This story needs to be told with a careful emphasis on details to avoid all the insinuating questions regarding clothing and demeanor. It is a personal story, but it has political implications, if you stick with me until the end. If you don't care to stick with me, please scroll down to the bottom and take a look at the poll at the end.
It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college and I was seventeen years old. My older sister was going to college in another city, where she had sublet an apartment for the summer with some other young women from her school and gotten a job working security at a venue which hosted musical events. She invited me down for a visit. She would have to work a couple of nights while I was there, but she got me a ticket for one of the performances. I went to go see Peter Gabriel perform alone, but that really wasn't odd for me. I'd always been highly independent and if I wanted to do something and no friends wanted to go with me, I wouldn't think twice about going alone. It's one of those weird bits of memory that gets lodged in your head, but the person who sat in front of me that evening was wearing a King Crimson t-shirt. The elaborate staging was very different from the sort of pared down performances I'd been seeing lately, and I enjoyed the change of pace. The staging was beyond impressive and, being several years before his hit album So, it was my first real exposure to Peter Gabriel's music. I was dressed in a manner that was dictated by the circumstances of being alone at an outdoor venue, a pair of white jeans, white canvas Keds and a lavender polo shirt.
Afterwards, I met up with my sister. Some of the other people with whom she worked were hanging about. We just stood there in a loose knot of about seven or eight people, mostly young men. All except my sister and one other person were strangers to me. My sister had always been a bit of a tomboy, so it wasn't surprising that she was one of the only women working security there. I have always had more male friends than female and nothing would have struck me as odd about that circumstance. I was the youngest person there, but only by a few years. The oldest people in the group had just graduated from college that spring. To a college student with many male friends, there was nothing alarming about this situation, just a group of co-workers standing around shooting the breeze after work.
As it became clear that the place was closing up and we'd have to move on, one of the recent college graduates, a big guy that I would later learn had played football in college, as had several other people who worked there, suggested that we head over to his place which was closer than any one else's place.
At one point the former football player was chatting with me and I had the distinct impression he was flirting. This didn't make me uncomfortable in anyway except for some desire to avoid the awkwardness of having to reject him if he made a blatant pass, which I certainly would because, back at school, I had a boyfriend about whom I was quite nuts. I said, with some hesitation, "I'm under the impression that you're flirting with me and, although I'm enjoying your conversation, I just want you to know that I have a boyfriend. I don't want to lead you on."
He said, "As it happens, I was flirting with you, but I'm glad you told me that. That's okay. I'll stop and we can just go on talking like friends."
I remember thinking at the time, what a totally cool, laid-back guy. That was the only significant conversation I can recall having with him.
So we went back to the house he was sharing with several other guys who had all gone to college together. As a shared space in a house recently rented by three or four young men, the living room was almost entirely bare. It continued to be a low key gathering, really just an extension of the after work conversation. The football player whose place it was said, "Hey, how about some music. I'll go bring out my stereo."
Before I go on, I'd like every man reading this to stop and ask yourself how you would feel if you had asked a woman to help you carry something and she said, "No because you might assault me?" I would like the women to ask themselves a similar question. Have you ever gone into a room alone with a friend of a friend, a co-worker or a fellow student?
So I went into his room which as long and narrow. Clearly it was designed to be a child's bedroom in this suburban home. The room was probably about six feet wide and about twice as long. There was a single bed in the corner, just a mattress on a box spring. Against the opposite wall were records on the bare floor, quite a lot of them, in several stacks about a foot or so deep, leaning against the wall. He said, "We can't carry them all out. Why don't you sit down and pick out the ones you like." So I plopped my ass down on edge of the bed and reached forward to flip through the records.
After a few seconds, I found myself thrown on my back. As he pinned me down, I asked what he was doing. I told him to stop. He straddled me and unzipped his pants. I started crying. Then, suddenly, he stopped. "You don't want this?" He asked.
"What the fuck do you think no means?"
He started apologizing profusely and we returned to the group in the living room who had barely noted our absence. He got me a chair and fussed around me, asking if I wanted something to drink. It was getting late and people were starting to go home.
I was unharmed and in many ways it really shouldn't have been a big deal, and I'm convinced if I had spoken to a sympathetic person it would have been easy to get over. It would be one of the fucked up nights that you can barely remember ten years later and, when something does remind you, you think to yourself, "Wow, that was weird." Instead, it changed the trajectory of my life. I've told several people and no one has ever put an arm around me and said, "I'm sorry that happened to you." Instead, I'm greeted with a barrage of questions about what I wore and what I said. Questions that have led to the absurdly detailed story above which could have otherwise been summarized in one sentence.
My sister was dropped me off at her apartment and, I'm not sure, but I believe she spent the night with her boyfriend. In any case, she wasn't around to talk to and the only person was her roommate. I told her what had just happened to me. The roommate, who was planning on attending law school that coming fall, said to me, "You give up the rights to your body the moment you go into a man's bedroom." I was stunned. I sure as hell wasn't raised that way. I tried to explain that I wasn't "going into a man's bedroom." I was going to carry some stereo equipment that happened to be in a bedroom. It didn't matter, she told me.
The next person I told was my boyfriend. I called him on the phone the next day. Surely, if anyone would be caring and supportive, I thought, it would be my sweetheart, a unreligious Jewish boy from an educated liberal family in a major East Coast city. Well, apparently, even having a potential assailant stop is not proof that you weren't asking for it. He told me that I must have done something wrong or it wouldn't have happened. For the next month or so he hounded me about being a slut. I had to defend myself against accusations that I had cheated on him. Our relationship began to deteriorate as did my mental health and self-esteem. Eventually, I decided I was in an emotionally abusive relationship and ended it.
That was the beginning of a downward trajectory. My grades, which had always been good, began to slide. I started to isolate myself from my friends who were also my former boyfriend's friends, who continued to hurl the word slut at me whenever he could. Finally, I dropped out of college.
From time to time, I've told people about what happened to me and sometimes, when they're trying to be sympathetic, which I understand is something people don't do very well or easily, they'll tell me that I shouldn't feel any shame over what happened. This annoys me to no end. I never felt one moment of shame about that night. Nor do I feel guilt. There is not one thing that I could have done differently. No one listens to what I have to say. They want to tell me what they think I'm feeling and then tell me not to feel it. What I feel is anger. No one wants to hear it. I am not ashamed; I'm angry. Worse yet, I'm no longer especially angry at the former college football player who gave me a good scare. I'm angry at my sister's roommate, and my ex-boyfriend. I'm angry at all the people who have asked what I was wearing, or what any other woman was wearing in a similar situation. I'm angry at all the people who can't listen, who think they understand how these things happen.
Strangely, the thing I feel shame about is having dropped out of college. That was actually the starting point of this diary, but it's getting rather long, so perhaps I will explore that at another time.
Sexual assault refers to an assault of a sexual nature on another person. It can include a wide range of unwanted sexual contact such as rape, forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration, forced sexual intercourse, inappropriate touching, forced kissing, child molestation ,exhibitionism, voyeurism, obscene phone calls torture of a victim in a sexual manner etc. The actor causes submission of the victim by means that is reasonably calculated to cause submission against the victim's will. Definitions of offences are primarily governed by state criminal laws, which vary by state. It is generally a felony.