Excerpt: "Clarification. You didn't make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP."

Senate candidate Todd Akin uses victim blaming tactics to craft the definition 'legitimate' rape for his political agenda. (photo: George Doyle)

Dear Mr. Akin, I Want You to Imagine...

By Eve Ensler, Reader Supported News

21 August 12

ear Todd Akin,

I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.

I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.

Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.

As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking "off the cuff."

Clarification. You didn't make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.

You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

When you, Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow co-sponsors play with words around rape suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible, it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.

Now you want to say that you misspoke when you said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evilcontent? Or, were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us? It would seem you were saying that getting pregnant after a rape would indicate it was not a "legitimate" rape.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space. Imagine being tied up there and imagine some aggressive, indifferent, insane stranger friend or relative ripping off your clothes and entering your body -- the most personal, sacred, private part of your body -- and violently, hatefully forcing themself into you so that you are ripped apart. Then imagine that stranger's sperm shooting into you and filling you and you can't get it out. It is growing something in you. Imagine you have no idea what that life will even consist of, spiritually made in hate, not knowing the mental or health background of the rapist.

Then imagine a person comes along, a person who has never had that experience of rape, and that person tells you, you have no choice but to keep that product of rape growing in you against your will and when it is born it has the face of your rapist, the face of the person who has essentially destroyed your being and you will have to look at the face every day of your life and you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.

I don't know if you can imagine any of this (leadership actually requires this kind of compassion), but if you are willing to go to the depth of this darkness, you will quickly understand that there is NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE to have or not have the baby, but the person carrying that baby herself.

I have spent much time with mothers who have given birth to children who are the product of rape. I have watched how tortured they are wrestling with their hate and anger, trying not to project that onto their child.

I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.

Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.

And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.

#ReasonToRise
Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo

EVE ENSLER is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues, which has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve's newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, was released February 2010 in book form by Random House and made The New York Times Best Seller list. The book was workshopped in July, 2010 at New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, moving towards an Off-Broadway production. She is also the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 80 million dollars. In the summer of 2010, Eve's newest play Here was filmed live by Sky Television in London, UK. Eve’s other plays include Necessary Targets, The Treatment and The Good Body, which she performed on Broadway, followed by a national tour. In 2006, Eve released her book, Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir, and co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer. Eve’s film credits include an HBO film version of The Vagina Monologues. She also produced the film What I Want My Words to Do To You, which won the Freedom of Expression Award at Sundance and was shown on PBS. She is currently working on a film adaptation of her play Necessary Targets with National Geographic, Independent Features which she will direct. Eve has written numerous articles for Glamour Magazine, Huffington Post, and O Magazine. She has won many awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting and an Obie Award.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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+51 # Barbara K 2012-08-21 07:15

I would like to hope that you or your daughters or your wife may experience rape, just so you can understand it. But it is so horrendous that I couldn't hope that for anyone. You are one despicable person with a trashy mind that should not be in our government. Unfortunately, the people of your nasty party have the same brain-set. You don't belong in our government, so do something nice for women and resign.

Don't vote republican/Tbag ger at any level, we have states that need cleaning out too.

DO VOTE, never set out an election again and let this happen to us. Vote out these sewer rats.

+38 # pianosaurus rex 2012-08-21 07:29

Well written Eva,

Even if this article and the issue are explained in detail to the likes of Akin and Ryan, I firmly believe they are not intelligent enough to understand rape from the recipient’s point of view.

In the sixth para there are these statements;

“The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority.”

Yes, that higher wiser authority you speak of would be middle-aged white men such as the aforementioned and completely un-evolved Ryan/Akin. For men such as these guys, the world is only some two thousand years old or so…..further, everything is chattel for them including other human species…..

+45 # Onterryo 2012-08-21 07:38

Thank you Eve. I was in tears at the end.

Readers, get out and vote for your Democratic slate and find at least one other Democratic supporter, who might otherwise stay home, to take with you. Start now to check out voter I.D. requirements and help those who might otherwise not vote to get whatever they need to vote. You have less than 3 months....do not wait! We need a groundswell..we need momentum. Republican leaders are telling the other Todd Akins in the GOP (and there are many of them)to "shut up" and keep from revealing what other "sins" might be revealed. We can't depend on Republicans to keep tripping over themselves. Bring them out in the open...go to their rallies. Write to your newspaper..chal lenge them! We absolutely need a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House. Do not settle for anything less!

-3 # 8myveggies 2012-08-22 08:16

Dems + Repubs = Status Quo. Both parties are owned by big business. I don't want less. I want more. I want change and will vote Green Party.

+45 # gogogrl47 2012-08-21 07:41

How can any woman in their right mind (and I am specifically talking to Republican women) vote for Romney, Ryan, Akin or any Republican candidate when their agenda is so obviously anti-woman (not to mention anti-middle class). Please please whoever reads this (and that includes Independents too) vote Democrat or women have the potential to be taken back to the 19th century and our bodies controlled by morons.

