Since the Supreme Court decision the other day concerning the death penalty for raping children, the word “rape” has been much in the news and on the message boards and blogs. People are outraged our government won’t allow us to kill child rapists … or any rapist actually. The general consensus at my usual haunts is that all rapists should be put to death. Why? Because “victims of ALL rape have their lives destroyed,” as more than a few comments stated in various ways.

As one of those victims and as someone who has known and interacted with others who were raped at various ages and stages of life, I believe I have something to say on this subject, and I can speak from experience. My life was not destroyed. There were a few years of turmoil and some emotional and mental healing to be done that took some time, but I still have my life. My life has been and still is mine to do with as I please. It was not destroyed. It did not end the day I trusted someone I shouldn’t have trusted. In the grand scheme of my life, it was a set-back, and in many ways a life lesson. But my life destroyed? No.

Others I have spoken too who have been directly touched by rape also don’t feel their lives were destroyed. There were things t get through, problems to work out, issues to resolve, but their lives also didn’t end the day they were raped … and that includes adults and people who were children at the time. They picked themselves up. They got the help they needed. They worked on healing. They moved on, because they were still alive, and they had things to do with that life. I did the same. Life goes on so long as you are breathing and thinking.

Rape can be devastating. A person can let it destroy their lives, but as with any injury, it is in the victims power and hands to either repair the damage themselves or seek out those who can help them. If someone fell down the stairs and broke their leg, would they crawl back up the stairs to their apartment, lay down on the couch, and give up? No. Of course not. Rape is an injury with slightly more emotional damage involved than with a broken leg, but it’s an injury all the same with damage that can be repaired if the victim tries to do so.

I often wonder if the reason some rape victims give up on life and give into the idea their lives have been destroyed is because so many in society see it that way. I heard the talk around the water cooler and the rumors floating in the air. “That poor girl. She was raped, you know. How does she go on with her life?” I also had to face the various and sundry pitying looks bestowed on me by far too many people, as though I’d been tainted and ruined somehow. Some even seemed to behave as though they thought my ruin would somehow rub off on them if they touched me. There were even those that questioned why I hadn’t immediately dropped all my classes after such a life-altering event. Yes, because the very thing a person needs to do when their life is touched by something life-altering is to run away and completely alter their life.

At the time, I thought perhaps I was especially strong, especially better able to overcome major obstacles. So many other people believed that to be true. “Look at her! It only happened a week ago, and there she is sitting in the pub laughing with her friends. She is being so strong!” I wasn’t especially strong. I wasn’t especially better able to overcome major obstacles. I just didn’t take to heart everyone around me acting as though my life was over, that I was somehow damaged goods forever, and that maybe I should be sitting on the couch at my mother’s house crying and shaking instead of attending classes and hanging out with my friends. If I had given in to society’s view that my life was destroyed, then it’s quite possible my life would have been destroyed. Society needs to help victims have the strength to get back into life, to move past the event, to heal, and not rant or whisper about how the victim’s life is ruined. That’s what they want, right? For people who have been raped to go on with their lives as planned? then help them do that by not constantly going on about how they are damaged forever. It isn’t true unless the victim wants it to be true.

And how do I feel about the Supreme Court’s decision? I support it fully. Odd, I know, that so many who have never been raped would have all rapists put to death on the spot, and here I sit, a former victim, and I can honestly say I never, not once, wished my rapist dead. I wished him put away for a few years. I wished him to be reformed. I wished him to become a better person. I wished a lot of things, but I never wished him dead. Dead people don’t learn anything, and not all rapists are completely irredeemable. R. spent a few years in prison, which I am certain were less fun than my years of college, and he got out and became a somewhat productive member of society. The last I heard about him, he had not re-offended in any way or gotten into any other legal troubles, and I don’t believe he will. At least, I hope he won’t. Even if he did, I would still not want to see him put to death.

One of the major reasons I was opposed to the death penalty for child rapists as soon as Texas started talking about instituting it was obvious to me and not at all obvious to anyone else. After we, as a society, start handing out the death penalty for child rape, what will be the next crime to be determined to be too heinous to allow the perpetrator to continue living. The obvious choice is all rapes. And after that, what? Sexual molestation of children? Sexual assaults on adults? Driving while intoxicated? Doing drugs? Where exactly do we stop? As soon as the outrage over the latest heinous crime is dealt with to society’s satisfaction, the outrage turns elsewhere. Everyone finds something new and shiny to be outraged about and demand extreme justice for it rises. Next thing you know, people are being stoned in the public square for having adulterous affairs. It isn’t like that doesn’t happen elsewhere in the world, but I would hope we are better than that. I suppose only time will tell.