Chapter NINETEEN

Chapter 19: Repercussions

While Rafee was debating hard whether his story should be heard by others not, he came to realize that if he didn’t, he would have to bear the serious repercussions. His abuse has affected his whole life, taking control of his thoughts and his life. So, in order to start fighting the battle, Rafee had to let it out of his mind, and he did just that with me, his parents and eventually to the counselor, and now to you all.

Already, he comes from a culture that does not talk about such things. Even his parents today don’t want him to discuss with anyone about it. When a woman is raped, she is looked at differently. When a woman is divorced, she is treated differently. When a guy is raped and abused, people “will” look at him as if something were wrong with him. Generally speaking people think of a victim of abuse as a “lesser” human being. It’s the judgmental attitudes of people and this attitude needs to be changed into an attitude of acceptance and tolerance.

If he hadn’t talked it out with anyone, Rafee would have continued living his life convinced that everything was his fault. That would have meant continuous shame, guilt and fear, for no fault of his own. Rafee would have been unfairly blaming himself for something he did not do. His health could no doubt have suffered for the worse with such feelings. Maybe more serious issues like severe depression or suicidal thoughts could have made him take his life.

The idea of marriage would have been another hurdle to cross. Should he tell anything about his abuse to his wife before marriage? Or after? Would it be unfair for the wife to know later and not sooner? Would he be able to have kids? Will he be in a stable, loving relationship? Will he able to communicate successfully with his wife? Will he able to successfully develop a relationship?

If Rafee has kids of his own, will he be able to deal with that? How will he behave with his kids? Rafee has hinted to me several times he doesn’t want kids, because the world is cruel enough. He thinks about adoption as that will be his way of helping the unfortunate children. So, as you can see, his abuse has affected his whole way of thinking and living a life based on lies.

One of the more commonly heard theories is that those kids who are abused often end up abusing other kids when they grow up, especially male kids. Numerous studies have been conducted which have shown that the perpetrators themselves grew up in an abusive home. While this theory is quite common, it doesn’t always hold true. Almost in all cases, the perpetrators have been male, while the victims are mostly females.

There could be so many reasons why perpetrators would abuse a kid. Some of these include:

1. The perpetrators themselves were abused when they were young
2. The perpetrators have a dominant personality- want to overpower the young through sexual acts
3. The perpetrators may have rage/ pain inside them which they don’t know how to express
4. The perpetrators may have been deprived of any love/ affection while growing up and seek to fulfill that in having sex with kids
5. The perpetrators could be frustrated sexually
6. The perpetrators could be homosexual/ bisexual seeking sex by forcing kids

So while there are many reasons for why sexual abuse takes place, does it always mean that the abused kid would grow up to do the same? I don’t believe that will be the case with every kid. Unfortunately, those kids who don’t seek help, will in effect turn to do the same thing to kids when they grow up because their mind has been conditioned to do so and they don’t know how to deal with their inner turmoil.

Rafee’s first sexual encounters unfortunately happened with a man. In his puberty years, as he grew and developed his body, he had confused feelings. His mind had associated sex with men as a feeling of pleasure. He got into masturbation because he saw Abdul do it. He would masturbate over pictures of athletic men because his mind associated pleasure with Mr. Khalid, the gym trainer with an athletic body. If none of this had happened, Rafee’s thinking and actions would have been completely different.

Some people can further elaborate that male kids who are abused can turn out to be homosexuals. This again is wrong. It would be wrong to say that just because Rafee’s first sexual encounters happened with men, that he is gay. If a male abused a male kid, that doesn’t mean he is gay. A person becomes a gay when he makes a declaration, a choice, that he wants to be gay. Rafee was asked by his counselor as a take-home question: if you saw two bedrooms, one with a man on bed, another with a woman on bed, which one would you choose to go to? Rafee thought hard about it, and the next session, he answered: the one with the woman. So that showed that while Rafee had feelings or attraction for the same sex, it’s because he’s been conditioned that way while growing up.

Deep inside Rafee, there was something in him that made him want to fix himself. He always knew this was wrong, but was captivated by these men into staying silent. Rafee knew it was wrong but he chose to hit back at Abdul, and also to end his meetings with Mr. Khalid. So, in his subconscious mind, he knew very well that what was happening was wrong. It’s amazing how God has put in all of us this sense of conscience, this sense of right and wrong.

Rafee needs to go a long way now. As it is, he is handling and battling his battles one at a time. Right now, his battles have just been half won.