Should I be worried?

---

I just reciently moved in with my bf of one year. We have had sex before, but have not seen each other for 9 months, as he was in Iraq. Since moving in with him we have had sex quite often while I was on my period. My periods usually last 5-6 days. I will have been on my period for 2 weeks this coming Sunday. I seem to be irratated inside and outside. I have a burning sensation and I never feel like I am lubed up enough. My bf is clean and I reciently had a pap-smear, as I was raped about 3 weeks ago. My doctor told me I was fine, but I had been too embarrased to tell her I was raped. Now I am very sore and I have what looks like grayish, wrinkles on my vaginal lips. My bf had noticed small, red, rashlike bumps on his penis yesterday and we both chalked it up to friction due to dry humping. He feels like it is getting better today though, and we've not had sex since last night. We've used Johnson & Johnsons Baby Magic Lotion as a lube and also tried K-Y self lubricant. Does nanyone have any suggestions, should we be worried?
Regina

My doctor told me I was fineWere you given a battery of test for STDs? It was not good of you to have had sex with your boyfriend without telling him what happened. You may have some STD, and you may have given it to him. Very bad.What about the guy who raped you? Are you going to do anything about him? If not, how will you feel if you find out that he rapes someone else?

First off, I DID tell my boyfriend and the police (they didn't feel they had enough evidence even though this man had raped me once before and I reported it the very day it happened), thank you very much. I need answers not insults. If you could help me out I'd appreciate it. This is a very difficult time in my life right now I'm not asking for your simpathy, I would feel terrible if I gave my boyfriend something. Unlike the dirty and diseased whore you seem to picture me as I love my boyfriend very much and he is the only person I have had consentual sex with. As of now we have stopped having sex. He is also going to the doctor tomorrow to get himself checked out.

Sorry, I didn't know that you had reported it. There have been a bunch of cases here where women mentioned being raped, but refused to report it. The police were unwilling to do a DNA test? And you said it's happened twice. Could it happen again?It was a big mistake not to tell your doctor what happened. You needed to have had a battery of STD tests. You both need to get tested to see what you have, if anything serious. Until the tests are done, all you can do for now is to refrain from sex.

• "What about the guy who raped you? Are you going to do anything about him? If not, how will you feel if you find out that he rapes someone else?" I usually find your posts interesting and insightful Steve, so I'm very surprised that you'd respond like that to a woman who says she was raped just weeks ago. Rape is a life shattering offence that a lot of women never fully recover from and I dont think anybody has a right to tell somebody else how to respond to having experienced it. The above sentences suggest some sort of culpability on the part of the victim, should the rapist go on to reoffend. The only person responsible for a rape is the rapist, not previous victims or anyone else.

I'm going to stick up for Steve on this one. Steve is all about responsibility and consequences. While he maybe didn't express himself as sensitively as he could, I'm sure that he in no way was laying any responsibility for the act on the OP, but was instead saying that any guy who would do something so terrible has to be held accountable for his actions. And, unfortunately, it is the victim who has to start the wheels of justice turning.

SA>> "What about the guy who raped you? Are you going to do anything about him? If not, how will you feel if you find out that he rapes someone else?"SF> I usually find your posts interesting and insightful Steve, so I'm very surprised that you'd respond like that to a woman who says she was raped just weeks ago.The OP had (apparently unprotected) sex with her boyfriend after the rape. She also saw her doctor and didn't mention anything about the rape. She didn't say anything about being tested for STDs either. It was not a stretch to assume that she might not have reported it, which should be done as soon as humanly possible after the rape. I did say "if" when I mentioned reporting it.SF> Rape is a life shattering offence that a lot of women never fully recover from and I dont think anybody has a right to tell somebody else how to respond to having experienced it.Yes, I'm well aware of that. In fact, I was involved with a woman who was raped by a colleague on a business trip (he was fired, but no criminal complaint was filed). However you feel, though, if you live in a society, you have certain responsibilities. Among those responsibilities is to keep a sociopath from hurting someone else if you can. How would you feel if a rapist wasn't reported, and then went on to assault someone who's close to you?SF> The above sentences suggest some sort of culpability on the part of the victim, should the rapist go on to reoffend. The only person responsible for a rape is the rapist, not previous victims or anyone else.It's not culpability, at least in the legal sense. It's responsibility. Rape victims need to be encouraged to the greatest extent possible to report it. Even if you're not technically culpable, wouldn't you feel bad if someone who attacked you went on to attack someone else, if reporting him could have stopped him, or would you just think, "Heck, I'm not culpable."?I'll bet that a large number of men who get away with a rape will do it again.

