Wednesday, August 2, 2017

The Second Rape

August 2, 2017




That's the address for the first page of Yahoo results for the term "the second rape."  

I am fortunate that I was never the victim of a forcible rape or another physical, sexual assault by someone who derived pleasure from hurting me.  I have spoken to counselors on the phone at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center several times over the past years, since I began to be repeatedly victimized by voyeurism.  Some of them are helpful; some of them aren't.  The conglomerate has heard of all of my phone conversations to that agency and to suicide crisis agencies, has heard my anger and my despair, has heard me yelling and sobbing.  The conglomerate couldn't care less.  

The issues of voyeurism and involuntary pornography are being dismissed by the world's power structure as jokes whose victims deserve what happens to them, from public humiliation to social isolation, from the loss of employment, education and housing to being harassed and stalked online and in person, from psychological trauma to suicide.  There is almost no protection from these crimes and no restitution for their victims, unless the victims are rich and can pay lawyers to help them.  

Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, August 2, 2017 @ 12:25 p.m.