They say that certain circumstances of life can change a person forever, because when someone uses your body and steals your privacy, it makes you lose some of your identity, this is what happened to Roxane Gay, who began to hate herself and her body. who used food as a refuge from the pain of rape.
Roxane Gay’s life changed completely when she was only 12 years old and she was the victim of a group rape, the boy who was her boyfriend took her into the woods and, with a group of friends, repeatedly raped her, for fear of death and feeling very bad. guilty for trusting the person she loved as naive, began to hate and repugn her own body.
- “In my history of violence.
- There was a child.
- I liked it.
- His name was Christopher.
- Actually.
- It wasn’t called that.
- But I don’t need to tell you.
- Christopher and several friends raped me in the woods.
- In an abandoned hunting lodge.
- Where no one but these guys could hear my screams ??Roxane Gay?.
This hatred and fear of being raped again led her to use food to heal her soul’s wounds, she chose to eat to nullify he he heses in front of the world, food has become her defense and escape from pain.
Roxane knew that women are raped simply because they are women, she knew that there was practically nothing we could do to avoid being prey to an animal or animal that we believe is the owner of our body, she could do nothing but one thing: become something so disgusting that no man could ever love or touch her again.
“I knew I couldn’t stand another rape like that, so I ate because I thought that if my body became disgusting, I could scare away men, it would be more despicable, and I already knew their contempt very well. “Roxane Gay?
Her idea, this idea that women have been taught since girls, is that we should not take up space, women must be thin and beautiful to please in sight, and especially the men of our society, let us not forget that television, magazines and everything we consume sends the message that being thin is a social value that will encourage people to accept and love us more.
This led her to weigh 261 kilos, which led her to bariatric surgery to try to save her life, her body became a prison, where she kept the hatred she felt towards herself, the silence in the face of rape was the beginning of this spiral of self-destruction that plunged her into a frenzy for food.
Today, Roxane Gay is an American writer, columnist, college professor, and prominent feminist who has learned to value her body for what it is. Now she knows how to love herself far beyond what society or the media say about her body.
“I was able to admit that I love myself, despite the boredom of suspecting that I should not love myself. “Roxane Gay?
In his book “Hunger, Memories of My Body,” he breaks his silence and encourages other women to do the same. Roxane teaches how she stopped hating herself, knowing that what happened wasn’t her fault. She has learned to love herself as she is. Food no longer dominates her life, takes her alone, without letting her past mark her steps.
Roxane is a “survivor” and is not considered a victim. By telling his truth, his experience and the relationship with his body, he does not want to cause pity. He wants the silence we respect when we play with our bodies and he teaches us to love ourselves far beyond our appearance; teaches that while many things happen in our lives, we decide how to live them, we are neither guilty nor responsible for rape, and hatred of ourselves is never a problem.