By Richael Faithful
I claim a body that is well-worn. Over time I have seen my limbs thicken, and my skin toughen. I can trace jagged lines of scars that are about the same marks as the wounds that declared themselves years ago.
I also believe, after much healing, that I wear my body well. I revel in my lustrous bed of locs that brag about the force through which I have lived the last decade. I embrace the contours and curves in my face, which sculpt the subtle expressions of my handsomeness that deepen with age. This body of mine visualizes stories of a privileged upbringing and systemic oppression, of creative exhibition, and family burden.
My body has not been raped. And it is among the few that I know. At least not yet. I am still trying to make meaning of this fact.
Perhaps if it does not know rape, I inhabit a body that holds parts of a sanctuary for a world without rape. My back joins others as a bridge that extends through time—now, in my own reality where rape does not directly exist, and in the future, where rape can end in the world. Where rape ends even for Black, trans, and wom*n-perceived bodies. My heart is one that waits in the future where the terrorism of rape culture is starved out, no longer fed by cycles of sexual violence, toxic masculinity, and perversions of power. My mind opens an imagination that thrusts us toward an imperative: rape must end, rape must end, rape must end.
I may embody a world without rape, but this same body knows rape culture. I can only tell you what my body knows. It knows that I have denied others access to it, and they have complied. But my body also knows that I have rejected many attempts to touch it without invitation. My body knows that it has never absorbed the force of physical violence, yet sexual scrutiny and vulgarity are recorded on it. My body has not felt a boundary compromised by a partner during an intimate encounter, and too, my body has witnessed internalized shame by women who could not accept their own desires of it.
Even in a world without rape, my body—and none of our bodies—are exempt from rape culture’s corrosiveness, which shocks our systems, and poisons us all. As we together bring a world without rape into existence, we must also annihilate rape culture to be truly liberated. Â
I have not been raped, but I am resident to a body whose cells carry a brutal rape-filled past. I am a descendant of people who were receptacles for other people’s pleasure, and casualties of other people’s projections. My bloodline endured enough rape for all of us. And my queer and “transcestors†were almost always punished for their audacity to survive. But they all found a way to dream of me, and create this vessel for me. How would I betray my children if I did not dream of them?
Already, so many of us have chosen to live in a future outside of rape culture. We are still affected by rape culture, to be clear. Yet, so many courageous folks are simply choosing not to wait for our bodies to be respected, as if there is any other option. We require affirmative consent; we condemn street harassment; we assume our freedom to wear anything or nothing at all; we support sex workers; and, perhaps, most of all, we believe each other.
I learned to resist rape culture through claiming my queerness early in life. I chose not to perform for cis-men’s attention, and toxic masculinity felt immediately suspicious. And I learned consent from my mother and other elders who helped me declared my autonomy through their memories when their choices were denied.
I am still unlearning rape culture’s persistent lie—that rape is normal. Though it is pervasive, rape is not normal, biological, inevitable, or excusable in any other way. It does not need to be part of our social relationships or intimate lives.
We can resist and live outside of rape culture even when the very threat of rape coerces our choices so that we must calculate the horrors we face. However, even when choices are few and heartbreaking, sometimes we have the resources to invent new ones. We resist by self-defense, reproductive/parental choice, and self-determined intimacy. We create portals of agency where we enter more liberated realities, even as they may require tremendous risks or costs.
Those who resist rape culture’s control allow my body—a queer Black body that has never known rape—to be possible. In this possibility, my body serves as proof that there are more portals for all of us at the edge of our existence. Â
My body, at that edge, is testament to a culture of care. A world in which all bodies were seen as inherently sacred, and were treated as valuable beyond capitalist measure. A reality where bodies that have been raped or violated remain divine and precious, and are free of scorn and shame. A place where touch is a blessed act between people and other beings, and where the language of consent is native and fluent. An ethos where we evenly share responsibility for care, equally enjoy receiving care, and we all have our basic needs met through care.
In a culture of care, darker, larger, and feminine-identified bodies are not holders of our labor, containers for our digest, or collectors of our abuse—they are deeply affirmed, lovingly respected, and intrinsically safe. Within this reality, those who inflict harm are healed, and their own suffering is addressed so that cycles of violence are disrupted. Prisons, then, are relics of the past because we recognize forcing humans in cages only breeds more violence. We will remember these times when rape was ubiquitous with deep regret, and know that gave way to reformation.
I lay my body, next to every body that has known rape, as living altars. We declare ourselves as sovereign every time we say “yes†to a partner’s touch or receive compensation for our work or fit into gender-affirming clothes. We ask the light of our eyes to illuminate our longing to be free from fear and claim our birthrights. We ask the beat of our hearts to flow and give life to the parts of ourselves that misuse power because they have not been shown otherwise. We ask for the softness of our smiles to show that tenderness is still possible on this planet. Our bodies are well-worn and their liberation has been hard-earned.
*This essay is part of our monthlong collaboration with FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture,  Rape Can & Must End*
Suggested Readings:
Derrick Weston Brown, Tafisha Edwards,  Teri Cross Davis, “Rape Can & Must End: Poems“, RaceBaitR, 2018
Kalima Y. Young, “Musings on a world without rape: A listicle“, RaceBaitR, 2018
Richael Faithful (they/them/theirs) is a DC-based multidisciplinary folk healer and spiritual activist from the Black diasporic healing tradition of the U.S. called conjure.
Their writing has been nationally featured in popular online outlets, including The Root, Everyday Feminism, and HuffPo.
They have also contributed to several anthologies, including Lambda Literary award nominee, Outside the XY: Queer, Black and Brown Masculinity, Food First book, Land Justice: Re-Imagining Land, Food and the Commons, and G.R.I.T.S. – Girls Raised In The South: An Anthology of Southern Queer Womyns’ Voices and Their Allies, and the upcoming Black Trans Love Is Black Trans Wealth anthology.
