to let it bother me so much when couples say "we're pregnant"?

[Schnitzel]

I know this is really petty, but it REALLY gets on my goat. Where did this "we're pregnant" business come from?! I'm probably just being a really miserable git.

Any you have not read my comments Mathanxiety, I am not denying the 'real experiences of real women in real hospitals'.

I am saying it is wrong and not constructive to use the term 'rape'.

You are obviously easily shocked then.

'But I am talking about health professionals. NOT RAPISTS!'

Rape is in the eye of the beholder.

To tell these women that they have not been raped as such is to deny the real experiences of real women in real hospitals. Including one woman on this thread who is in a position to know what she is talking about and who presumably did not use the term in order to be melodramatic.

Is PND something to be used against a woman when judging her credibility then?

Trop Wed 01-Dec-10 18:18:59
It probably is worth a good discussion.

I had never heard the term before but yes we have all heard stories about doctors with the god complex and nurses telling women to be quiet and let the professionals get on with things as they know what they are doing but we also know they make mistakes and are on a short budget/under time pressure.

"Such high regard"? No. Realistic? Yes.

Is PND something to be used against a woman when judging her credibility then?

It shouldn't be but we both know it is.

You are talking out of your hat!

To tell these women that they have not been raped as such is to deny the real experiences of real women in real hospitals.

They have NOT been raped! Their free will has been denied and they have been treated as second class citizens but they have NOT BEEN RAPED.

-- 'But I am talking about health professionals. NOT RAPISTS!'
-- 'Never the twain shall meet' only applies if your own very narrow definition of rape as involving only the intent to sexually assault a victim is applied.

-- 'no the professionals will not take you seriously, they will put it down to hormones and pnd and dismiss you totally as melodramatic, drama queens with 'victim syndrome' whereas if you discuss the issue of removal of consent with the calm perspective it deserves then you might find the matter is taken seriously.'
-- Here a real and tragic medical condition is used against a woman and another one is made up to account for the pnd. Nice

-- 'Imo some are so intent being a victim they don't consider that to call it rape is actually a huge offense to all health professionals who are (rightly or wrongly) trying to do the best they can.'
-- So women should get over themselves and 'walk it off' when they end up with serious medical side effects, including mental health problems, as a result of the treatment they receive at the hands of your 'health professionals'?

You are probably being realistic in your description of the high and mighty attitude of the so-called professionals. But that is where the 'realistic' ends. And yes, every single post of yours has derided the experiences of women who posted here, while assuming 'doctor knows best'.

It is the women themselves who are saying they have been raped. Nobody is telling them they have been raped. They have sensory apparatus, brains, and a whole lifetime of experience as human beings all informing them that what was done to them was rape. Having your free will denied and being treated like a second class citizen and having someone perform an operation or insert their body part into you while you lie there helplessly is rape.

The point is it is not rape. It is melodramatic and sensationalist to call it rape.

I am not wrong on this. I may be wrong often on other things but on this I have 20:20 vision.

The term 'birth rape' will get you nowhere.

And I have not denied the unpleasantness of anyones experiences on this thread. I'm opinionated but I'm not a completely heartless bitch, thank you.

"heartless bitch"? I assumed you were a man Trop as you have so little regard for the women who have had other peoples body parts shoved into their vaginas without consent and with questionable cause - on the grounds that it was with good intentions and therefore should be overlooked/ignored!

I agree 'birth rape' is probably gratuitous. 'Rape' is adequate to describe what some of the earlier posters have described.

Lives of women and babies can be saved whilst still obtaining informed consent.

Bollocks! You will get nowhere calling it rape.

Actually Nellie thinking about it, you may have something. I have the ability to put myself in the mindset of others which is why I know without a shadow of a doubt that getting all melodramatic will get you nowhere. I also understand why some women do get melodramatic about it yet the rest of us deal with it and move on.

Either way, calling it rape is silly.

Heartless bitch? Who called you that? Or maybe that was your conscience trying to bust its way through all the bricks...

If you know anyone in the medical profession, who would use pnd as a way of attacking any woman's word, I hope you will report them to the relevant boards. There are professional standards of patient care, and that attitude is not acceptable, hard though it seems for you to accept that medical professionals are capable of any wrong when it comes to the treatment of women.

Crying 'Bollocks!' (not melodramatic much, eh?) and adamantly repeating 'I am not wrong', do not add merit to an argument.

By insisting it is not rape you deny the experiences of women who have experienced it as rape, again some of whom even on this thread are in a position to know.

You seem well able to read the minds of the medical professionals and actually put some pretty damnable words into their mouths and thoughts into their heads (a very strange claim, but heyho) but apparently you are completely unable to summon an ounce of empathy for your fellow women.

I wonder if you would also deny rape for someone who wasn't physically injured or feared for her life? Or how about the teenager who got too drunk? Or the wife who submits for an easy life?

Not all rape experiences are as scary as each other, not all involve physical violence. Some women would write off a drunken fumble as just that, some are traumatised by it. It's not for anyone else to define her experience of it, only she lived through that experience, only she has lived her life.

