But is it Rape

"Stop.  Don't"

"Baby.  Let me finish."

"No.  Don't.  Can't take any more."

The hour was approaching midnight and the only light in the bedroom came from the muted television.  But already deep into what had begun, the will pressed on to an ultimate conclusion, despite her protests and despite what was clearly tears in her eyes."

"Come on.  Almost finished."

"No.  Can't take it. Please!"

But being near the climactic point, the purpose of it all, it's impossible for one to stop.  Certainly countless couples have been in the same position where one is ignoring the others tears and pushing deeper."

"Come on?  It's okay.  Just let me finish," was the strained request to continue.

By now her brown eyes were full of tears and even in the dim light they could could be seen tricking from the corners down her cheeks.  Finally,  after several excruciating minutes that must have felt like an hour to her, those tears ended the a repeated piercing of her heart.

The heart piercing began with a discussion on the frequency of showering.  Unless soaked with sweat, smelling of yesterdays, or unless she is already in the shower, this man rarely thinks of showering.  But I did not grow up in the heat and humidity of Havana, Cuba, experiencing the upper class privilege of hot, running water.  Instead, I recall a trailer parked on 600 acres of boondocks in     East Texas, and maybe 2 or 3 miles following the winding  tire tracks through piney woods and cattle pastures to a paved highway.  

As the 7 year old, eldest of 4 children, each evening I converted the dining room table and couch into beds for myself, my 4 year old brother and 3 year old sister.  My 1 year old brother would have been in the rear bedroom with our parents, both of whom had attended at least 2 years of college and came from educated, middle class families in Dallas and San Diego with air conditioning and hot water.  But while they had hot baths, we had 600 acres of squirrels, deer, coyotes and copperheads that would slither out from under bonfires we would light with a splash of gasoline.

But our toilet was about 200 feet from the house, a small shed, with a wood bench with a hole cut in the middle all positioned over a 3 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft hole dug into the ground below.   On the bench was a roll of toilet paper and can of lye powder to toss on what lay below to reduce the odor and flies.   But despite the lye there were still flies and spiders would cleverly weave their web directly under the hole in the bench.   For a 7 year old this offered the great sport of water artillery against the spider web into the foul depth below.   But it was also terrify to sit over the hole as it was feared that the spider might exact its revenge with a quick bite upon the testicles of the artillery operator.  I have a vague recollection of this fear being justified but it was probably not the spider, but rather one for the nasty little flies.

And so I began the second grade with my father dropping me off at the highway to wait for the school bus and then walking back on the tire track path, through the pasture and woods, to the trailer.   Through the hot summer and Texas fall this worked well enough as after school we would cool ourselves in the large pond on the edge of the property.  We enjoyed the side where the pine trees came down to the water, while the herd of cattle enjoyed the other side.  And while the pine trees shaded even the water from the hot afternoon sun, upon returning from the pond we would have to search each others bodies for small ticks that would drop from the trees and hopefully rinse any we'd missed using the shower hanging from the tree outside the trailer.

The pond water was not clear and would leave a think layer of brown silt or scum in our hair on our bodies.   On the way home from work, my father would fill 5 gallon cannisters with water at the gas station.  He would pour the 5 gallons of cold water from the cannister into the coffee can hung from a tree.  Nail holes in the coffee can created a shower head under which we would quickly lather and rinse.  Thankfully, by winter we had moved to a house that was on the paved highway with a hot water bath, which we ritualistically used once a week and lights that turned on with a switch on the wall rather than our having to strike a match a fire up a smoky kerosene lantern.  During the hotter times of the year we were in shorts anyway and would just use the garden hose and sprinkler in the yard during the afternoon or evening, so indoor bathing was an afterthought as was air conditioning.  

While I now look back and appreciate the indoor plumbing the house afforded, my favorite memory is watching the fresh, unpasteurized cows milk settling on the kitchen counter before we would go out and pick wild blackberries in the field behind the house.  An hour later, the milk would have separated, with the cream on the top and we would ladle the cream over bowls of with wild berries.

But by the age of 9 we were back living without indoor plumbing.  This time it was 2000 ft up in the Cascade mountains and while the spring afforded us an indoor tap and toilet in the warm months, but Thanksgiving the water pipe into the house would be frozen and we'd then have to trudge with gallon or five gallon buckets to the spring outside and fill our buckets.   Bathing was again a once a week affair, but there was a tub which we would fill from a 5 gallon pot heated on one of the wood stoves.  Thankfully this house had 2 wood stoves as that year was one of the coldest on record, with a solid 2 weeks of -20 degree lows.  School was the only place that felt warm. The bedrooms in the house were only used for sleeping as they were too cold for anything not under 3 blankets.

The most troublesome aspect of it all was the toilet.   Again, there was a small shack with a bench and a hole, over by the pond which sat 150 feet from the house.   At least there was no smell, flies or spiders.  But the trade off was sitting on a cold bench wondering if your ass would freeze to it not unlike the kid that licks the flag pole. It never happened.  But then I never sat long enough to warm the bench.

