Outside the night was quiet. From the street you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know that in that little house in Albury, an innocent young women’s life was coming undone. All she could do was stare at the white ceiling, to pretend she was anywhere but there. She had studied every crack, every paint bubble, and every shadow. The vast whiteness is all that stood between her and her nightmare. She was terrified. The simplicity of the great white expanse above her began to frustrate her. Its ominous white glow in the moonlight could not soothe her against the hurt and anguish that was ripping at her soul. She was very aware of her weight sinking into the mattress. She could feel it start to engulf her. She wished she could vanish into it and end the torture that will surely be her end. Her scream was stuck in her throat. She felt it start to close. Her tears were burning her face like acid. This is all my fault she thought.
She was struggling against his force, completely defenseless. She tried to avoid his eyes, but they were glaring down at her, hateful and angry. His face was twisted and ghoulish. She was sure she could see the devil eating his soul. How else was he able to do this to her. His weight was bearing down on her, pushing her into her depths of despair. She was suffocating under his immensity. Please let this be over she begged any higher power that will hear her cry. A stir in the next room. My children! She thought. My darling, innocent children. Please can they not hear this. Please can they never know of pain such as this. She tried to block out what is happening, to escape into another realm in her mind, but he was screaming, “you’re a slut” and “this is what happens to sluts”. As he spat out these words they entrapped Louisa in a spiral of shame and humiliation. He was viciously raping her. How could this be possible she thought. The vicious monster tearing into her was no stranger. The man raping her was her partner.
Louise met Paul when she was only 18, and a single mother of a gorgeous son. He was “old world and courteous”, and while her attraction to him wasn’t immediate she quickly fell for his charming nature. Louise says he was “totally adoring”, and their young love progressed at lightning speed. They were living together after two months, and engaged within six. On face value they were the perfect couple. Nobody knew of the hell the existed behind closed doors. Paul had been over protective and jealous from the beginning. At first Louise was flattered, and was touched that he cared about her so much. This quickly turned to verbal abuse and constant degrading. She began to wonder if she had made the right choice about the relationship. Within two months this abuse has escalated to battery and sexual assault. The first time he raped her was when she threatened to leave. He slapped her until she saw stars, and threw her onto the bed. He said, “I can f*** you anytime I want to”. He saw this as his right, and she began to think the same. Louise says she blamed herself and “felt so dirty”. Still a teenager, Louise had no idea what do you. “I had always thought of domestic violence as something that puts you in hospital” she says, so felt she had nowhere to turn.
These brutal rapes, and vicious beating were constant throughout their relationship. She began to withdraw. Louise says she became very shy and found it hard to look people in the eye because of the shame and guilt she felt. After a year of trying to leave him many times, her pregnancy was the final straw and she decided to leave his violence for good, because she knew “he wasn’t going to stop”. Like so many victims of domestic and sexual violence, Louise wasn’t able to stay away. Louise was unable to repel his advances, begging her to return to him. She felt the “fight was knocked out of her”. After their baby was born, Louise says she was “naive enough to think the baby would stop the violence”. This was not the case. The rapes and beatings continued mercilessly. After another year, Louise says she realized her life was in real danger. After threatening to leave for the final time, Paul started to espouse death threats. He said, “If you’re not coming home I have nothing to loose by killing you”. One night he broke into her house, and upon finding her in the bath, held her head under the water saying he was going to kill her. Desperate to be there for her children, after this Louise was finally able to leave for good. Louise finally escaped her perpetual rapist.
Intimate partner rape, as it is referred to, is an unaddressed problem in Victoria. Perceptions of historical and traditional notions of conjugal rights lead our society to believe that sex in a marriage is guaranteed. Kerry Bents, a rape counselor at south Eastern CASA (Centre Against Sexual Assault) says this is due to a “culture of patriarchal thinking”. Men see sex as their right as a husband and women are made to feel as though it is their role to provide it. It is not. Rape by a partner is illegal according to the Crimes Amendment act of 1985. Breaking this law is punishable by 25 years in prison. In a WHEALTH study of 21 victims of intimate partner rape, it was found that only 11 of the 21 women recognized what happened to them as rape at the time. In a 2006 Personal Safety Survey it was found, an estimated 27,400 women in Australia have experienced sexual assault by their current partner, and 272,300 by a previous partner. According to the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACCSA) these figures are likely to be underestimates. Liz Wall from ACCSA says there is a “disturbingly high rate of intimate partner rape”.
