S1-Day 28: God in Dirty Places: The Caved-in Rape

A newspaper article on May 13th 2020 read- “An 18-year-old girl from Morena district of Madhya Pradesh has accused her father of raping her twice during the coronavirus lockdown. The mother stood a mute spectator as the father raped the daughter saying, “it will only make things less painful after marriage.” This justification that the father gave for raping his daughter as reported in the article, ethically sounded outrageous, but according to both the accused and the victim’s mother who was the abettor of the crime it was justifiable, and hence they went ahead with the crime.

The instances of rape and sexual violence are either justified by blaming the victim or is kept hushed-up to uphold the "sanctity" of the home (family) or to avoid social stigma. Though, home is generally considered a safe space, for many it is a caved-in experience, a traumatic place which they cannot leave. Thus, destined to face trauma for major part of their lives.

There are many such instances in the bible, where rape/sexual violence occurring in families are ignored and a counter-narrative is applied to make the rape/sexual violence seem insignificant, as if it did not happen. Even to the extent of absolving the perpetrators of their heinous crime.

In Genesis 19, Lot offers to surrender his young daughters to be gang raped, to protect his guests from the crowd. In popular interpretation, though the intention of Lot is considered incorrect but is justified to uphold the "honor of the guests", the ancient law of hospitality, at the expense of his daughters. And then cleverly masked by giving a totally different connotation to the incident by emphasizing on the story of men wanting to “sleep/rape” other men.

Similarly, the eventual “rape of Lot” by his daughters when they were confined in a “cave”, was justified by the need to pro-create. Since blaming the victim is a norm, Lot being in an inebriated state is thus naturally seen as a justification for him to sleep with his daughters. The popular interpretation, thus, tries to absolve Lot and paint the daughters in a negative picture and then eventually saying that in the end it all served the larger good, i.e. to "continue" his line.

This without considering the trauma of the daughters who were betrayed by their father, whom they trusted to protect them, instead readily made them available to be raped by the Sodomites. They dint have a space to express themselves, express their feelings or trauma and eventually they took a decision from that dirty and traumatic space, the space where “obeying the law”, “the need to pro-create”, “need to bear sons for protection”, etc. was justified.

The justification of rape and sexual violence is so well imbibed in the social fabric of the patriarchal society, that at most times we fail to understand and empathize with the victims. The victims go through the trauma of blaming themselves for what is happening to them. Their identity is “protected” and in-turn their voices are silenced and thus their stories and struggles remain unheard. All this not to protect the victim but to protect the reputation of the families, to “safeguard” the victim from the society.

Is God really present when the body, mind and the sheer existence of the victims is “dirtied”? Is God truly there in this dirty place that victims are subjected to? Christ, who is the “Head of the Home”, is he present in such dirty homes too?

God creates safe places for the victims, just like the angel on hearing Lot offering his daughter’s to be gang-raped, asked Lot to take his daughters and wife and to flee to a safer place. Christ too in his ministry, provides a safe space for victims, where they are not judged (Women who was to be stoned by the Pharisees  John 8:3-11), they are given the freedom to express themselves (“Sinner” Women who anoints Jesus feet with perfume Luke 7: 36-50), and they are considered very important in Jesus’s ministry of spreading the good news (by appearing first to Mary Magdalene whom the popular narrative is as a “prostitute” Mathew 28:1-10)

Jesus enters their caved-in spaces, never to judge them, but empathize with them and let them express themselves. He provides them the safe space that they wanted, allowing them to talk about their traumatic experiences, their “dirty” bodies, and thus help them to heal and restore themselves.

Prayer:

O God, help us to be channels of your love and understanding. Help us, as a church and society to enter the caved-in spaces of the rape victims and facilitate a safe space where they can express and talk about their trauma. Let the love and care that we give to them help them and us to heal and restore and together bring healing to the world. Amen.

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Author:  Shruti Rajan

About the Author: Shruti was brought up in Pune. She originally hails from Kerala and belongs to the Marthoma Church. She did Bachelor of Engineering from the Savitri Bai Phule University, Pune in 2007, and also completed the Diploma in Proficiency in Counselling course from United Theological College, Bangalore in 2018. She is presently working as a software professional with Epsilon, Bangalore.