To Dream of Honor Killing

Last night I had a series of nightmares, more nightmarish perhaps because each time I'd partially waken from the dreams I'd go right back into them. It was perhaps my brain's way of saying "I have to exorcise this. I have to resolve it and cannot let things stay as they are in this dream."

My dream? At first it didn't make sense, then after I woke up feeling emotionally beaten and let the images sink it, the subject became clear. It was a dream version of being the victim of an honor killing. Sure there were some old Bond Movie elements of international intrigue and diabolical groups of subversive scientists, but that's probably what made the dream manageable and kept me from waking up screaming. The truth of the dream was the horror of being unjustly accused of sexual infidelity, of being blamed for acts involving your sex organs that you did not willingly commit, of being labeled guilty and responsible for something so attrocious happening to you and against you and completely out of your control. Of your family shunning you when someone else perpetuated a horrific and brutal rape of your body, mind, and spirit, of your family looking at the evidence against you and failing to see beyond the surface, of seeing only what the perpetrators want them to see, how they want them to see. Of at first believing that indeed you are responsible, of the intense guilt that leads you to say "I'm sorry", and being condemned and rejected by those whom you love most and who have (you thought) loved you most. Of trying to kill yourself to end the pain of the hurt and rejection, to silence the confused images and thoughts in your head.

And then of having someone heretofor unknown to you, some advocate, someone dispassionate and logical looking at your case and saying, "I believe you," and then trying to help. Of the one person you love most, your husband, coming cold and disbelieving, full of rage and hate to the place your are being held and treated and listening with hardened heart and ears to the scientist who shows him how to look at the evidence in a different way. Of your husband finally seeing the attrocities you endured as true attrocities and then, awash in his own guilt of what his rejection of you has done to your sanity, his going to observe you through a window as you thrash about in a nightmare. Finally, his going into your room and holding you to calm you down so that you can sleep for the first time since the event. Of him watching as you endure surgeries, counseling, and physical rehabilitation, participating where he can. Of him wondering if he will ever have the woman he loved back again or if he will only have a vegetable or someone beyond his ability to care for. Of his steeling himself for a life of marriage to someone he never sees except on visitation days.

Thankfully, in my dream, there was a husband who came back, who loved. The family did not. And of those who tried to kill me, one was arrested and sentenced, one was killed, and one remained free and unfound.

The dream mixed stories I've read recently about women who've been drugged with rohypnol and raped, of others injected with various test drugs and diseases like lab rats to see their reactions.

Rape takes so many forms. Even in our so-called Western, modern society, victims are still accused of the crimes against them. In states that enacted laws to protect victims of domestic violence by requiring police to arrest someone in every DV case they show up to where a physical injury is apparent, the stats show that most of the time the true victim is the one arrested because the predator knows how to use the system and uses it to further abuse the victim.

It is time men stopped claiming to be powerful out one side of their mouths and to be the victims of women's sexuality (i.e., not responsible for their own male sexuality) out the other side. If you cannot control and discipline your desires, if you must scape-goat someone else into being guilty of all your misdeeds, then you are pathetically weak, evil, and offensive.

What is amazing to me about cultures that uphold (or at least do not work actively to abolish) dis-honor killings, if the men in these families were really strong (not just full of empty bravado and bullying at the expense of others with less power) then when a woman in their families was said to have misstepped sexually, they'd tell those who would question their family's integrity to get lost. They'd stand strong and firm with their family, including the women of the family. And no, rape of a woman by a man would NEVER be considered the woman's fault, because these men would have the honesty, integrity, responsiblity, and HONOR to accept that men are responsible for their own sexuality and evil, and that rape is not an act of sex, but of brutality and violence, it is an act against a woman. It would even be an improvement if they realized it was an act against the woman's family, and that the perpetrator, the MAN deserved their wrath and rejection.