specific, subconscious behavior drawn from implicit memory to adapt to the constant stressors. Beginning an actual physical reorganization of its own wiring, entering you into a state called allostasis - the point where you find a new way of ‘being’,  ‘escaping,’ or in extreme cases, ‘surviving’. 

You cannot have Ying without Yang, Light without Dark or Nature without Nurture, so why would the term ‘predator’ be so much more commonly appointed to man and not shared equally by the female?  

To answer the question of my seventeen-year-old self, did my physical response to rape make me a sexual predator? No. I recognize now that rape, the act or sight of it, at that time, set off physical and mental triggers accumulated from living in a constant state of flight or fight during my time ‘In the life’.  

However, having been personally recruited into the sex slave trade by a 15-year old girl, and lastly pimped by a 30 something-year-old Madam taught me this short, if unscientific lesson.  

Prey can become a predator in an extreme act of self-preservation.  

If a man, woman, or child who comes from generational abuse, who was raised with abuse or exposed to it, has normalized sex through porn, or at any one time seeks to end the cycle of being or feeling victimized, they could learn to become “smart prey” or a predator and use dominance to claim back what could be seen as a portion of control over their life. This could be by becoming an accomplice, an instigator or dominant in both sexual and non-sexual forms of exploitation. 

For just a moment rather than pointing fingers at gender, nature, religion, emotions or experiences for the creating circumstances under which perpetrators can flourish  - would that we could all look to both eastern and western medicine for a future where healing and correction, rather than punishment or denial, is seen as the way to end the generational imprint of fear, anger and pain.  

Written by Rayanne K. Irving

www.rayanneirving.com

Acknowledgements, References, Bibliography

Simply the Brain 1 - Introduction to the Brain by Jacque Mooney Law of the Five  Elements of Acupressure by Dr. Charles Krebs Don’t Let Anything Dull Your  Sparkle by Doreen Virtue

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Wikipedia - The Rape of Males

also published is an altered version of this same article at

www.givethemavoice.foundation