+32 # Texgotham 2012-08-21 07:57

Taking the Akin/Ryan myth as reality that there is a biological mechanism in the female anatomy that would prevent conception in a situation of "forcible" rape and that life begins at conception. Picture a man charged with rape and his attorney cross-examining the complainant has her admit that she became pregnant because of the sexual encounter. Motion to dismiss is granted and the woman is charged with murder because she aborted the unwanted fetus. Life under Romney/Ryan.

-19 # Billy Bob 2012-08-21 08:43

Maybe she could pay the rapist damages for aborting his child that couldn't have been the result of rape. A very fertile rapist could get rich.

+10 # Glen 2012-08-21 11:28

It wouldn't be the first time, Texgotham. Recent reports from various states are relating something very close. Check on the woman who attempted suicide after her lover left her. The fetus died; she lived. She is now up for murder. Am not sure how this situation is going.

In the past guys got out of the responsibility of fatherhood simply by having his friends lie for him and declaring "they had been with her too". At times the pregnancy was a result of date rape. Too bad there was no DNA checks at the time.

+22 # tedrey 2012-08-21 08:20

So if a woman points out a man as the father of her unwanted child, all he has to do is say "I can't be the father. I raped her!"

+23 # tswhiskers 2012-08-21 08:31

Re pianosaurus Rex, I would say that Romney/Ryan don't lack intelligence, rather they lack imagination. I think the entire Rep. Party lacks imagination, you know, the "walk in someone else's moccasins" thing. It require imagination to see yourself as someone else, and this in turn builds compassion. At this moment in our history there are very few politicians with the gift of imagination. This is so obviously shown by the policies of both parties, but esp. the Reps. They shout about family values, Christian values and the wanton murder of fetuses from the rooftops, but their actions show them for the selfish, unfeeling hypocrites that they really are. They also show their willful ignorance of female physiology and disdain for women generally. The Dems are not saints but neither do they indulge in the same judgmental hypocrisy. Again, let's all wok hard to get out the Dem vote on Nov. 6.

+7 # savagem13 2012-08-21 14:22

I would suggest that that lack empathy, rather than imagination. Or perhaps they lack both. And empathy is something of which sociopaths are incapable.

+27 # ConcernedConserv 2012-08-21 08:37

Thank you, Ms. Ensler, for your excellent response to the ignorant, misogynistic views of a cruel, frightened, power hungry white male.

+18 # cvahr2 2012-08-21 08:40

If MEN faced the possibility of losing ownership of the bodies everytime they had sex, abortion and birth control would be considered god given rights.

+16 # fishmother 2012-08-21 08:42

As always Eve, you've found the right words. Would that they land in the hearts of those who, like Akin, think they know what they are talking about and worse, pass their ignorance to future generations. I remember once seeing a bumper sticker in Los Angeles that said "If men could get pregnant Abortion would be a sacrament.” Would that those who at this moment are composing the Republican Platform could miraculously rise above their demeaning and dogmatic approach to reproductive rights and wake up to the reality of rape. Despite the idea that the Romney campaign has been painted into a corner and released the following: “A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape, it sounds more like politics than truth. To fall for that we’d have to develop mass amnesia, otherwise we’re bound to remember that typically Romney’s positions shift with the wind while his misogynist running mate Ryan partnered with “legitimate rape” Todd Aiken on a Bill Outlawing Abortion and Birth Control Pills, and recently said that we should "…outlaw abortion with no exception for rape." I have found myself of late drawn to tears by the idea that America has come to a point where such men have enough support to run for the highest offices in our land rather than simply being consigned to talk radio

+4 # pianosaurus rex 2012-08-21 08:44

Good comment tswhiskers,

I was working on the assumption that imagination only takes place due to a certain level of intellect. One has to have a level of intellect to see things from another point of view…it is the positioning of the mindset to another point of view or vision.

Along with imagination to “see oneself in another’s shoes” this also requires a certain level of empathy….a foreign word to the Reps…

My mistake in the wording of my previous posting it should have read other human gender not other human species…

+15 # trevorlasvegas 2012-08-21 08:57

Wow.
That brought tears to my eyes.
Thank you you brave and honest soul.

+18 # jwb110 2012-08-21 09:24

When a woman says "No" she means No. Anything after that is Rape.

+13 # KittatinyHawk 2012-08-21 09:42

Thank You Eve As I sat in horror hearing yet another flow of evil from yet another Republican, Lord knows what religion. I thought What was my friend and my rape at ten years old? Was it legitimate or not.
I know it changed my life, was not the only rape I have known.

I thought in shame for men/women in light of Penn State Board's disgraceful handling of supposed attacks on their Campus. No one can understand the thoughts, the fears we go thru. As children you are manipulated to silence with fear your family will be hurt. You learn to play along as the person is older and stronger. I didn't even know it was rape. My friend had been raped by her father so neither of us had a clue, just fear..

I am Proud of the President of the USA for finally saying something about the disgraceful way men and yes, women decide what is best for the peasants. Perhaps they should be put in the position we have been.