My parents posh suburban upbringing quickly overcame their narcissistic, anticapitalistic braggadociousness of their tales of "living off the land" and organic homesteading, so after a single frigid winter of self imposed misery without indoor plumbing, they were back in civilization, renting a parsonage in the basement of an Assembly of God Church.   We didn't attend the church, but didn't care.  It was in town, no more 5 mile walks from the bus drop-off and no more dusty rides on the dirt road where in the back seat we would pull our scarves or T shirts over our faces to block the dust and fumes that would blow in from the holes in the floorboard.

However, the haven of indoor plumbing was not to last.  By the spring of my 13th year the parents had again relapsed into the antiestablishment of their 1960's adolescence and were living with a peace movement commune that consisted of a single family with 3 sons on 200 acres outside Athens, Ohio with an old farmhouse at the top of a hill.  That house had indoor plumbing and even a washing machine.  The farm house had a bathroom, kitchen and laundry with hot water.  The laundry was actually sort of fun.   It was the old tub with an agitator but no spin cycle.  Instead it had a roller and you would feed the wet clothes and diapers into the roller to squeeze out the water, and then pin the clothes and diapers to the lines.   The trick was to keep your fingers out of the roller being turned by another kid that would gleefully pinch your fingers if you did not exercise proper caution.

But we did not live in the farm house.   We lived in "guest quarters" which had probably been a tractor shed at the base of the hill, down from the farmhouse.  The guest quarters had electricity but the bathroom was a room the size of a 4x4 foot closet that contained a 5 gallon bucket.   This was for night-time emergencies.   Daylight hours afford the use of a shed attached to the same structure.  Exterior steps led up to the outside door and inside was a bench, the length of the shed, with the familiar hole cut in the middle.  This hole was actually covered with a white standard toilet seat.  I noted that life had in that way improved over the last 6 years.   Instead of a hole in the ground beneath the toilet seat covered hole in the bench, was another 5 gallon bucket.   This was a good thing and this was a bad thing.   The good thing was that the bucket containing the previous days waste was removed each morning and replaced with a clean bucket.  This kept down the flies and spiders.   The bad news was that I was the person who had the job of removing the bucket each morning.

But I had a method to the bucket removal.  I'd put a clothespin over my nose, and carefully so as not to slosh or stumble and spill any of the bucket until I had gotten it to the rows of raspberries where each morning by 7:30 am another three feet of the rows of raspberries would be fertilized with five gallons of human waste.   The raspberries were sold at the the university farmers market in Athens.  Yes they were labeled as 'ORGANIC".   Not that I have a problem with farmers markets.  But yes, some of the people there today, remind of of the "peace-nik", Communist types and give me pause to wonder if they too are violating OSHA regulations, child labor laws and community housing standards, all in the pursuit of their "higher calling".

Thankfully the shithole communist experience in Athens Ohio only lasted a few months.  The short is that my mother "fell in love" with the 3 boys mom.   Years later I learned their Church of the Bretheren father was gay, or at least gave that impression to my straight Sunday school teacher and never more shocked in his life, former US Navy, Viet Nam fighter pilot, soccer coach by thanking him for a ride to the airport with a wet open mouth kiss.   

Oddly my best memory on that 200 acre commune was learning to drive the old John Deer tractor with the two big real wheels and small steering wheel in the front..  But maybe that's just because the self proclaimed preacher, soccer coach kissing, peace activist and "organic farmer" met an untimely demise when that tippy tractor rolled over on him and caught caught fire.   

Yes , the thought of that weird, self righteous, peacenik, pinned to the ground under a flaming tractor engine, still makes me laugh.  But maybe that's because I look back at him and my parents and think - was it rape?   By use of parental force they took what was not theirs to take.   It is not the parents right to take the child's childhood by volunteering the child for deprivation of that which is not necessary for the proper physical, intellectual and emotional development of the child.  This seems especially true when I know the effort my grandparents made to ensure that my parents never suffered a single day of hunger, freezing weather or conditions that were unsafe or unsanitary.  At the age of 13, I recall begging my father to send me to live with either set of grandparents or any distant relative.   He would not consider it.    At 15 my mother openly threatened to kill me and I was sent to stay with families in church until the fall when at the age of 16 I enrolled as a college freshman and never again experienced living without electricity or indoor plumbing.

But is it rape?  The desire of peacenik, communist parents to live out their anti-establishment dreams without disruption of such dream by their small children who are legally entitled to a safe and stable environment which by any standard includes clean running water and an indoor toilet - is that rape?

Before getting into bed last night I was reminded to take a shower.  When I returned a discussion ensued as to why I don't think of showering every day.   My explanation began with the story of my life as a seven year old and my first recollection of a shower, being cold water flowing through the holes in a coffee can, hung from a tree.  I was laughing about it as the first tears appeared in her eyes.  I was still laughing my way through the memory of the outdoor toilet and the scum and ticks from the pond as tears poured from her eyes and she begged me to stop.   

This morning I am considering that which she has frequently asked me over the last few weeks, "Are you judging how people treat you in relationships by the standard by which your parents treated you?   If your parents treated you that badly, have you accepted levels of abuse in relationships simply because they were not as horrific as how your parents treated you?"

I laugh at what makes others cry.  But is that how one survives the Hell that is for Children raped of the standard norms of physical, emotional and spiritual security, for the benefit of someone else's "higher calling".