Anecdotal observation I received from a doctor’s office indicates there may be some change in the insurance industry…
Last month I saw a surgeon who does not take insurance, but her office helps people get all the pre-authorizations done to file an out-of-network claim. They told me that of the codes they bill, there’s one that used to have a 50/50 chance of getting approved. But after 12/6/24 they see it come back approved every time.
Without more data to back this up I recognize it’s not enough to say anything for sure, but this does point to insurance companies more broadly approving claims.
That’s hard to deal with. You are clearly an empathetic person with deep concern and care for this friend.
When dealing with grief, the best practice is to not seek solace/comfort from someone on a more inner circle of the grief (with the circles being like immediate family > close friends > extended family, and so on). Like it would be generally seen as inappropriate if a man’s wife died and her coworker went to him to process their grief.
Your friend’s ‘joke’ about murder summarizes simply how a lot of victims feel like rape is a loss of self, of personhood, in a way that parallels the loss of that in death—except the victim has to live through it and process it. So getting back to the grief circles, with rape those same circles may exist except with the survivor at the center. And it seems like you needed your own space to process the grief but you were trying to respect the circles and so you didn’t have support in that.
I’m just rambling thoughts that all mirror what you’ve said—I think I’m just trying to acknowledge what you experienced in my own words.
I hope you and your friend are more at peace now or at least on your way to it <3
I appreciate your thoughtful response and consideration of how you phrased this originally. I know you are making the point with the best of intentions in trying to ensure that the word “rape” isn’t diluted down.
I struggled for many years to move beyond my experiences of being raped. I’m in a good place now, but it took time. I generally wouldn’t say I’m suffering from it any more (even if there may be moments where I’m triggered), so I think the comment here just hit me hard.
I also know there are other victims who have gone through weird levels of guilt and self-doubt because they haven’t felt the level of suffering that’s “expected.”
We both have the same desire here, but slightly different stances on where that line should be drawn and that’s ok.
I’m responding a second time because I think this is an important point to make as a top-level response.
the suffering of a living victim is an essential part of what makes rape rape.
This is a fucked up take. This says that a rape victim must suffer, and if they aren’t suffering, then it wasn’t rape. Just, no. People process things differently. Some will be more and some will be less traumatized by being raped.
Forcing a particular experience onto a victim, saying they must feel a certain way, is just so incredibly problematic. A victim can feel whatever they feel and process a crime against them however they want. And the way they do so doesn’t change whether a crime was committed against them.
Edit: And with a very literal reading of the statement, it also says that if someone kills their victim after raping them, then it’s not rape—because there isn’t a living victim who is suffering. I’m sure that’s not what you meant, but it’s important to think about these things and how we convey them.
From the details given, it’s not clear if the person was dead or only unconscious at the time of the assault and it’s not clear whether the attacker knew either.
I’m not clear on your second point; you say that it doesn’t seem right that defendant knowledge matters in one case and not the other. So if:
Defendant commits arson not knowing they kill someone in the building > call it murder
Defendant sexually violates a body not knowing if they are dead > don’t call it rape?
It seems like not calling it rape is what would apply a double standard here based on defendant knowledge.
Our society treats bodies as an extension of a person; for example, we do not harvest organs from a body if the person didn’t consent to be an organ donor while they were alive.
Your focus on the victim’s suffering as what determines the severity of the crime seems problematic to me. If a victim doesn’t let being raped destroy their life, do we not punish the rapist as severely? We distinguish between manslaughter and murder based on pre-meditation and intent, even though the victim is still dead in both cases, and similarly I think that focusing on the attacker’s actions and intent should be the key factor in calling their actions rape.
If the defendant were going to a morgue or funeral home and defiling bodies, I may feel differently but given the timing here it feels way too grey to not treat it as rape.
FWIW, I’m coming at this conversation as a rape survivor myself. I know the level of mental devastation it can cause. And personally, I don’t think that treating the sexual assault of someone who may or may not have been dead yet (and if they were dead, had been so for no more than 30 minutes) as rape takes anything away from the severity of the crime or my experience as a victim of it.
And anyway from a semantic perspective, according to the article it is being charged only as attempted rape.
I was so lucky to share a life with her! I also went on autopilot with her demands and would be asleep within seconds of my adjustments so I barely noticed them.
Don’t be surprised if your little man picks up new needs! I think that’s common as they age, and it sounds like you and I agree that it’s worth giving them everything they demand. I hope you have many more good years being his arm pillow!
Similarly, in the last few of her 20 years of life, my kitty picked up a new ”requirements” on how we slept. It started with her wanting to be in my arms, and she’d paw at me during the night until I woke up and wrapped my arms around her. Given her inability to communicate her desires, it took a couple weeks of significantly disrupted sleep to learn that’s what she wanted!
That continued but she also began pawing for things such as: 1) lifting the blanket so she could go under it, 2) laying on my back so she could rest her head on my hip, and 3) rolling to face her. The last was the funniest as she developed it only in her final two years. She just couldn’t bear me facing away from her even while I slept!
I lost so much sleep meeting that cat’s needs, lol. And it was worth every second of it.
Personally, I didn’t find this to be true. But I think the lifetime spent before the goodbye was worth all of the pain, as awful as it is. The hello to a new kitten was sweet and helped me think less frequently about the pain, but it wasn’t nearly equal to the pain of losing the old one.
That said, the girl I lost was without a doubt my soul pet. We spent 20 years together and losing her tore a hole in both my heart and soul. And yet I wouldn’t give up a single day I had with her if it would lessen the pain I have felt over the last 7 months since losing her.
I adopted a sweet new kitten about 3 months in and I am so glad I did. She’s wonderful and I think there’s a chance I got lucky and will have two soul pets in my life. But the joy of meeting her and getting to build a new relationship only makes me think less frequently of the pain of my loss, not feel it any less.
In your heart I think you know the answer or you wouldn’t be posting here like this. No, it’s not normal or healthy. That person is not a friend, and he seems dangerous to be around (maybe not for physical reasons but definitely for mental reasons).
Continue to be secretive and distance yourself from him; that’s not asshole behavior, that’s self-preservation. I hope you are able to separate yourself and get free from this person and in time find actual friends who care and support you for who you are.
I’m on medical leave from work and made a list of low-energy things I could do while recovering from surgery, and making a memory photo book is on that list! I’m also thinking about getting a customized stuffed animal that looks like my girl. It’s so hard to lose them.
Thank you for being there for them. I had to put down my soul pet, my cat of 20 years, in October. First time losing my pet as opposed to the family’s. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. Thankfully I was seeing a counselor who helped me through the worst of it and I’m so grateful to her. She cried too, and it touched me that she could empathize so deeply with what I was feeling.
When I talked about losing my kitty on here, someone said the sweetest thing that will always stay with me, “May her sunspot never move and may she rest in play.”
Being a cat person, I don’t know how relevant the sunspot part would be to a dog, but I feel like “rest in play” is such a lovely way to think about any pet’s passing.
Anecdotal observation I received from a doctor’s office indicates there may be some change in the insurance industry…
Last month I saw a surgeon who does not take insurance, but her office helps people get all the pre-authorizations done to file an out-of-network claim. They told me that of the codes they bill, there’s one that used to have a 50/50 chance of getting approved. But after 12/6/24 they see it come back approved every time.
Without more data to back this up I recognize it’s not enough to say anything for sure, but this does point to insurance companies more broadly approving claims.