sexual assualt

Fight, Flight (or Freeze). Moving is dangerous. /  by alicia johnson

Six months or so ago I took on project of sorts, maybe more of an assignment that I accepted, to whittle down to the 'one thing' i wanted to commit my energy to. It started with taking the time to jot down every single thing I wanted to accomplish, from the craziest, big thing to the tiniest little detail. Then sort through them, narrow, narrow, narrow over the course of several days until I got to "the one thing."

It was surprising to me what I whittled down to. It truly never would have occurred to me that it was something I was longing for. I surveyed the list of crossed out things, it held really dear desires like finishing the production of Positano, and becoming a good writer, but what rose to the top was ‘being supple’.

I wasn't sure what I meant by that, but it felt like a root-level need. I could feel a power of longing that was overwhelming. I wanted to be able to move. 

So I set about exploring it. What would it take to be supple? What did I mean by supple? 

I went to the dictionary, I love understanding my instinctual attraction to certain words. Here's what I found:  bending and moving easily and gracefully. Grace is one of my words, that felt good. Agile, that felt good. Nimble, ok. Pliant. hmmm. Yielding. Ugh oh. No.

I decided to go with moving easily and gracefully.

I do not move easily or gracefully. In fact I have trouble moving. I weigh more than my body was designed for. My back is wiley, slipping in and out of functional, I have a long neck that can be lovely but is prone to nerve pinches, my legs ache and cramp, my left foot sometimes screams at me. I fall easily and often.

I long to be active, mentally I feel fantastic after a long walk even though there are pains that howl. I love to swim but don't because I can't bear how I look in a swimsuit. 

I have stretches where it feels like I'm making progress, daily walks for weeks at a time with no fall, gardening and house chores with no back pain that stops me cold.

I have extreme guilt about this, I hear the voice in my head saying that really I'm just lazy. If I were to get my fat ass moving more often it would all resolve itself. 

So supple is a herculean challenge.

I started with a simple commitment to explore it. The dictionary and a plan. 

I love to garden, so summer is the perfect time to give myself physical assignments. I found a masseuse that was open to the idea that I was exploring 'supple', we agreed a schedule of massages over the course of the summer and she has had powerful suggestions like yin yoga. A wonderful practice. 

And I've had so many set backs through the summer, neck pain that stalls me, back spasms that have literally made me scream. What? I have not taken on any aggressive activities, I'm being wildly gentle with my body.

I have been working on promoting Positano during this time.
And doing research for Hudson:  during this time.
I have made myself vulnerable in ways that I knew would be difficult, but had no idea how difficult. Like black night of the soul difficult. 

In the midst of this I read Roxane Gay's book Hunger. The book is about her body. The book is blunt, truthful, so painful to read. So worth it. She was raped at 12-years old and created a cage around her body (her words) to protect herself. I understand that. She talked about dieting, about how she would find a way to get into a groove and feel great, but then something would trigger her and all bets were off.

And that sparked a very frightening, dark knowing in me.

Moving is dangerous.

In other research I came across the idea that "freeze" is part of our panic system. Fight or flight, we all know. There's also freeze. Freeze is particularly prevalent in children who are being abused. That was news to me. Liberating news.

When I was raped I was pinned down, my mouth and nose covered to the point that I could not breath. I have been aware of being claustrophobic for most of my life, I have been prone to hyperventilation and have developed good coping skills, but this summer I came to be conscious of this idea that moving feels dangerous to me.

If I move my body I will experience pain, or humiliation.

I don't know if it feels more liberating or more Sisyphean to have this sense. But I do know that I'm going to do the work of undoing it, or using it.

I don't know how I'm going to do it. I need help. I'm asking around for a psychotherapist to help, a physical therapist to help. I'd like to unplug this reaction that moving my body is dangerous.

I understand my "ugh oh" reaction to 'pliant' a bit more for having had the dark night of the soul, and I'd still like to be supple.

I'd still very much like to move my body with ease and grace. My body. 

