Some thoughts on rape culture and power dynamics (Part 1)

I heard this story on the radio today, and it got me thinking about some stuff that made even me fairly uncomfortable. According to a UN survey, South Africa has more rapes per capita than any other country on Earth, by a wide margin, and 41 percent of those are against children. As I was listening to this piece, I was wondering why this apparent rape culture is so prevalent in South Africa, and how the U.S. compares in terms of rapes per capita. I just looked up the survey, and the U.S. is in 9th place. I still have to wonder, though, what factors contribute to the prevalence of rape culture in certain parts of the world

I have a personal interest in this issue, because in the summer of 1977, while all the other kids I knew were going to the opening of Star Wars, I was in the Alfred I DuPont Institute, being tortured and sexually abused by a visiting doctor from South Africa. I only have two clear, strong memories of this man. The first is from his initial examination of me. I remember him sticking his hand into the waistband of my shorts, saying he needed to "check my internal organs." In front of my parents, he then proceeded to 'check' the one organ in that vicinity that wasn't internal. Apparently, it was obvious to my parents from my facial expression that I was uncomfortable with what was going on. But, rather than asking the doctor if everything he was doing was strictly necessary, or "What the hell are you doing to my kid?" they told me not to squirm so much, and let him do his job.

Also in the course of that initial exam, he bragged about being descended from the "first royal family of South Africa." I knew a lot more about world history than about current affairs at that point in my life. It's also fair to say that I knew a lot more about history than about etiquette. So, I responded to this doctor's boast by asking "Wouldn't the first royal family have been Black?'" I can't prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship, but later, when the time came to remove the pins he had implanted in my ankles, he decided I didn't need anaesthetic. Saying it would take longer to set up the anaesthetic than to remove the pins, he brought in four large orderlies to hold me down, and proceeded to crank the pins out of my ankles with a hand drill.

Even though I knew virtually nothing about apartheid, the dynamics of colonialism, or the relationship between eugenics and racism, it was clear to me at the tender age of 7 that this whitecoat probably saw me as being different from him in much the same way that he thought Blacks were different. Although I don't think I had even heard of the Third World at that point, much less the Fourth or Fifth, I had the distinct impression that the doctor and I were from different worlds. Unfortunately, this was also when I began to understand that I belonged to a different world from the rest of my family.

Part 2 tomorrow