My rape experience was I stupidly sat in someone's car because it was loud in the pub. He drove off to a dark carpark and started to kiss and undress me. All the time I was moving around the car away from him telling him I wasn't interested. Eventually I was almost naked and he had me on the drivers seat, I knew I couldn't do anything else to stop him. I stopped fighting because I knew I would get hurt if I did and I just wanted it over with. I didn't think I was going to die, I knew if I stopped fighting I wouldn't get injured. Is it any less rape because he wasn't a stranger who jumped me in the street and I wasn't harmed?

Why do some soldiers come back from war with PTSD but their mate who was with them from training doesn't? Because it's their life and no one else's we can't own other people's experiences and we can't define them.

Birth Rape is a feminist issue

Are you able to put yourself into my mindset? Do you know what it feels like to watch your baby die in your arms then months later be terrified as you go into preterm labour, have a crash section with general anaesthetic, watch your baby suffer in an incubator too sick to be held, to watch her grow up with constant asthma and constipation problems that leave her in A&E on a monthly basis?

I have never claimed to have suffered birth rape, I did suffer birth trauma (PTSD) for all the details I didn't go into. Can you get into my mindset? You've obviously got experience of mine and everyone else's life enough to be able to get into our mindsets (I take it you're also a psychologist?) so tell me how you go about getting into my "mindset"?

Like I said. Umpteen times now. It is not rape.

You are playing melodrama, you are playing the victim you are playing every card except the logical. Stop dealing with 'feelings' and start dealing with facts.

IT IS NOT RAPE!

I don't suppose it really matters how many times I say that, you are caught up in the victim fantasy.

You carry on playing the part, wallow in self pity.

Its going to get you nowhere. But I'm starting to realise you actually don't want it to - you like the part you are playing. You are enjoying the tea and sympathy, why would you want to do anything constructive about it?

Nothing is more self gratifying than being the centre of attention and having everyone's pity is it?

I will leave you to it.
You carry on crying rape and diluting the response to those in genuine need.
Don't feel bad that the opinion of the professionals is that women cry rape when they lose on every other argument.
Don't feel bad that genuine victims of rape suffer for your vanity.
ffs

Confuddled...What?
Your experience in the car was rape, no two ways about it and I'm deeply sorry you experience that.

But what has that got to do with this birth rape nonsense.

Rape is about feelings, and perceptions, you numpty. There are no 'facts' when it comes to rape. Every 'fact' is up for grabs. Every 'factual detail' of every rape case in the cold, hard setting of the courts of law in the country is debatable and contestable. Rape cases are decided by juries. It's 'He said, she said' all the way.

Your attitude and language towards women who see their experiences as 'birth rape' is deplorable.

Keep on shouting though...

Confuddled experienced it as rape. No doubt in my mind it was too. But her rapist probably saw it completely differently.

I will keep saying it numpty, because for every woman who claims her horrible birth experience is rape there are at least a hundred women who don't report a genuine rape as the one Confuddled described for fear they will not be taken seriously.

And why are they not taken seriously? Because of the horrible attitudes that are being confounded by this dilution of the crime of rape.

You are doing no-one any favours with this 'birth rape' nonsense.

And Star I don't want to belittle the awful experience you went through and I don't want to contradict that it brought back memories but for those like mathanxiety who claim it is a form of rape, it is making life so much more difficult of genuine victims of rape such as yourself and Confuddled to report the crime to the authorities and be taken seriously.

A horrific birth experience is a horrific birth experience and no less real for that but I'll say it again...it isn't rape.

It is not useful to further confuse the definition of rape.

Probably mathanxiety but it was his routine and the police woman said as a 35 year old woman talking to a 20 year old man she felt gross just sitting in the same room as him. He wasn't a nice guy at all.

I've been told I wasn't raped because he wasn't convicted. The CPS won't pick up a case that hasn't got an 80% chance of being prosecuted. That's facts. He is not a rapist because he has never been "found guilty in a court of his peers".

According to your definition:

real, life threatening, terrifying horror of a rape that you don't know if you will survive or indeed, if you want to.

I was not raped. It wasn't life threatening, it wasn't terrifying, I did know I would survive and I did want to. I wasn't horrified afterwards either, I said to the police woman I felt a fraud because I was chatting and joking with her (she explained that not every woman fits the stereotype and many women take it matter of fact).

However I do know women who's life (and the baby's life) was put in danger because of what a doctor did, who were terrified, who felt sheer horror, who didn't know if they would die and were praying to die. All this whilst someone held them down and rammed things into their vagina.

Until you've experienced everything there is to experience in life, you can't pass judgement on someone else's experiences, which is the point of this off topic conversation. This whole thread has been about putting your own feelings onto someone else.

Even when I had a crash section and my baby was in Intensive Care within 20 minutes of the doctor deciding we needed to get her out, I still had three consent forms explained and signed as well as other preop procedures. There is never an excuse to treat a mother like she has no rights, even to save the life of the child. The child has no rights, the mother does.