‘Unlearning this Desire to Vanish': Rape, Illness, and the Politics of Testimony in Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s I Choose Elena and Amy Berkowitz’s Tender Points

Abstract

In recent years, life writing by survivors of sexual violence has attempted to contest the stigma of shame traditionally attached to women’s testimony. Among these authors, disabled and chronically ill survivors find themselves doubly marginalized by the patriarchal discourses prevalent in culture and medical spaces. For this reason, in their writing, they vindicate political and ethical approaches to their condition, based on emphasizing their bodily experience against the silencing of culture and institutions. This essay looks at Lucia Osborne Crowley’s I Choose Elena (2019) and Amy Berkowitz’s Tender Points (2015) as two examples of memoirs exploring the intersections between sexual trauma and chronic illnesses like endometriosis and fibromyalgia, as well as the possibilities for writing to contest stigma and move towards an ethical audience, inside and outside medical spaces. In their memoirs, these authors expose the physical, socioeconomic, and institutional boundaries that they encounter while vindicating political and engaged ways to live in their bodies.