For those that have read my blog in the past or viewed some of my many other pages, or just showed up because of the name in the URL, this may be the most unusual post you’ve ever read on my site, but personally I think it is one of the most important.
Last night I went to a play, it was The Vagina Monologues. As a man, not to mention a single man, this is probably not the play I would normally go see… in fact I don’t know if I’ve ever gone to a play now that I think of it.
I know what you’re thinking, did I read it in the paper and go… well there’s the show for me to go to. No, I didn’t. In fact it wasn’t heavily publicized, but maybe that’s just because I don’t read the paper. A friend I work with told me she was going to be in a play and asked if I would want to go to it, even though it may not be geared toward men. I told her I would think about it, I mean what if I was the only guy there, what if it was embarrassing, what if… but then again, this show was to benefit an important cause out there, to help victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
This brings me back to my friend that was performing in the play. I knew she had strong feelings going into doing this play, and just from our prior conversations I had gathered that she had possibly suffered some sort of abuse in her past, although I never pressed for any details. So Saturday night I go up to the theatre to watch this play and see her performance. When I get the program for the play, I read through it and it has all of the actor bios in it. When I read through hers I come to the realization that she had been raped. My first thought when I read that was why? Who the hell would do that to her, to anyone for that matter? I felt anger towards whoever this asshole was that had done this to her. Maybe that was a good thing, the play was to benefit abuse and make people aware and I just had a huge eye opener at that point.
I watched the play, her monologue was towards the end, and it was “Reclaiming Cunt”. To see her up there performing in front of people and doing it with finesse and grace after going through something as horrible as rape less than a year ago made me smile. It took the anger out of me.
When the play was over everyone came out and explained why they performed in the play and what they were standing up for. When she came out, not only did I now know that she was raped, I also found out that the person that did it was found not guilty of doing it. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a knot in your stomach before. It is pain in the pit of your gut, it’s not a bathroom pain or a gas pain or anything, but it hurts like hell. It’s the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of “What the fuck?”, and not in the cutesy WTF way, in the What the Fuck is going on in this world way. Not only was she raped, but then she had to sit through a trial to only find out her perpetrator wouldn’t even be held accountable for his actions. I cannot even fathom what kind of emotional turmoil that would cause someone.
The show was over and the cast was in the hallway talking to people that had watched the show. I went out and talked to my friend a little bit, told her I enjoyed the show and her performance in it. She seemed happy to have done the play and was conversing with the other cast mates as they got ready to go out for a cast party. I left shortly after that and went home.
When I got home I couldn’t sleep, I was quite wound up. I was on the internet looking up things online about rape and survivors and what you can do to help. It was a crazy low sleep kind of night. I just want to thank my friend for having the courage to move on with her life, to fight back, to try and make a difference in this fucked up world we live in. Nobody should ever have to go through what she went through.