A huge problem with intimate partner rape is the misconception that being raped by a stranger is worse. The media has perpetuated this idea by sensationalizing stranger rape cases. Wall says that while people may think rape by a partner is less traumatic, it is in fact more. Louise says that when she finally told people of her rapes, people told her to think herself lucky it wasn’t a stranger who dragged her into a car. Louise referred to this notion as the “perception [of intimate partner rape] as a common cold not cancer”. The emotional trauma that results from intimate partner rape runs deep. 19 of the 21 women interviewed for the WHEALTH study described ongoing effects of partner rape on their current wellbeing. They spoke of feeling lost and questioning their reason for being alive. Louise says her “sense of self and rights was obliterated”. She felt she had nowhere to turn, as nobody understood what she was going though. People said it was her fault for not leaving. She says she felt “isolated and humiliated”. Both Bents and Wall stated that women blame themselves and feel a deep sense of shame. For Wall, “shame is exacerbated when it’s by a partner”. Bents has seen that the betrayal of trust often results in a women’s loss of ability to trust in the future.
Despite this trauma, very few women are willing to come forward about what is happening to them. It was only years after her abuse that Louise finally sought emotional support. “Naming it as rape was empowering so I could move to healing” she says. 13 of 21 women did not speak to anyone at all regarding the rapes. In many cases, women still try to protect their husbands and families. Wall says,” Women don’t want the father of their children to be branded a rapist”. Deb Parkinson, the researcher behind the WHEALTH study discovered that many women had a sense of self-censoring. She says, “If women are still in the relationship they can’t reconcile the idea of being raped by their partner”, so they don’t come forward. She believes it is important that it is recognized as rape because “until you name it, you can’t move on”. In addition very few women felt able to leave their husbands. For Louise, fear was an integral factor. “Threatening to leave meant violence” she says. Economic reliability is also cited by Wall as a major reason to stay with an abusive partner.
There is inadequate support available to victims of partner rape. Women need to have somewhere to turn, and someone to talk to. Parkinson found in her research that many women “were silenced by inappropriate health responses”. When interviewing health professionals for her study, Parkinson was shocked with the response she received. She said many health professionals referred to intimate partner rape as “a bit of a grey area” or said “isn’t it a compromise in marriage?”. While the CASA centers in Melbourne are viewed as effective, there is no specific training for any counselors in Victoria specifically for intimate partner rape. Louise believes this should become mandatory.
While intimate partner rape is a criminal offence, our police and criminal justice do not support its victims enough. In Victoria there is a special unit for tackling domestic violence known as SOCA. However police in general do little to encourage women to report their partner rapes. Out of 30 police officers were interviewed for the WHEALTH study, only 6 of them said they would recommend a loved one report a partner rape to the police. Louise says, “Some cops still think that women who call rape are lying”. Only four out of the 21 WHEALTH women sought help from the police. Wall says, “In many cases women feel that they wont be believed”. There is also the belief that reporting the crime wont do any good according to Bents. If a woman does decide to report the rape to the police, it is very difficult to prosecute a case.
A case can only go to the criminal courts if the Director of Public Prosecutions considers that there is a good change of winning. Intimate partner rape is hard to prove, without DNA or witness. This means the chances of winning are extremely low. Parkinson says the legal system is “loaded against women”. The process is drawn out and there are often campaigns to discredit a woman’s character. Parkinson says, “Women are either mad, bad or sad”. When Louise threatened to report Paul to the police, he was only too aware of this and said, “I’ve f****d you so many times before who would believe you”. Without fear of retribution, men will continue to rape their wives. Bents says, “Whilst men can get away with it, it will continue”.
Society needs to stop ignoring partner rape and finally hold men who rape their wives accountable for their criminal behavior. Louise believes that the law reflects social views, and “If society takes partner rape seriously it will bare on the law”. All four women interviewed for this article agreed that the only way to combat this issue is to educate our society. Bents believes community education is way to change societies values. She thinks this education needs to start in high school and teach kids about rights in relationships and what consent means. Similarly Louise believes that targeting young women’s self esteem is critically important. She says it needs to be “built up so they can raise their voices”.
Louise has now published a book called ‘Real Rape, Real Pain: Help for Women Sexually Assaulted by Male partners’. She also runs the website ‘Aphrodite Wounded’. It is an online haven where women can look for support. She says doing these things has been therapeutic for her. She is “helping women to name it and heal” which is liberating. A rape activist, Louise has helped many women find their voice, and in doing so has been able to heal her wounds. Unfortunately, not all women are able to escape their rapists. There are women across Victoria being raped by their husbands, and betrayed by their society. They have nowhere to turn.
