MINE
by Donalen Bowers
(Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault)
To survive rape is to survive an act of violence that is sexual in nature. Dismissing the sexual nature of rape is to dismiss how heinous it really is, and in my experience, takes away from the real effects that rape has besides the physical act itself. Some have come to describe rape as “sex-without-consent,” a concept meant to describe the sexual nature of rape (Maung, 2021). Sex, however, is not something that should be equated with rape. Sex, as it should be, is a consensual act. Rape is sexual in nature and has sexual consequences, but is not sex itself. Rape can change how someone views intimacy, their own autonomy, and love/trust as a whole. It is something so deeply traumatizing that it often causes other mental health issues as a result. Survivors are left with guilt and shame. Rape affects a person’s body and mind.
I made the piece, “Mine,” as a way of reclaiming myself. When a person is raped, their autonomy, body, and mind are being violated. For me, separating sex and rape is extremely difficult. Everything about sex reminds me of the scariest times of my life. I was treated like a doll, to use and set aside. I was held in another’s hands with the worst of intentions. This piece is a tribute to becoming human again; a tribute to finally beginning to feel autonomous. I used my own hands to symbolize the hands of others as well as my own. Both malicious and gentle, they serve as a reminder of the violence I have been through—sexual or otherwise—and as a reminder that my body is only mine.
Something I was groomed with as a teenager is the idea that you are theirs. Your body is theirs, your mind is theirs, everything is theirs. You are simply an object to own and play with. This should never be true. A partner, friend, parent, doctor, relative, stranger, or otherwise does not have a right to any of us. The only person who should be calling a body “mine” is the person inhabiting it.
Maung, Hane Htut. 2021. “A Dilemma in Rape Crisis and a Contribution from Philosophy.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8(93), https://doi.org/10.1057/ s41599-021-00769-y
Donalan Rojas Bowers is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate in Art with a focus on Watercolors, with a minor in English. She is a first generation Filipina-American. She works primarily in watercolor, graphite, and digital mediums, with much of her work being about her life in its joyous moments as well as in the darkest.