Almost a year ago, in February of 2014, I created a new blog, this blog, allowing me to start fresh. A lot happens in a year, and it's combined arbitrariness and social acceptance lends the year to new starts; constantstateofwonder.blogspot.com becomes blank, shaking free its old, embarrassing posts from the me of last year. My writing changes, if it does not improve, and I'm glad I thought to do a yearly cleanse; Junior year Sammi can dwell in the depths of Internet hell while the me with yet no perspective of her own embarrassment can write freely and without anxiety that a reader (or, more likely I) will be tempted to read and learn about me from before. Because me from before does not encapsulate me; she remains formative in development, but not central in current personhood. Slightly Insane Musings of An Idiosyncratic Nerd Girl (my original blog), need not be taken into account when trying to understand me as I am now. Believe me, I'll tell you what I'm about without you needing to root around in my old shitty writing. You can learn more from my current shitty writing. My signifiers cannot be traced to a place or a time, but what else would you expect in the age of the image? I look at pictures of myself sometimes and wonder who I'm seeing. What was I thinking and who was I being? Who is this girl? She is me and she cannot signify herself in a photo; I look for some explanation of who I am in photos of me, but, despite my attempts to declare my personhood to others through countenance and dress, I remain elusive, even to me. But despite my slippery definitions, I feel attached to And That's When I Said...
It may be because years seem much faster; having finished high school, four years in one place (college) feels much shorter; the year, though I've always recognized its arbitrariness, loses its power. But beyond that, And That's When I Said... still feels powerful. It implies seriality--beginning with And, ending with ellipses--and voice with the word Said itself, as well with the temporal words That's and When; the words are spoken in response, and what follows is simultaneously a punchline, sarcastic comment, scathing remark, and outraged explosion; what follows is a post which has attempted to create a signified for myself, the most accurate one possible. Here, I am here; this is me; this is me right now, right this second; you cannot know me more than I know myself; I've granted you all I can collect from within myself, gathered and shaped it to show you this instantaneous, fleeting glimpse of me. And that's why And That's When I Said... feels right. Because it is temporal; because I am transient, at least the me of now. Tomorrow, I will be someone almost exactly the same as I am today; you won't even notice... and then you will. But I will still be saying; I will still be responding in a myriad of (mostly likely embarrassing) ways. And That's When I Said... I will use my voice and what I say will be signifier of myself.
***
"People who have been raped or sexually assaulted" takes up a lot of space, and it should, but when we're attempting to refer to this group, we search for a word that fits the needs of the group and quickly conveys their status. "Victim," it is argued, gives no agency to the person who has been sexually assaulted or raped ("Victims are passive. If it was really that bad, why didn't they do something to stop it? Why did they let it happen?"), which is why some prefer the term "survivor." The person who has been sexually assaulted or raped endures, survives, and recreates their life despite the harm done to them; they do this of their own volition; they are a powerful agent, a force with control and capability. "Victim," it is argued, removes the power and agency of the person who's been sexually assaulted or raped. They are, according to the synonyms of victim, a casualty, a fatality. Personally, I disagree with both words. Victim undercuts the value and depth of a person who has been sexually assaulted or raped, but survivor, for the reasons it is claimed to be valuable, can be harmful.
Survivor declares either a certain amount of luck or power. Concerning luck, they were lucky to make it out alive and unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Luck and sexual assault/rape are two unrelated instances we need to not intersect. For luck to meet sexual assault/rape takes the blame from the assaulter/rapist; bad luck is blamed rather than the perpetrator. Luck also declares that it could've been worse; instead of just being raped (a horrid act and experience), you could've been raped and just realized you ate the last chocolate! You're a survivor, kiddo! We simply cannot associate sexual assault/rape with bad luck, let alone good luck. Concerning power, if this person who has been sexually assaulted/raped is declared a person of agency, their agency may be turned against them: "If their so capable and in control, why didn't they stop their attacker" or "Why weren't they prepared?" or "So... they wanted it to happen?" While people who have been sexually assaulted/raped should not be reduced to powerless, passive victims, granting them too much agency leaves them open to backlash in the ways I've discussed and, I'm sure, in a myriad of other ways I haven't thought of or am not aware of.
I've never been sexually assaulted or raped, so the decision does not belong to me, but both proposed words seem, in varying ways, fraught. I don't know if a word exists in the middle ground that simultaneously places blame on the perpetrator and empowers the person who has been sexually assaulted/raped after the fact. Each word signifies a different meaning and grants skeptics different avenues of critique. The transition from victim to survivor to thriver is also proposed, but this transition is not a single working word applicable to all and usable in conversation, discussion, court, and political discourse. I offer little solution to this issue other than the words "endurer" and "perseverer," the definitions of which are, according to Merriam Webster, one who endures and one who perseveres, respectively. A horrible act has been done/is happening, but the endurer endures, the perseverer persists. These words are certainly not panaceas, nor are they easy to say, but they seem to better fit the (perceived) requirements, definitions, and needs of those who have been sexually assaulted/raped.
***
I see my particles arranged in this way:
Crystalline and fractured
As I stare into the void I watch the other particles float
free
Not trapped by the way they lay
And I think
You lucky, lucky bastards
"amazing division
how sweet the sound"
