The Predators We Know

I once loved a man who I now believe was/is a rapist. I believe this because I have met some of his victims. I have known some of them all my life. This man, the rapist, was still outraged to learn of my assault and expressed great sadness and anger to learn of my childhood experiences in his absence.

Before I knew he was a rapist, he often told me to avoid those like him. The lying, cheating, abusive, violent kind I had been exposed to my whole life. Before I knew he was a rapist, before I knew the men he warned me of were himself, he was very adamant that he meet anyone I was interested in, I suppose to sniff out any of his qualities.

Sometimes he was temperamental but never scary. He was a religious man, a family man, a man who had a home, a wife, and a stable job. He wasn’t the stranger on the street to his victims, he was someone they knew and trusted.

The women he hurt were women like me, some were women I loved. I was trying to sort through my feelings about him just as I found out. Knowing destroyed me, not knowing endangered me. To be doing the work I do, people begin to tell you things. Your life begins to look more and more like the stuff you read about, the horror stories that we may not fully know or understand are most black women's reality. 

Sometimes when I see stories or public conversations around sexual assault my mind replays my story, their story, our story. Violence, brutality, is something I understand in my consciousnesses, not in my imagination. It is not something I tell you about from books, movies, or fantastic dreams. This is my life.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I hear their shrewd screaming, see red and bloody noses, purple eyes, contusions from the phone cord, lacerations from the choke hold, mental languishes what human can heal from, what phoenix could rise from black and blue bruises on top of black skin?

And I should. I should think about their stories. I should carry them with me but I don't want to be trapped in these monstrous intimacies, the stuff of books. I don't want to live in a horror movie anymore, but how could I escape the fate of black women especially those I know?

Over half of women have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes. So what are we going to do about their rapists, the predators we know?