Deserving? over and out!!!!

Well I am back in sunny, beautiful France and I can't say that I'm not over the moon about it! Edinburgh was exhausting in every single way possible. I never could have forseen how much such an experience would take out of me. For weeks I hardly ate or slept and in some very personal ways I encountered demons I thought I had laid to rest. I tested myself and in some ways I failed but in many more ways I surpassed every goal I had set. My piece shocked people and apparently encouraged many to do whatever possible to help change points of view with regards to victim blaming, I reached out to some women who had not fully understood the impact rape had had on their lives and who now intend to seek help but most importantly from a selfish point of view I have reached the point where I no longer want to punish myself! The latter I don't think I could have achieved without standing on stage and pouring out my deepest secrets. I never even intended on doing so but having nearly collapsed on the Tuesday and messed up the performance so that many hadn't even understood the very simple story line and then forgetting key parts of the set (four years as an events manager I never forgot anything - but having fried my brain with rape for nearly eight months non stop I guess it's not really surprising) I was left with little choice but to stand up in front of the forty or so people in the audience and explain myself!

Not only was my story well received but the questions I answered at the end were incredibly insightful and also enormously helpful. One gentleman asked me
'When do you think you will be able to stop punishing yourself? What will it take?'
I replied that I had hoped that once I had completed the Deserving project and given everything I could during eight performances that I would find peace and no longer need to punish myself as raping myself everyday for over eight days would surely be enough. I thought about this comment, his question and my response for most of the night and the next day, I decided, would be my last performance and I would again talk my way through the project as I could not even bear to put the costume back on!!!

So thank you dear, unknown audience member! Thank you also to everyone who supported me and finally to myself for putting myself through this crazy journey and for, just, managing to come out the otherside unscathed.

I now entirely understand why so few women are willing to relive their biggest nightmare and I join them!

If you can't leave a message please email me on emmacrews@gmail.com xxx

A Round-up of Rapists

Discusses that the answer to the question of why men rape is far more complex than once thought. Feminist viewpoint; Behavioralist theory; Types of rapists; Date rapists; Potential rapists; Sexual aggression; Comments from Gordon Nagayama Hall, associate professor of psychology at Kent State who recently coordinated a national forum on rape.

By PT Staff, published on November 01, 1992 - last reviewed on June 20, 2012

The Aroused, The Conqueror, The Angry, The Abused

ASK A FEMINIST WHY men rape and she'll tell you that they are angry and take it out on women. Ask a behavioral researchers why men rape and he says they just get turned on by the wrong stimuli. The answer to the question, however, now looks far more complex.

"For a long time, these two approaches dominated the thinking on why men rape, which is understandable; it would be great to be able to pin sexual aggression on a single cause:' says Gordon Nagayama Hall, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Kent State, who recently coordinated a national forum on rape. "But neither of these models explains all types of rape or rapists. As our research has become more sophisticated, other explanations have evolved ."

Disturbing ones at that. Hall and his colleagues have concluded, for example, that more people should be considered potential rapists than previously thought. "Among recent studies, there are varying percentages of men who could be considered potential rapists; one researcher has illustrated that as many as 25 percent of all male college students have engaged in some level of sexually coercive or aggressive behavior."

Hall's own work delineates four major types of rapist.

• Type 1 is influenced by deviant sexual arousal, which occurs when he has thoughts of violence against women. This type is likely to be extremely impulsive.
• Type 2 is motivated by cognitive distortions, or thinking errors; he mistakenly interprets events or information differently than other men would. He believes that some women enjoy being raped, or want to be raped. For this type, rape is part of a conquest, a way of demonstrating masculinity. Most date rapists are Type 2s.
• Type 3, says Hall, is motivated by anger or emotional discontrol. These men are so angry, especially at women, that the only way for them to deal with their anger is to act out sexually toward women. Not surprisingly, this type is the most violent and most dangerous.
• Type 4 is the repeat offender. He is most likely to have been physically or sexually abused as a child. He has difficulty establishing enduring relationships, and a history of chronic problems in schools or in his family. Type 4 men break a variety of rules, both sexual and nonsexual.
  