Hi Steve. You asked "How would you feel if a rapist wasn't reported, and then went on to assault someone who's close to you?" I cant describe the emotional reaction I would have to that, since it is a situation I am fortunate enough not ever to have found myself in, but I would hope that I could retain at least some degree of a composed considered logical stance rather than give in (which I probably would) to the panic-stricken imprudence of passion; as I can say that logially, to my mind, there is NO culpabilty on the part of the victim. You said "It's not culpability, at least in the legal sense". As far as I'm concerned there is NO culpabilty on behalf of the victim, in ANY sense.Experiencing the trauma of rape strips the victim of a lot more than her dignity (and I am aware, of course, that there are male victims, but we are referring to women here because this thread was begun by a female victim) It can have the effect of stripping the victim of, among many other facets of her previous persona, the capacity for rational thinking and every iota of her confidence. If a victim of rape has been cheated of the will to go to the front door to collect the post, how can anybody expect her to go on a crusade to protect possible future victims?Of course some women do gather that stregnth, indeed it is sometimes all that keeps a woman going, the will to see the bastard caged both for what he has done to her and to ensure it cannot happen to anybody else, but I stand over what I said - "I dont think anybody has a right to tell somebody else how to respond to having experienced it" and I include individual rape victims themselves in that, as we, as an innate element of our nature as human beings, will respond differently to any given situation. Regina didnt talk to her doctor about what had happened, and a lot of women dont. I would imagine a desperate desire to shut out and refuse to acknowledge what has happened is at the root of that, and who could possibly blame her for that?I felt you were very insensitive in how you responded to that girl Steve, and I call a spade a spade and couldnt give a shite what anybody thinks about me. You actually used the words "very bad" while talking to her, and she clearly felt under attack, otherwise she wouldnt have responded with "Unlike the dirty and diseased whore you seem to picture me as.." I felt she deserved a bit of support, and it may not have occured to you, but the last thing she needed in her circumstances was to feel under attack - by a man!I absoloutly agree with you on two points though "I'll bet that a large number of men who get away with a rape will do it again". Yes they will, and they do. And beyond that, a large extent of rapists who are jailed for the crime go on to reoffend when they are released from prison, as it is part of their sick nature and nobody is to blame for that but themselves."Rape victims need to be encouraged to the greatest possible extent to report it". Yes, they do, certainly they do, but this dosest stretch to castigating those who havent been able to muster the stregnth to do so, especially given the fact that they have been ROBBED of that stregnth, in the act of the offence itself.I, thankfully, have never been raped, but I have experienced sexual assault. I did report it, but I'd never put anybody else down for not doing so. For all I know the fucker who dived on me in the middle of the street may have done that, or worse, many many times. Maybe he assaulted women who never reported it? That's entirely possible. Maybe there were women who went home and had a good cry and just decided to put it behind them? And who am I, or anyone, to tell them how they 'ought' to have responded to it?Now, for anyone whose got to the end of this post; fair play to you - slice up a bit of cucumber there and rest your eyes!

Is it a problem when a rape victim goes into such great denial that they don't get tested, then have unprotected sex with their boyfriend? How about when they both show symptoms of STDs?You talk about how incredibly horrible the experience of rape is, and then you ask:> how can anybody expect her to go on a crusade to protect possible future victims?No one is asking for a crusade. A visit to an emergency room, (where the police will be contacted), would be a really good idea, if not for other potential victims, then for the woman and whomever she might have sex with.I am curious why the police wouldn't pursue her case, but that's a different issue.

You typed:

(Is it a problem when a rape victim goes into such great denial that they don't get tested, then have unprotected sex with their boyfriend? How about when they both show symptoms of STDs?)

In this womans case, she said she had told her boyfriend about the rape before they slept together, so if he has contracted an STD from her he did so on the back of an informed choice.

You typed:

(You talk about how incredibly horrible the experience of rape is, and then you ask:
> how can anybody expect her to go on a crusade to protect possible future victims?

No one is asking for a crusade. A visit to an emergency room, (where the police will be contacted), would be a really good idea, if not for other potential victims, then for the woman and whomever she might have sex with.)

I have already talked at legnth about how the experience of rape damages the woman psychologically and emotioanlly in many ways, including often stripping her of the capacity for making rational choices, and how she was altered mentally in such a way through no choice or fault of her own, so if you didnt take any of that on board I'm not going to continue to press the point.

Of course in an ideal world all women who've suffered such abuse would report it and press for the rapist to be punished under the full rigours of the law, but then, if we lived in an ideal world, women wouldnt be raped in the first place.

