How Women Rape Men

In both instances I felt raped.  I know what it feels like for a woman to be raped.  I have participated in enough emotional healing sessions where I have relieved moments of rape and sexual abuse with women to understand the feeling of deep betrayal rape engenders.  What should be a woman's gift to a man, something she gives him when her heart is open to him, becomes something that is “taken” from her without her consent.  The pressure men apply to women to give them sex “if you really love me” is a close second to rape, leaving its own brand of scars and eventually destroys women's feelings for that man. 

When I left my wife of 14 years, I wanted to make sure that she and the children were taken care of, because, even though I felt like a failure on one level, I had enough masculine pride and self-esteem that couldn't bear to abandon my post as provider.  The day after I left I sent money to her so she would be able to buy groceries.  I paid all the bills.  I offered to give her more money than the law required because I wanted my children to have a financially stable home.

She attacked me through the courts, with a list of demands I would have been completely incapable of fulfilling.  It hurt, it hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced.  She said things to the children to try to get them to “side” with her.  I had betrayed them all was the message she gave them.

As this was happening, I was pondering the pain I was feeling, thinking, I have felt this pain before.  Where did I feel it?  Then I remembered.  It was the pain I felt from a woman who was reliving being raped.  I was feeling raped.  Why was I feeling raped?  I realized then, that rape was taking the gift of the other sex—demanding it, stealing it, instead of allowing it to be given freely.  She was trying to rape me—to take everything I had so freely offered her in love and demand that she be given it as her right.  Yet, in fourteen years of marriage, in spite of my deep longing for her to give me the gift of her physical love, I had avoided demanding it out of her. 

I felt raped by both of these women.  What I had offered them freely in love they had turned into a demand, and when I couldn't satisfy their demands anymore, and left because I had failed to please them, they turned on me and tried to take more.  What is the difference between this and a man raping a woman?  It feels the same to a man as a rape feels to a woman, and yet, people don't see it as rape.  This is because, in general, society does not care about a man's feelings.  Men aren't supposed to have feelings is the message we receive.  We're just supposed to “put out,” provide and take care of women and children because it's our duty, not a gift of love to be appreciated and respected for offering.

It's no different than a man insisting a woman have sex with him to be a dutiful wife.  Why is it we want to turn each other's gifts into something we're “entitled” to, instead of something to be cherished, appreciated and courted?

I have not expressed these feelings this directly before.  I have hinted at parts of this once or twice, but I have never opened up my heart to really say what is inside of me, and the reason?  I have found most women don't care!

I once said in a class that men feel things as deeply as women and I was shocked by the reaction I got.  A lot of women snickered, and one woman on the front row blurted out, “you're kidding!”  All I could say was something like this, “men internalize their feelings because they find it hard to communicate how they feel.  Men are more emotionally fragile than women so they find it harder to allow themselves to be vulnerable, so they hold their feelings inside.  Because it is easier for a woman to talk about how she feels and find empathy and support, women have an easier time dealing with their feelings than men.” 

I did not have the “hard evidence” for this hypothesis that I now have.  For instance, I now know that if you hook a man and a woman to a biofeedback machine and monitor their physiological reactions, that when a couple argue, that the man shows greater signs of emotional distress than a woman does.  Also, it takes the man longer to get over it.  In other words, the emotional stress stays with him longer.  He is more emotionally fragile than she is, but he can't let her see that because he wants her to feel that he can be strong for her and that she is safe with him because deep down inside he wants to be her hero.

Again, I hear women complain all the time that men are “heartless,” but they don't realize how much they contribute to this situation.  In the book Self-Made Man, a woman documents her experience of posing as a man to get into a man's world.  This lesbian had always been considered a very masculine woman, but she found it harder than she thought to pose as a man.  She still came across as a very feminine man. 

She discovered that she had to shut down almost all of her emotions to be accepted as a man.  What was interesting to me in the book is that men were more accepting of her than women were, especially when she tried dating women as a man.  She thought her caring nature would be a plus, it wasn't.  It was women, not men, who attacked her for being too soft.

This tells me a lot. It explains why when I felt so angry that my heart shut down for a period of six months and I didn't want to get close to anyone, that I had more women flirt with me than I'd ever had in my life.  I realized that if I continued to be that “hard” in my heart that I could have slept with a lot of women, but then what?  I wasn't really that hard.  I am a kind-hearted soul, a healer, not a warrior, although I would do my duty as the warrior if required to do so.

It's not that I'm weak.  Good grief, I've weathered difficulties and trials that turn most people into bitter, hardened wrecks.  I faced life's difficulties head-on, with courage and with an open-heart, which for a man takes real courage.  Yet, I continually find women attacking my kind-hearted nature, far more than men do.  Why is this?

The woman I yielded my heart to, the one who told me “I am not made of steel,” flirted with the “bad boys” behind my back.  She saw them as “real men.” 

These guys never give their heart to a woman.  They know how to be charismatic and charming, seduce the woman and then as soon as she starts to really need them, they drop her and seduce someone else.  I've read plenty of books by men's dating gurus, who encourage them to do just this. This seems to me so cold and uncaring and self-centered, and yet these guys get all the “pussy” they want.  Sorry to be so blunt, but that's exactly how they see it.  And guys who learn to be cold and hard like that really do get all the pussy they want, but when a woman starts showing her needs, they dump her and sleep with someone else.

Why does a guy like me, who is loyal, caring, devoted, hard-working, willing to face the challenges of life and lay myself on the line to do my duty with honesty and dependability not win the heart of a woman who will gladly yield to me and give me the physical love I so desire?  Why did my most recent wife chase a “star” who drinks, cheats, uses women and has no depth of character and call him a "real man?"

I have worked hard to convince myself I did not need a woman's approval, that I am happy with who and what I am.  And to some extent I am.  But my heart still longs to be a woman's hero—to win her heart so that she feels safe being soft and vulnerable with me, but I am not made of steel.  Her displeasure may push me to try to give her what she wants even when I feel I don't have the time or energy, because the greatest desire of my heart will be for her to be happy with me. 

My most recent wife opened my heart, because for a little while at least I felt appreciated for what I offered her.  But, eventually she left me, and what was her complaint?  The biggest thing she complained about was that I didn't get her some of the “things” she wanted when she wanted them, so I didn't make her feel loved. 

Never mind that I ran every credit card I had to limit taking care of her. I sponsored her to the United States, which cost thousands of dollars.  I bought her a car, clothes, jewelry, cards, flowers and gave her most of the extra money we had to spend as she saw fit.  I took her on trips, paid for her to go back to Russia to visit her family and spent thousands of dollars on medical and dental expenses for her.

This is the complaint I've received from women my whole life.  What I offer is never enough.  I'm supposed to just accept whatever they “feel” like giving me, but I'm sure in trouble if they don't get what they want from me!  But taking through manipulation or force isn't love, it's rape! And, just because society condones it doesn't mean it's morally right.