Rape is about power, not sex. A rapist uses actual force or violence — or the threat of it — to take control over another human being. Some rapists use drugs to take away a person’s ability to fight back. Rape is a crime, whether the person committing it is a stranger, a date, an acquaintance, or a family member.

No matter how it happened, rape is frightening and traumatizing. People who have been raped need care, comfort, and a way to heal.

There are three things that everyone who has been raped should do, though:

1. Know that the rape wasn’t your fault.
2. Seek medical care.
3. Deal with your feelings.

It’s Not Your Fault

Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. No one has the right to have sex with you against your will. The blame for a rape lies solely with the rapist.

Sometimes a rapist will try to exert even more power by making the person who’s been raped feel like it was actually his or her fault. A rapist may say stuff like, “You asked for it” or “You wanted it.” This is just another way for the rapist to take control. The truth is that what a person wears, what a person says, or how a person acts is never a justification for rape.

Most people who are raped know their rapists. That can sometimes lead the person who’s been raped to try to protect the perpetrator. Make protecting yourself your priority. Don’t worry about protecting the person who raped you.

If you want to report the crime to the police, do so. Reporting a rape may help protect others from that person — and may help you feel a little less like you were a victim. But making a report to the police may be difficult for some people. If you don’t feel comfortable reporting it, you don’t have to. You may prefer to get advice about what to do from an experienced adult who can be sympathetic to you. Do whatever helps you to feel safe and heal without blaming yourself.

Seek Medical Care

The first thing someone who has been raped needs to do is see a medical doctor. Most medical centers and hospital emergency departments have doctors and counselors who have been trained to take care of someone who has been raped. It’s important to get medical care because a doctor will need to check you for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and internal injuries.

Most areas have local rape hotlines listed in the phone book that can give you advice about where to go for medical help. You may want to have a friend or family member go along for support, especially if you’re feeling upset and unsafe. Some rape crisis centers also provide advocates who can go along with you. You can also call the national sexual assault hotline at (800) 656-HOPE.

If you are under 18 and don’t want your parents to know about the rape, ask the rape crisis center about the laws in your area. Many jurisdictions treat rape exams confidentially, but some will require that a parent or guardian be notified.

You should get medical attention right away without changing your clothes, showering, douching, or washing. It can be hard not to clean up, of course — it’s a natural human instinct to wash away all traces of a sexual assault. But being examined right away is the best way to ensure you get proper medical treatment.

Immediate medical attention also helps when people decide to report the crime, providing evidence needed to prosecute the rapist if a criminal case is pursued. If you’ve been raped and think you don’t want to report it, you could change your mind later — this often happens — and having the results of a medical exam can help you do this. (There are laws, known as statutes of limitations, that give a person only a certain amount of time to pursue legal action for a crime, though, so be sure you know how long you have to report the rape. A local rape crisis center can advise you of the laws in your area.)

Even if you don’t get examined right away, it doesn’t mean you can’t get a checkup later. It’s always best to see a doctor immediately after a rape, of course. But a person can still go to a doctor or local clinic to get checked out for STDs, pregnancy, or injuries any time after being raped. In some cases, doctors can even gather evidence several days after a rape has occurred.

What Happens During the Medical Exam?

When you go to the hospital after a rape, a trained counselor or social worker will listen while you talk about what happened. Talking to a trained listener can help you begin to release some of the emotions you are probably feeling so that you can start to feel calm and safe again.

The counselor may also talk with you about the medical exam and what it involves. Each state or jurisdiction has different requirements, of course, but here are some of the things that may happen during the medical exam:

• A medical professional will test you for STDs, including HIV/AIDS. These tests may involve taking blood or saliva samples. Although the thought of getting an STD after a rape is extremely scary, the quicker a person finds out about any infection, the more effectively he or she can be treated. Doctors can start you on immediate treatment courses for STDs, including HIV/AIDS, that will greatly increase your protection against developing these diseases.
• If you’re female, a medical professional may treat you to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, if you wish.
• A medical professional will examine you internally to check for any injury that might have been caused by the rape.
• A medical professional or trained technician may look for and take samples of the rapist’s hair, skin, nails, or bodily fluids from your clothes or body.
• If you think you’ve been given a rape drug, a doctor or technician can test for this, too. Be aware that this toxicology test covers any and all illegal drugs.

At any time during the medical exam, you can say if you don’t want a certain test performed or evidence collected. All procedures are being done to help you, so you have control over which procedures you’d like done, as well as a say in any you don’t want.

Dealing With Feelings

Rape isn’t just physically damaging, it can be emotionally traumatic as well. The right emotional attention, care, and support can help a person begin the healing process and prevent lingering problems later on.

Someone who has been raped might feel a lot of things: angry, degraded, frightened, numb, or confused. It’s also normal for someone who has been raped to feel ashamed or embarrassed. Some people withdraw from friends and family. Others don’t want to be alone. Some feel depressed, anxious, or nervous.

