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Loading... On Being Raped (2016)by Raymond M. Douglas
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. Content warning: This review discusses a book that goes into detail about rape, sexual assault, rape culture, victim blaming, homophobia and sexual violence. Raymond M. Douglas is a successful author. He teaches at a prestigious university. He has a wife and two daughters. He has won awards for his work. At the age of 18, a priest raped him. It is the latter that defines Douglas’ latest book, bluntly titled “On Being Raped.” As the title suggests, part of the book is a broad examination of the culture of rape, specifically the fact that men are victims of rape as much as women, but it is also the specific story of a man and four horrific hours of his life that he will never get back. You can read my full review of ON BEING RAPED at the Current independent student newspaper website. A reviewer copy of the book was provided for free by the Goodreads giveaway program and Beacon Press; no other compensation was offered for this review, nor was a review required to receive the book. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This is a small volume that packs a lot in it. It is a heart-wrenching true tale of rape and the terror that follows such an ordeal. The author's language is full of such candor and impact that it makes it hard to put the book down. It is a short but powerful read. On Being Raped by Raymond M. Douglas is a powerful, important, and very much needed book. More rape victims need to be able to tell their stories and know that they will be heard and believed. This is true across the board but perhaps even more important in the case of male-on-male rape. Men experience the same sense of helplessness that women do except theirs is coupled with the distorted view of masculinity that might imply the victim is somehow less a man in the victim's own eyes. There are certainly equivalencies in a woman's experience with doubting herself also. I don't want to pretend the differences in any way makes one worse experience than the other, they are horrific no matter. Douglas' experiences with the Church and with therapy highlight many of the problems with how the survivor is helped, or hindered, in making as much of a recovery as possible. This is in addition to all of the judicial and legal problems they also have to negotiate. This might not be anyone's idea of a fun read but it would help many of us to better understand and hopefully empathize with rape victims, so I would recommend this to everyone. Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. no reviews | add a review
A personal and moral inquiry into the crime we do our best to ignore- the rape of adult men When Raymond M. Douglas was an eighteen-year-old living in Europe, he was brutally raped by a Catholic priest. He eventually moved to the United States and became a highly regarded historian, writing with great care about the violent expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after the Second World War, and parsing the complicated moral questions of these actions. But until now, Douglas has been silent about his own experience of trauma. In On Being Raped, Douglas recounts this painful event and his later attempts to seek help to lay bare the physical and psychological trauma of a crime we still don't openly discuss- the rape of adult men by men. With eloquence and passion, he examines the requirements society implicitly places upon men who are victims of rape, examines the reasons for our resounding silence around this issue, and reveals how alarmingly prevalent this kind of sexual violence truly is. An insightful and sensitive analysis of a type of bodily violation that we either joke about or ignore, On Being Rapedpromises to open an important dialogue about male rape and what needs to be done to provide adequate services and support for victims. "But before that can happen," writes Douglas, "men who have been raped will have to come out of the shadows...A start has to be made somewhere. This is my attempt at one." No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumRaymond M. Douglas's book On Being Raped was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)362.8830811Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems of & services to groups of people Problems of and services to other groups People affected by criminal acts Sex offensesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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