Can I Be Happy That My Rapist Died?
Kumusta Tita,
I was dating this guy for two years. I thought he was the perfect man. The dates, the sex, the emotional compatibility, everything just felt aligned.
One day we were on vacation at my parents’ beach house. We spent a nice day together walking along the beach, eating seafood, and riding a horse-drawn carriage. The romance made me so horny for him. Later that night I told him I wanted to have sex. Our room was dimly lit you could barely see anything. But I didn’t care as long as I could feel him. As he was fucking me, he readjusted himself before coming inside me. It felt amazing like nothing could ruin our night.
The next morning, I woke up earlier than him and saw that the condom was on the floor and not in the trash. I felt the residual cum in between my ass cheeks and thought the worst. He took his condom off while fucking me. In a frenzy, I woke him up and asked him. He didn’t deny it and said he thought it would be okay to go bareback because of how the day was. By the way, Tita, I had to use a condom because I wasn’t on PrEP and he was positive. He told me that he was undetectable, but I still wanted to be safe. Regardless of status, he did not respect my boundaries.
The ride home was filled with an awkward silence. When we got back to our respective apartments, I called him and told him that what he did was not okay and broke up with him. I cut off all contact with him because there was no excuse that I needed to hear for what he did. What sucks even more is that I went in to get tested, and the test came back positive. Because I cut him off, I never got to yell at him for what he gave me.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I heard from our mutual friends that his wake was happening in a few days. From what I heard he stopped taking his medications from depression, and he let his immune system reach AIDS status and died shortly after.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief and joy that the asshole that changed my life had died. When I check his social media and people post positive affirmations about how much he will be missed and how good of a friend he was, I can’t help but cringe in disgust. I need to fight back the urge to tell them about the shitty thing he did “out of respect for the dead.”
Tita, is it wrong of me to feel happy that the guy who gave me HIV is dead?
Regards,
O-Bitch-uary
Hey OB,
Great sign-off name.
First of all, in the words of the lovely Plane Jane, kudos for saying that mama. For spilling.
For anyone reading this and is wondering if what he did was wrong, the boyfriend did something called stealthing. It’s the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex, and this is very much an act of rape and control and manipulation. So absolutely fuck that boyfriend for doing that.
OB, what he did was absolutely fucked. I can understand that you would feel ecstatic to hear that the guy who raped you and gave you HIV is no longer kicking. I would be jumping for joy, pissing on his grave a la Saltburn, and know that it would bring me peace.
I can imagine what anger you must feel when you see people saying nice things about him, so allow me to play Devil’s advocate for just a quick second here. It sucks what happened to you, and I don’t know if you told anyone else about this, so you may have been suffering in silence for a long time. However, when looking at the big picture and seeing it from other people’s perspective, they may not have known about the stealthing. Because someone has passed away, societal customs have programmed us to act in a certain way concerning the dead. We have to treat them with respect and dignity and say only nice things about them because, well, they’re dead. That form of social programming has also taught us that one shitty act does not define their entire being and personhood. A dead person is not defined by one horrible thing, but instead they are remembered for how they made many people feel and what kind of legacy that leaves behind.
But you know what I say to that? Fuck you all. This one guy disrespected you and gave you a literal virus. What he did was not okay and cannot be taken back. I am one thousand percent in support of laughing at the dead if they’re shitty people. I don’t care about all the other good things he did and how amazing he made you feel. If someone hurt me profoundly and I find out they’re dead, I will be bringing party poppers and Dom Perignon to pour over his grave.
I think it’s acceptable to be happy about someone’s death especially when that person treated you with that level of disrespect. Let’s take a look at some political examples. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Dahmer. OJ Simpson. Pol Pot. Joseph Stalin. Ted Bundy. The list goes on, so you get my point. These are all awful people who did something so reprehensible in life that they do not deserve respect even in death. You can say that the world is a much better place because they’re dead.
So, my dear OB, if you’re looking for permission to jump for joy over the death of your rapist, I say go for it. Throw a party, be merry, have lots of fun! If haters will call it tasteless because he’s dead, then let them shout into the abyss. They don’t know the truth, and you don’t owe them that. Be happy that you can find release and a sense that justice has been served.
Just don’t forget to invite your dear old Tita to the festivities!
Mahal kita,
Tita Slut