The Prosecutors /  by alicia johnson

Research for the novel HUDSON:
Matt Jacob shared an early cut of Leslie Thomas' film The Prosecutors with me, it's powerful and heartbreaking. There is a moment in an interview with a human rights leader (name withheld) in coastal Columbia that struck me so completely, a woman talking about the devastating effect of the paramilitary troopers taking the women from her village. 

She describes how they came into the village with their guns and their machismo, how they would take a woman for maybe a week and then bring her back, give her back. When they did this the village gave up, "immediately the community loses all its strength."

It strikes me because for too long we have thought of rape as having one victim, but it is the entire community, the culture, that is broken by these acts of aggression and violence. 

We are being broken in an ancient way when we can not protect our women and children. 
To remain whole as families, communities, nations, we can have zero tolerance for sexual assault by the paramilitary, or by celebrities, or by presidents. 

Zero tolerance.

 

From the site for The Prosecutors

How do you accuse your neighbor of a war crime? How do you stand in front of uniformed officers and make the claim that rather than liberators, these people are rapists? What does it take to demonstrate to a village that all of the crimes that have been perpetrated against its people are worthy of conviction - including long-ignored sexual violence? 

ABOUT THE FILM

Rape and pillage are concepts as old as war itself. Certainly war carries with it the idea of gathering the spoils found by those who stand victorious on the battlefield. But does sexual violence have to be a part of war? And what are the risks and sacrifices involved in ensuring that the legal system provides justice for everyone? 

THE IMPACT

It is our contention that with perseverance there will be a global understanding that sexual violence cannot be tolerated as a by-product of war and that victims and combatants will expect that these crimes will be prosecuted. 

LEARN MORE

The legal framework for this type of prosecution is changing. Globally, lawyers, governments, and civil society members are developing and expanding the important historical precedence for this effort. For practitioners working today and students who will fill the legal ranks tomorrow there is much to be learned by what is happening in the courts of Colombia, Bosnia, Congo and beyond. 

 

Hunger /  by alicia johnson

Research for the novel Hudson:
A New Novel from Roxane Gay, Hunger
 

from The New Yorker:
Gay also used the platform (Tumblr) to discuss the culture’s punishing relationship with aspects of her own identity: fatness, bisexuality, and blackness. She wrote about the murder of Jordan Davis and, powerfully, about her rape at the age of twelve.

 It is curious to be reminded, in Gay’s new memoir, “Hunger,” that she was first drawn to online forums by the promise of anonymity. The memoir deals with her rape, her overeating, and her struggles with her public and private identities. Before the dawn of avatars, she lived on IRC, “an old-school chat program with thousands of channels populated by thousands of lonely people who were mostly interested in talking dirty to one another.” The memory contrasts with the tone of the book, in which Gay is constantly defining and defending herself against others’ expectations. Increasingly, she has become not just a writer but a spokesperson. Gay, who rejects the ideal of “(th)inner woman” while also wishing that she could herself be smaller, has drawn the ire of fat-acceptance advocates, who presumably wish that Gay were a less equivocal role model. In “Hunger,” she writes candidly of her position, returning to the theme of contradictions: “I have been accused of being full of self-loathing and being fat-phobic. There is truth to the former accusation and I reject the latter. I do, however, live in a world where the open hatred of fat people is vigorously tolerated and encouraged. I am a product of my environment.”

Remnants /  by alicia johnson

Research for the novel HUDSON:
Melissa Kreider's project REMNANTS featured in WIRED recently. 
The photography project underscores the need for an open conversation to dismantle the shaming of victims and change the nature and tone of how "the telling" happens.

From WIRED: 
“I know all these really amazing women now, some who are 20-years-plus out of their assaults, and it’s really awesome for me to see that as someone less than a decade out of her own,” she says. “It makes me feel like it can get better.”

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 431,840 people were raped or sexually assaulted in the US in 2015, the most recent year for which statistics were available. Yet the bureau reports that fewer than one-third of sexual assaults are reported, and only a tiny fraction of perpetrators are convicted.

In an interview for her book, Daring Greatly, Brene Brown describes the ideal as "sharing our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding," in that context, she says, "shame can't survive."