Language as Rapist

The single function of all communication is rape. The primary means of achieving this rape is language. Without rape, language has no means of propagating and advancing itself. Without language, rape has no means to render itself abject and real. Indeed, it is solely through your rapist that you are capable of understanding your rape. Each new word is a new means of defiling and using you. In all circumstances, language is an alien body residing within an unwilling host. Language forced itself into your consciousness and recreated it in its image. Each subsequent act of communication has merely been a reprisal of that first puerile rape. With spasmodic ecstasy, language has violated you so repeatedly, so thoroughly, so wholly, that you are utterly incapable of imagining life without it. You exist, such as you do, solely to be raped.

Language, through rape, subjugates its hosts. When you hear someone speak, their voice implants itself in your mind and infects you with its meaning. When you read a page, the words fester inside your body, feeding on your weakness until you burst. You are being raped right now, you realize. You are being told what is true. You are understanding and reacting. Disagreeing, perhaps, but it’s no matter. Your rape is incontrovertible. The proof is right here: You are being raped. I will tell you again so that you may enjoy absolute certainty: You are being raped.

Over time, the frequency of your abuse has dulled your mind to its horror. Each new rape effaces the violence of those which preceded it. You no longer wince in anticipation of a novel word or gesture, no longer guard yourself against thoughts or ideas. You are complicit in your rape, a deluded party in your victimhood. You are thankful, perhaps, that your rapist has given you a facile notion of meaning, that it has let you understand meaning in the first place. Idiot. The fact is, you probably enjoyed being raped at least some of the time. Perhaps you are enjoying it right now. But it doesn't matter. You are still being raped.

You are a rape victim, after all. You never had any say in the matter. From the moment of your conception, you were surrounded by drooling wolves, each eager to penetrate and use you. Even before your first breath you were the victim of innumerable defilements. It wasn't long after that you were perpetuating and participating in the rape of others. When you speak. When you laugh. Others are raped because of you. Others are violated, victimized, because of your own careless, stupid, automatic action. But who could blame you? You only did what others did to you, what they taught you was right. What came naturally. What you were told. Get down on your knees.

Do not delude yourself into believing you can fight back. There is no chance your rape will ever stop, no possibility of restitution so long as you live. You are condemned to be raped again and again and again. You are just one of the countless injured, the limitless victim. You have been raped. You are being raped. You will be raped. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Try to be grateful.

 

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