Though I at times write some pretty badass characters and gnarly scenes, I have never written one of my characters raping or forcing or even coercing someone sexually. The act sickens me. People who do it sicken me. And for the life of me I can't imagine how committing that vile act on someone could be pleasurable.
Years ago, while working as a security supervisor in Vancouver, I was visiting our guard at Queen Elizabeth park (aka “Little Mountain”). As we were checking in, two full-patch bikers rode up the hill to the upper parking lot. One of the bikers had a female passenger who almost fell off his bike as they rounded the last curve.
The guard and I walked up into the parking area and saw that the bikers had ridden onto the grass and the female was lying on her back, the bikers standing over her. As we approached, the female - who was very intoxicated - was reaching up, inviting both bikers to have sex with her. I overheard one of the bikers say to his brother; “This ain’t right, man.” The other agreed.
The bikers saw us approach and one noticed the portable radio on my belt.
“Can you call for an ambulance?” he asked, “I think she needs to go to the hospital.”
I radioed our Dispatch and they called 911 for us (I specified an ambulance and not the police as both bikers had been drinking as well). As we were waiting, the female started vomiting and choking and one of the bikers rolled her into the recovery position, rubbed her back and even held her hair as she vomited.
It turned out that the female was unknown to those men - they had picked her up in a bar, and despite their intention to have sex with her, they knew she was in no state to give proper consent for sex and suspected she was approaching medical distress.
Shortly after the ambulance arrived, the female stopped breathing and the paramedics had to intubate her and use a breathing bag. If the bikers hadn’t felt empathy for her and acted on it, that female may have died.
My big question is; Why is it that two bad-ass 1% full-patch bikers respond with empathy when they see a passed out female and ensure she gets medical attention, but a bright university athlete or a politician or a millionaire decides to rape her instead?
Has two decades of “rape culture” in rap music, online homemade porn videos featuring men dominating and abusing women, and examples by a few professional athletes turned some young men away from their natural empathy?
I wish I had the answers.
But I do know one thing that we should all be alarmed by …
We have mirror neurons in our brains that activate an empathic response to someone else suffering. These mirror neurons and our entire Limbic system are all part of our survival system - survival of self and survival of species. As Dr Bruce Perry said in one of his books; “We are born for love”. We are hardwired to care about and care for each other. But what is happening to our society through rapes, murders, assaults, mass shootings, and religion-driven violence is evidence that there is a growing number of people who have lost touch with that survival system.
As authors, people honour us by reading our short stories and novels. It is a privilege that very few are afforded, but with it comes responsibility. We need to lose the tropes where the big strong man grabs the girl and bends her to his will. We need to purge our novels of anything that glorifies rape or coercion. We need to write strong women, strong transgendered characters, and men with a moral compass. To sit passively by while rape and coercion continues in our society and do nothing about it, well … “This ain’t right, man”.
Aaron D McClelland
Penticton, BC
No comments:
Post a Comment