Footprints of a Survivor is a weekly column written by Kim Mukwa, a survivor of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Each week, she reveals the layers of pain she lived through, the damage it caused and the steps she is taking to heal emotionally.
Trigger warning: Rape
People often think of women as caring and nurturing. Many struggle to accept that they too can be as cruel as men can be, and I know this first-hand.
Today’s topic is one that is difficult to wrap one’s head around but is sadly happening every single day. Sexual assault is often perceived as a straight issue: men raping women. Woman-to-woman rape and sexual assault globally remains unaddressed. How does a woman rape another woman? Or simply put, how does a woman rape?
When I was little and being ordered to perform oral sex on a woman, it was a really bad experience, and I knew what was happening was wrong. It was only a few years ago that I realized that what happened to me was actually rape.
According to Uniform Crime Report, rape is “the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object of another person without the consent of the victim.” Unlike the previous definition, which only dwelt on the penile penetration of a vagina, the new definition includes a broader range of instances.
A few years ago, someone (male) close to me disclosed how they were ordered to have intercourse by the maid. Every moment she got, she ordered him to do it. Same thing with me. Every time my father was out of town overnight, I would be ordered to grab a handful of sugar, sprinkle it on her vagina and lick, and sometimes I was told to use my fingers to satisfy her twisted fantasy.
Even as I am writing this right now, I am so furious. My heart is racing. I absolutely hate it, but it happened, and that’s my story.
I also recall a time when I was taking a nap in the afternoon as a kid, and one of the uncles came into the room with a toothbrush and inserted it into my vagina. I pretended to be asleep and never breathed a word until now.
There are things that happen to us, but our minds just [discards] them because one is frightened to process the event. But believe me, unresolved trauma is just as bad and I know this first-hand.
Like I mentioned before, I knew what happened was terrible, but to me it did not have a name. I realize that because there was no penile penetration, I had never considered what happened to me as being rape.
What I am talking about might seem blatant and overly explicit, buy hey, that’s the reality for millions of people out there. The people we trust our kids with, whether male or female, can prey on the innocence of our kids, and we may never know about it. I may have opened up a can of worms, I don’t know, but what I know is that I was raped by a woman.