Sometimes the feelings surrounding rape may show up in physical ways, such as trouble sleeping or eating. It may be hard to concentrate in school or to participate in everyday activities. Sometimes it may feel like you’ll never get over the trauma of the rape. Experts often refer to these emotions — and their physical side effects — as rape trauma syndrome. The best way to work through them is with professional help.

It can be hard to think or talk about a frightening experience, especially something as personal as rape. People who have been raped sometimes avoid seeking help because they’re afraid that talking about it will bring back memories or feelings that are too painful. But this can actually do more harm than good.

Talking about rape in a safe environment with the help and support of a trained professional is the best way to ensure long-term healing. Working through the pain sooner rather than later can help reduce symptoms like nightmares and flashbacks. It can also help people avoid potentially harmful behaviors and emotions, like major depression or self-injury.

Every rape survivor works through his or her feelings differently. Some people feel most comfortable talking one-on-one with a therapist. Others find that joining a support group where they can be with other survivors helps them to feel better, get their power back, and move on with their lives. In a support group, you can get help and support as well as give it. Your experiences and ideas may help others heal.

Reviewed by: Richard S. Kingsley, MD
Date reviewed: September 2007

Don unveiled women who get raped deserve it?

That’s the pedagogy preached by the Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, who recently sparked an international stir by pronouncing that women who do not veil themselves, and allow themselves to be “uncovered meat”, are at fault if they are raped. But none of what he said is anything new:

… This is nothing new, of course, and it is somewhat mysterious why the Sheikh’s comments have caused any shock at all, since his view is legitimized by various Islamic texts and numerous social and legal Islamic structures. And that is why back in September 2004 in Denmark, al-Hilali’s Australian counterpart, the Mufti Shahid Mehdi, declared exactly the same thing, stating that unveiled women are “asking for rape.”

… In traditional Islamic law, rape cannot be proven unless four males testify as witnesses (Sura 24:4 and 24:13). In other words, raped women cannot get justice anywhere Islamic law prevails. More horrifying still, a woman who has the courage to say she was raped, and fails to produce the four male witnesses (which is obviously almost always the case), ends up being punished because her accusation is regarded as an admission of pre-marital sex or adultery. And this is why seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape.

In Holland, myriad women now bear the horrible scar that has infamously become known as “smiley,” whereby one side of the face is cut up from mouth to ear - a war mark left by Muslim rapists as a warning to other women who don’t veil themselves.

In France, the phenomenon of Muslim gang rape as punishment for non-veiling even has a word to describe it: “tournante” (take your turn). In areas where Muslims form the majority (i.e. the Muslim suburb of Courneuve, France), even non-Muslim women feel pressured to veil themselves in fear of Muslim sexual and physical punishment.

In the context of this epidemic of Muslim violence against women, and the open legitimization of it pronounced by Islamic clerics, one would think that the Western feminists of our time would be up in arms, sympathetically coming to the side of their raped sisters and standing up for women’s rights in general.

But this is just not the case.

The West’s leftist feminists are responding with an apathetic heartlessness and deafening silence.

It’s a good thing that all Muslims are not traditionalists. The bad thing is that so many are. As in the case of Muslims who fail to speak out against totalitarian Islam, any Muslim who fails to speak out against the pedagogy of traditional Islam condoning rape and blaming women, is essentially accepting it. C’mon “moderate” Muslims, we need more of you guys speaking out against this hideous ideology.

Afghan Women Protest Marital Rape Law; Men Spit and Stone Them

The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”

Rady Ananda

Last month, the new Afghanistan parliament passed the “Shia Family Law” which legitimates marital rape and child marriage for Shia Muslims who make up ~15% of the population. At least 300 women protested the law, with their faces exposed. Nearly 1,000 Afghan men and their slaves turned maniacal and stoned the protesters. Police struggled to keep the two groups apart, reports the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

2005 Stoning

Supporters of the law redefine ‘rape’ to fit their narrow patriarchal views. Forced sexual relations, to them, is about loyalty to the husband. One counter-protester reportedly described rape as marital infidelity – by the wife!

“Rape is what you see in the West where men don’t feel responsibility for their wives and leave them to go with several men.”

Well, honey, that is not the definition of rape. That’s called cheating. Afghan protesters object to insane Taliban views that promote stoning women to death for perceived affronts to their masculine godview:

Last week widespread objection erupted to the stoning of a 16-year-old for leaving her house with a male non-family member, while the man was left unmolested and unpunished. The Taliban’s femicidal misogyny is infamous, world wide. RAWA and others hope to neutralize the psychopathic influence of Taliban thought in the Middle East.

Afghanistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, except when it conflicts with their religion. How convenient.

Treating Shia women separately than all other citizens sets them up for violence, as the counter-protesters proved. RAWA tracks this violence, posting photos, reports and, recently, its statement on the 7th Anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan:

Neither the US nor Jehadies and Taliban,Long Live the Struggle of Independent and Democratic Forces of Afghanistan!