Hall doesn't regard his research-based typology as definitive in identifying who will rape and in treating rapists, particularly repeat offenders. "Rape is much more complex than we've thought. In fact, we don't even have a very good definition of the crime itself. The strict approach is that rape is simply forced intercourse. But rapists engage in other sexually aggressive acts like harassing and fondling that don't incorporate intercourse," Hall explains. He believes that by viewing rape and rapists as multi-determined, "we will not only be able to design more effective treatments, but may be able to help prevent sexual aggression from occurring so frequently."

The bottom line: "We know that sexual aggression can take place between people who are acquaintances, friends, married couples. Men and women need to be very, very clear in their communication with one another exactly what is and isn't okay," Hall says. "Many rapists aren't just dirty old men who offend against strangers; they are often people with whom we share parts of our lives."

M McGeoch

An undeniably powerful, disturbing, and brave show which exemplified the horrors of rape on a woman's life. Utmost respect was given to the performer, who, in changing the format of the piece to protect her sanity of the performer, verbally described to the spectators, how the piece would have unfolded. Unfortunately, the run was cut short (as of Thursday evening), but with very good and incredibly justified reason. Although verbally described rather than performed, this piece touched myself and others to our very core, and the performance which was described exemplified a depth of emotional turmoil, and a need for action which I have never experienced in performance before. Such a brave piece by a brave woman, who I have utmost respect for; in respecting herself, her sanity, and her dignity, to stop reliving an incident which was not her fault.

Deserving 2012 photos

Deserving? Press Release

She is refusing to be a prisoner of her past. Realising that if she doesn't tell her story, someone else might...and they might just tell it wrong...

Deserving? is concerned about standpoints towards rape in some sections of society, ongoing vitim blaming and the lack of understanding surrounding the subject.

UN statistics show that one in five women will suffer rape in their lifetime. Is it not bad enough to be raped? Should we really be made to feel responsible for it too? In an Amnesty International survey, one in three replied that a women was totally or partly responsible for being raped if she was drunk (64% in the Havens wake up to rape survey). The rapist will hopefully serve many years in prison for their act(s) (currently the conviction rate in Scotland is at 7%) but the survivor may well spend his/her lifetime feeling responsible for the theft of their bodily integrity.

With a subject matter as cruel as rape, the theories of Antonin Artaud's'Theatre and its Double' fit like hand in glove. The creation of Deserving? has followed his ideas almost religiously. The show features but one word meant to be understood, therefore avoiding what Artaud calls the "pitfalls in speech and words". It is based heavily in reality so as to "allow the audience to identify with the show breath by breath" and aims to attack their senses. Deserving? uses "violent, physical images" and adds "imagined horrors to existing ones" in order to do everything in its power to "wake us up heart and minds." 

Raped at 15 years of age, whilst on holiday in France, the creator of Deserving? feels she has been training for this piece most of her life. Hiding her pain through the wearing of endless masks she continued a keen involvement in theatre through to her time at Bretton Hall (previous students include three of the four League of Gentleman creators/performers,

Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith and comedian Mark Thomas) and has subsequently committed her life to using theatre and dance to create change.

Thanks to amazing support from the Rape Crisis Centre in Edinburgh, Emma Crews is now ready to fight against rape and use everything she has to help other women free themselves from their guilt. Deserving? is her thank you to EWRASAC and her call to stop us focusing solely on the victims when we desperately need to be paying more attention to the perpetrators and what makes them act so heinously.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/12/mariella-frostrup-holiday-rape-support#start-of-comments

If I ever needed reminding why I am putting myself through this at least 40 extra reasons are on this Guardian page! Thanks again Mariella! xxx