Disgraceful SCUM acting with such low decorum while in Israel alone I can only imagine what the boys and girl clubs fornicated in their Universities and hometowns, perhaps Rape of Teens?
I also shudder at phonies of Israel who allowed it like the whores they are.
Anything to get us to kill people for them eh? Defiling Sabbath, Defiling Holy Places all for money and war...nice
Remember these slobs would spout that they are good community members and Church/Temple goers. Proof again of what they are taught.

+11 # grouchy 2012-08-21 09:50

Gee, now I wonder just what other views this turkey has--might be interesting to know--and perhaps even more disgusting?

+25 # lorenbliss 2012-08-21 10:26

Thank you, Ms. Ensler, for daring to speak the unspeakable – for writing the most courageous, most wrenching description of rape I have ever read.

I (a man) won awards for my allegedly "bold" reporting on rape during the late 1970s, but your compelling revelation of rape's immeasurably painful physical and emotional truths far surpasses my work. Were Ruling Class Media not so dominated by misogynistic cowards, your letter to Rep. Todd Akin would be page one, top-of-the-fold in every newspaper on this planet.

As to Akin himself, his views do not merely exemplify the psyche of the Republican Party. They also reflect the mostly unacknowledged dogma – shared by the capitalists and their JesuNazi collaborators alike (for each of these venomous ideologies is a direct derivative of patriarchy) – that women are the true revolutionaries of our species. Thus the prejudice that women must be everywhere intimidated and repressed to ensure the patriarchs (whether of creed or capital) retain their tyrannical power.

Again we glimpse the multi-leveled reality – psychological, political, poetic – behind the fact Liberty is always personified as a woman, even a goddess. Which is, of course, the source of the icy fear and boiling hatred of everything female that motivates not just Akins-type statements but the atrocities of all the rapists he implicitly defends.

+14 # Larry 2012-08-21 11:16

Debating an ignorant fanatic like Akins is futile; you can't reason someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.

There is only one antidote for the medieval GOP mindset that is destroying our freedoms: Vote Democratic! And encourage others to do the same.

+10 # Chuck H. 2012-08-21 16:01

Let us not forget that we have some Republican women legisiators who agree with Mr. Akin and his ilk.

-1 # Eliza D 2012-08-21 16:19

Lorenbliss-Love d your comment until I got to the part about JesuNazis. What in the world do you mean? It seems you are implying that the Nazis and Christians or Jesuits(?) were complicit. Explain please.

+7 # karlarove 2012-08-21 18:31

Eve, your article paints a very compelling story about what rape does to the body and spirit. Todd Akin's unconscious off the cuff remark brought to light the misogyny of the GOP. They (GOP) have made it crystal clear, their concern is not a woman's choice to do what she needs to do after being brutally raped. Her life and dignity have no sanctity in their political platform. Their only concern is how it will affect their plan to gain control of the Senate. This is a good conversation to have started to hopefully (?)get American citizens who believe in our 1st amendment right to separation of church and state.

+7 # Art947 2012-08-21 20:11

Without wishing to repeat myself, I find it necessary to state the obvious -- ANY legislator who tries to create laws governing the practice of medicine, and that includes laws against a women's right to choose the medical procedures that she wants to undertake, should be jailed IMMEDIATELY for practicing medicine without a license.

It is also a shame that there are women, who describe themselves as educated, feminists, etc., who would deny another women the freedom to choose her own path, Kaw Bailey Hutchinson, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and others of their ilk deserve the eternal wrath of the human race and the gods that they serve.

+6 # Scott479 2012-08-22 04:28

Akin is garbage, just plain human garbage. Arabic people once led the world in advanced thought-massive libraries were dedicated to housing books of their philosophers, astronomers, theoretical algebra and geometry. Their society was taken over by religious extremists called Wahhabists. The books and libraries were all burned by these fundamentalists because their God had a plan too, just like the extremist republican party. This threw their society back into a Dark Age they struggle with to this day. Only eternal vigilance will prevent our American Wahhabists, our Ryan and Akins, from doing the same to America. Hate, intolerance, and religious zealots, like rust, never sleep.

+2 # Onterryo 2012-08-22 10:50

Now suppose the Republicans maintain their majority in the House and happen to win the Senate.....who will stand in their way...there is only one person who can...the President of the United States. WHO DO YOU TRUST MORE - ROMNEY OR OBAMA - to veto such a bill!?!?

+1 # samnellen 2012-08-23 06:48

To 8myveggies: While I like the idea of a Green Party, the reality is that a vote for the Green Party is a vote for Rmoney and a vote against Obama.

+1 # marilynrssll 2012-08-25 11:26

To Samnellen..... as soon as we get an election system with Ranked Voting or Instant Runoff Voting, we'll be able to vote as we wish... You could vote first for Green Party and secondly Obama. If Green Party didn't get sufficient (40 %) of the votes, then your second choice would kick in. All this within milli-seconds inside a computer.

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