Rape and Lynching in America!

Missouri Rep. Todd Akin made the nation's collective jaw drop on Sunday with the comment that "legitimate rape" victims rarely get pregnant because they have "ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow Republican co-sponsors played around with the word rape . .  suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible.    For women,  it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.

Now Mr. Todd Akin - - - wants to say that he misspoke when he said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evilcontent?  

Mr Aiken  used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you- - -  what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.

Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.

And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.

#ReasonToRise

Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo