Don't Tell Sexual Assault Victims How to Feel

     I am a victim of sexual assault. I am a victim of serial rape. Recently my friend, who is not a

victim of sexual assault, told me not to roll down her can window to scream at my rapist. I saw

my rapist's car and started to roll down her window to scream at him as we drove by. She saw me

rolling down the window and knew what I was going to do, since I had done it before, and locked

the window and told me that wasn't okay. This made me the angriest I have ever been at her. I

can't remember another time I've ever been truly pissed at her before, but this sent me off. She

said "You can't just scream at people you don't like” and “It's not a mature response.” 

It is disgusting that people who have never experienced sexual assault feel like they can tell people who have how they get to feel and react. It's vile. It's such a negatively unique experience that I've spent over a year trying to come to terms with, and someone who hasn't been through that experience does not get to tell me how I get to feel. My friend does not understand, and hopefully never understands, how I feel. She does not get to tell me how to react when I see him or anything connected to him. If you are not a victim of sexual assault, don't tell any of us anything. You don't understand the first thing when it comes to coping with being raped. 

I want my rapist to live the most miserable, unfulfilling life. I want him to be in pain every day. I want him every night when he goes to bed to wish he doesn't wake up in the morning. I want him hurting, inside and out. I want him to get the shit beat out of him. I want everything he owns vandalized and broken. I will have to live with what he did for the rest of my life. I will feel disgusting for the rest of my life. I will feel violated for the rest of my life. He deserves nothing but pain and suffering until the day he dies. I hope he gets a terminal disease. I hope he gets beat up and mugged. I hope someone steals all his shit. I hope he's too broke to feed himself for the rest of his life, and you can't tell me these feelings are invalid until you've been raped upwards of twenty times all before you turn 17. Fuck anyone who tells me what I can and can't feel. My anger is justified.

What Punk Rock Means to Me

 I wake up in the morning covered head to toe in bruises. Bruises on my arm from ramming into the wall, bruises on my back and knees from falling down, a cut on the inside of my lip from being kicked in the face. I smell like shit from sharing sweat with so many strangers. I go to check my phone and can barely turn my neck. I wince in pain, but it's little price to pay for last night. I can't stand up out of bed, so I kneel on the floor and push myself up, trying to recall the fuzzy memories of last night. 

I'm bent halfway over, stomping my feet and banging my head to the rhythm of the music. I can't make out any lyrics, and the guitar and bass melt together. The only things I can make out clearly are the drums and the energy in the room. My head is rushing from the shots, a couple hits of someone's joint, too many poppers, and the oncoming asthma attack, but I continue. 

I realized early on in going to diy and hardcore shows that punk isn't about how good you can play or sing, but about the emotion in the music and the pit. I think my friend Miles puts it best when he says that mosh pits are “a beautiful release of emotion”. Even in the most violent pits you find yourself in, it all boils down to getting out the anger you can't in any other way. You can't throw yourself around in any other public, or even private, place. 

Surrounded by others, sweating, barely breathing, most of you under the influence, thrashing around like a fish out of water. You can push and shove and ram into people with no consequence. To me, punk rock is raw, intense emotion being expressed.