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Dedicated to one of my favorite writers,
Luz M. Costa
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I spend a lot of time thinking about raping women. I mean, if I did that — if I used my physical power to overtake some random woman, and then I forced my penis into her pussy, because I am programmed to feel that as ultimate domination. If my head was so fucked up that doing that made sense, how should I be punished?
I think about raping women a lot. I think about what I would deserve after that. Let’s play with that. Let’s imagine that I raped Lara. I could do it right now. She’s lying on the floor sleeping. I could use half of my strength to subdue her, the other half to fuck her. She most likely couldn’t stop me. The odds are in my favor. I know this. All men know this — logically — like an equation. I could probably rape Lara if I decided to. Ok, sure. But I can’t conceive ever wanting that. I mean, what would I get in return? I am going to destroy the woman I love for an orgasm? Or I’m going to brutalize some random stranger to feel a sense of animal power, and have an orgasm? Um, no. That’s just crazy shit. Raping anything or anyone is some psychotic shit. I’m sorry, rapists, but it’s just fucking so. Kill yourselves. You’ll be doing the world a service. You’ll be awarded a group Nobel Peace prize: the self genocide of rapists. Do it. Come on. Do it.
Anyway, if I did rape Lara. If I just forcefully fucked her right now on our living room floor, good and angry and brutal — my penalty for that is slavery. Tommy rapist becomes the property of his victim. I stole Lara’s body, now she owns my existence. I am in a cage. I have handlers. I am powerless against her will. The roles are completely reversed.
What the fuck would you do in that situation? Most people would get in the cage with the handlers and just trounce the guy to death. They would trounce him slowly. It would be a good week of chunked flesh torture, ya know? Think about it. Get sadistic. He fucking raped you! Society has told you that you can do anything to him. You could literally slice the guy to death with a giant deli slicer—from the bottom of his feet, slicing upward. How thin would you make the slice? Paper thin. How long would you drag out the slicing. Hours. Several hours. Can’t you just hear the rapist screaming — begging you to stop, just like you did when he raped you. Slice. Slice. Slice. How far would you slice before the hemorrhaging?
Yeah, a lot of people would go for physically harm. I feel that.
But I wouldn’t do that. I’m better than that. And I don’t take “better” to mean, I’m a better person than that; I can’t hurt anyone. I mean, I am so much better at hurting people than that. Physical harm is so quick and uncreative. I would make destroying my rapist my art. He would be my project.
My plan: I will use argumentation, masterful rhetoric, a mountain of research and evidence to prove a single thesis: you, my little rapist, should take this gun and shoot yourself in the fucking face.
I will do this every day, for eight hours. It will be my job. What do you do, Mr. Hardie? Well, right now I am persuading my rapist to commit suicide.
I would write articles about it. I’d giver interviews about it. I would let it be televised. It could have its own channel. I would become a craze. How long do you think it’ll take Tom to do it? A month? A year? People would bet on the day. I bet Tom Hadie will talk his rapist into suicide on January 21st. There would be a huge cash prize for the winner.
How long could you stand that, if you were my rapist? The whole world is watching. I can argue forever. I’m stubborn as fuck. I’m relentless. I never get tired. I will make my point.
When you finally did shoot yourself in the face — you’d do it in front of me. I’d get to watch your face explode into a bloody cloud of bone and brain and nose and eyelashes—just a meat-grinder mess of face particles. Yeah! Fuck you, motherfucker!
Only when I got to watch that, when I made that happen, only then would I feel vindicated. You raped my body. I liquefied your feeble little mind. You fucking insect! I ate your fucking soul.
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Do you know why I love Lara? If I did it. If I raped her. If I became her property. If she had me in a cage. Lara would feel bad for me. Lara would let me go.
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Metanarrative