Husband's letter to wife's rapist in its entirety

This week's feature story in City Pages, An open letter to the man who raped my wife, documents how a couple is making sense of life after a rape.

The story includes part of a letter to the rapist sent to City Pages, but the original letter was far longer than what was included in the story. Here is the letter in its entirety:

"To: A Rapist

You are a rapist.

You drugged a woman. You drizzled your infection on her body with your small, pathetic tool. You did a woman who was nothing other than a warm corpse.

Big man. Rapist.


You aren't the first. You won't be the last. What you did is not powerful. You couldn't even do this without drugging her. How pathetic.

What you got:

Every time you are with a woman, she is with a rapist. She will see it. We all will. It's burned in your eyes in the cowardice and fear that only a weak, small man who could not have a woman except through raping and drugging has. She will know you. We all will.

You will hide your eyes from us all, and we will scorn your weakness. When we see your eyes, your fear will be clear to all and we will scorn your cowardice. So pathetic and weak, we will all know.

Every time you are amongst women, they will sense your weakness and your rape, and they will scorn your cowardice together. Strong, true women together would tear your imp self apart if you so much as raised your weak, pathetic eyes to them.

Every time you are with real men, they will sense your pathetic smallness. They will know you are not nearly as much of a man as they are. Men who can have women without rape and drugs; they will know they are with a weak, small man. This is forever. Rapist.

If you have children now, they are the children of a rapist. If someday you have children, they will be the children of a rapist.

If you are married, your wife is married to a rapist. If someday you marry, you wife will be marrying a rapist.

Your parents are the parents of a rapist.

Your neighbors are the neighbors of a rapist.

Your community is infected by you, a rapist.

Every time you enter your workplace, a rapist has entered. Everyone around you will see it in you, even if they do not know the fact. You can never hide it. Rapist.

Through your whole life, you are a rapist. Everyone you meet, you are a rapist to. Everything you have is had by a rapist. Everything you eat is eaten by a rapist. Everywhere you live is the home of a rapist.

Every time you are in a restroom, you are holding a small, infected tool of a rapist.

On your death bed, you will be a rapist. Your last thought will be as a rapist.

You will be a rapist into whatever is hereafter. Take it with you. Rapist.

Judgment is upon you from all of us, forever. You can never escape this. Rapist.


What you do not get:

You will never have love because you can never be true again. You are a rapist.

You will never know the joy and passion that a real man has when a woman makes him know she loves him.

You will never get a kiss back from her. A warm, strong kiss when lips gently touch and move together into passion as one.

She will never move with you. As two bodies shine together in the beautiful act of creation when sweat and bodies become more than two, more than one, but all.

You will never get a beautiful, long night of love where passions rise and fall together through to sunrise.

You do not get one warm night together, holding each other in front of hours of movies under blankets and love.

You will never hold her and feel the delicate softness of her beautiful hair against your face.

You will never smell the beauty of a woman's love filling your arms, your room, your home. Your home smells like the home of a rapist.

You will never look into her eyes and see all of Life dancing in her joy of life. Your eyes will never see into any other eyes again because fear and shame will cloud everything in front of you. Rapist.

You never get one smile from a child that lights up the world beyond your pathetic wrong to her.

You never get a warm, sunny day with her walking through the woods, paddling over a lake or spent in fields and courses.

You will never feel her soft hand slowly slip into your hand and wrap her fingers around yours connecting you in playful joy.

You never get a quiet hour spent in the same room knowing you are there, with each other, and always will be.

You never get the joy of creating life inside her womb and listening to even the trees celebrate the joy of true Life that only a woman can create.

You will never get a warm meal together, as a family, laughing and talking and being utterly joyful at life.

She will never touch you back.

What we take from you:

In your pathetic act, the brightest light of Life itself shone upon the beauty of forever being one, together. We see more clearly than ever before that nothing, ever, through death, can shake our love. We thank Life for that most beautiful of blessings! Your act is so insignificant against the truth of Life!

We take that every day is a cherished blessing that we share together, as a family, with no petty smallness infecting us anymore. Petty smallness is now an infection you carry forever, Rapist. Through your weak, pathetic act, Life removed the meaningless for us and infected you with it forever.

We take a life full and overflowing with the meaningful and beautiful!

We take the strength of being better than you. We all do.

We take strength at how pathetic you are that to have a woman, you have to rape a woman, you have to drug a woman.

We know with blazing truth the strength of true hearts and unshakeable courage. That is what we have, and what you never will now, coward.

We take the strength of confidence and honor.

The strength of family.

The strength of children.

The strength of marriage.

The strength of Love.

You believe you have attacked a woman. Rather, you have attacked the feminine in everyone. God will not help you, and the feminine is more powerful than you could possibly have known not loving and knowing a woman truly. And it will burn you forever, relentlessly, Rapist.

You drugged her so she would not know. You took the evidence so they could not track. But you are not free. We all know. We all see it. Coward.


With honor and courage,

A Real Man"


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