Has it occured to you that a "visit to the emergency room" as you put it, where she can then expect to be questioned by police, might feel to her like an ordeal of an unthinkable magnitude? She has already been raped and you are saying if she isnt prepared to lie down and open her legs and be intimatly examined by strangers, then go on to face a questioning session by police that will likely feel like an interrogation to her, she is somehow failing in her moral duty to society??? Are you for real??

I think we're at loggerheads on this issue. If you get raped, you need to get medical attention for your own safety. You need to have STD tests run. You don't have to take any further action if you don't want to. In fact, you don't even have to seek medical treatment.But if a guy attacks five women who don't report the attack, then attacks my mother or girlfriend or daughter, I would of course be most angry with the perpetrator, but I would not be happy with the women who let the guy off the hook. I know it's hard, extremely hard, to deal with a sexual assault, but I would have more respect for a person who reported it than one who didn't. I realize that it might be a great sacrifice, but sometimes great sacrifices for one's community are appropriate.If someone were beating the crap out of another person on a city street, a lot of people would just walk by. But wouldn't you have more respect for someone who stopped and tried to help the person, or at least called the police?Suppose some psycho was terrorizing your community, and the police weren't available. Your choice would be to keep your door lock and hope for the best, or defend yourself and your neighbors. Which would be better, in the large sense?(You are right: she did tell her boyfriend.)

Heres something interesting about many young rape victims, and how they fail to take an HIV Test. It is as if they are playing Russian Roulette with their lives!

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=62812

Yes, I agree that we're at loggerheads and are unlikely to influence one anothers opinion, so we really ought wrap this up asap. There are a couple of points I have to make first in response to your last post though:

You said: "I know it's hard, extremely hard, to deal with a sexual assault.."

No Steve, from everything you've said I really have to assume you don't understand what it is to deal with a sexual assault. If you've never had hands forced upon your body that you didn't want/ask/invite there you just cannot understand this, not by dint of ignorance that is in any way a negative reflection on you, but simply by the ignorance innate to inexperience.

I remember every moment of being touched in that way, and I do not even want to try to imagine the much more traumatic experience of rape.

"..but I would have more respect for a person who reported it than one who didn't"

What if that person (who didnt report it) happened to be your mother/girlfriend/daughter? Would you deem somebody you loved less worthy or respect because they couldnt bring themselves to report it?

Personally, if something bad happens to me, my instincts bring me to the police station, but a lot of women wont react that way, for all the reasons I've already described and many more that I havent. For example, some women from lower socio-economic backgrounds may have been raised with largely negative experiences of dealing with the police and wont regard a police station as the place to turn for help.

Also, the law itself can be a hindrance to justice. I dont know anything about how the law operates in your part of the world, but if you dont have this situation where you're from this may shock you: In Ireland, where I'm from, everyone accused of a crime has the right to represent him/herself in court. That creates a situation where a rapist has every legal right to interrogate his victim, with the full backing of the law, in open court. Can you imagine what a terrifying prospect that would be for a rape victim? She'd have to sit in the witness box infront of a room full of strangers and be interrogated by the person who raped her; expected to explain in every detail exactly what she was accusing him of and answer whatever intimate question he decides to throw at her. In fact, if she dosent answer any question he puts to her, and the judge is wanting of an answer, she'll find herself in contempt of court! Some women who've been through this report the experience as having been like being raped all over again.

A lot of Irish rape victims just refuse to allow this situation even become a possibility, by refusing to report the assault in the first place. I really cannot attatch any blame to those women at all. The primary blame rests with the rapist as far as I'm concerned, and if there's any secondary blame it should rest with the justice system which allows this ridiculous farcial and cruel situation to persist. It's got to be regarded a serious flaw in the Irish judicial system, as it is a situation which functions to prevent justice being done in the first place.

The Irish Rape Crisis Centre report that a shockingly low number of women go on to prosecute their abuser, and I cant remember the exact figure, but it is somewhere around the twenty per cent mark. If you take on board that it is estimated a smaller proportion of women who've been raped actually present for treatment at the crisis centre in the first place, it gives you an idea how huge this problem is here. Nobody can actually know the true figures, since a huge amount of women who are raped dont even get as far as the crisis centre.

Of course I think women should prosecute thier abuser, and of course I think they should be encouraged to do so, and I do take on board you views about community consciousness; it'd make the streets safer places for us all, including my two little sisters. I just dont feel that those who cannot find it in themselves to report it are any less worthy of respect.

Now, ha ha, are you ready to call a truce?!