“The government of President Hamid Karzai has said the Shiite family law is being reviewed by the Justice Department and will not be implemented in its current form. Governments and rights groups around the world have condemned the legislation, and President Barack Obama has labeled it ‘abhorrent.’

“Though the law would apply only to the country’s Shiites - 10 to 20 percent of Afghanistan’s 30 million people - it has sparked an uproar by activists who say it marks a return to Taliban-style oppression. The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, required women to wear all-covering burqas and banned them from leaving home without a male relative.

“Shiite backers of the law say that foreigners are meddling in private Afghan affairs, and Wednesday’s demonstrations brought some of the emotions surrounding the debate over the law to the surface.

Afghan Shiite women carry banners, one on left reads “Yes law, but no petrifaction,” during a march against a new conservative marriage law in Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. (Photo: AP)

“‘You are a dog! You are not a Shiite woman!’ one man shouted to a young woman in a headscarf holding aloft a banner that said ‘We don’t want Taliban law.’ The woman did not shout back at the man, but told him: ‘This is my land and my people.’

“Women protesting the law said many of their supporters had been blocked by men who refused to let them join the protest. Those who did make it shouted repeatedly that they were defending human rights by defending women’s rights and that the law does not reflect the views of the Shiite community.

“Fourteen-year-old Masuma Hasani said her whole family had come out to protest the law - both her parents and her younger sister who she held by the arm.

“‘I am concerned about my future with this law,’ she said. ‘We want our rights. We don’t want women to just be used.’”

This 10-minute 2006 phone-video evidences the murder by stoning of a teen girl who favored a boy outside her religious sect. The boy, of course, went unharmed. The femicidal maniacs cheered their actions, several taking pictures. Bloodlust fueled the men; they twirtled like banshees when her head cracked open and blood pored onto the street. Finally, the mob dragged her off.

Gotta love US influence in the Middle East. We sure “brought democracy” over there. Earlier this month, UK Gay News reported that 100 Iraqis face imminent execution for being gay.

Despite Obama’s “abhorrence” at legitimizing marital rape, RAWA is not happy with US foreign policy in Afghanistan:

“The US ‘War on terrorism’ removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”

OpEdNews Senior Editor. In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists.

Why Men Rape : Interesting and Informative Article
“In the United States, a woman is sexually assaulted or raped every six minutes . 85% of victims know their attacker and 84% of rapes will go unreported.”

You may find thousands of article on rape victims on the Internet, but have you ever thought why men rape? How does an affectionate lover evolve into a hyped scavenger who leaps out at every single prey? Is it to satisfy their sexual desire or is it to prove that thy can overpower anything weak? Read to know the psychology of a rapist. Unfold the mystery of ‘why men rape’ to prevent the the most sensual act against women?

Expert psychologists define rape as a form of assault where one individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person’s will. Most experts believe the primary cause of rape is an aggressive desire to dominate the victim rather than an attempt to achieve sexual fulfillment. They consider rape an act of violence rather than principally a sexual encounter. Here are some of the reasons according to the experts,

Two present day sociobiologist’s claim in their book that unsuccessful men use rape to gain sexual access to desirable mates. By making women pregnant, they proclaim to pass their genes on to the next generation. The above sentence may seem absurd as there are many inadequacies in this argument. For instance, if the primary concern of a rapist is to just procreate, then why do rapists attack the helpless elderly, menopausal women and innocent children? And has anybody thought about the number of murders made by the rapists as the dead bodies will never give birth. So one can conclude that these argument is baseless on many cases.

To get rid of frustration
Research states that some men do not ejaculate during rape. This proves that whatever is driving this section of men to rape is more than the sexual drive. In one of the interview by the rapists, they say that, “We rape women who need to be disciplined. They do not want to talk to most people. They think they know better than most of us “. Here the rapists were using sexual assault to punish women who were not being genuinely feminine in their thoughts and work. They vent out their anger and frustration on a situation. However one can neither identify sexual drive nor the act of procreating. Men rape because they believe they have the right to control and to punish women who do not obey their rules of behaviour.

Right to control
Rape is about power, not sex. A rapist uses actual force or violence or the threat of it to take control over another human being. Some reports state that rapists use drugs to descend a person’s ability to fight back. It has become an expression of unequal power relations between men and women. Such unequal power relations are not the result of nature or evolution but societies. Society has always drawn a margin to the women community, if they seem crossing it they are subject to grand victimization.

Biological reasons
Biologically men rape because they are flooded with hormones, and are overwhelmed with sexual desire. These rapists are typically teenagers who engage in acquaintance rape or date rape Whatever may be the reason the prime concern of an individual is, can I change these facts as a historical report and recreate a better place to live in safe Rape takes place only when men learn to rape, and it can be eradicated simply by substituting new lessons. Enhance the essence of equal responsibilities, love relationships and the sense of being loved and to love. Understand him, to evolve him into a finer being.