Stories of Innocence and Experience: Bodily Narrative and Rape

It is not uncommon to meet a woman who reveals to you that she has been raped. Her rape may have happened years before or the night before, but either way her story, I have learned, never sinks to the level of a casual conversational gambit, no matter how much time has passed between the event and the telling. Her story has layers of meaning inherent in it that can be difficult for both the listener and the teller. In my experience of listening to these stories, what has been most striking is the way that a woman's whole self communicates her experience of both herself and the world; to make sense of her words as her words, I need to listen to them as inextricably intertwined with her physical gestures and comportment. Let me begin by telling you of one such experience of listening.