The Observer, September 14, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 3
My story: a student's caution against sexual assault
The first day I walked into the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women, I could feel myself shaking. I felt like I was in that dream everyone has, where you go to school in your underwear, except instead of seeing my underwear everyone could see my secret. Was the terror written on my face? Was the secret I was trying so hard to hide still burning in my eyes?
I had come to get involved in rape/sexual assault prevention. The people at the center were asking me why I felt so passionately about this subject and why I wanted to get involved. I heard myself lie and say that I was just trying to get involved on campus and this seemed like a worthy cause. The real reason was because of guilt. I hadn't turned him in, and now I felt guilty that I hadn't put someone behind bars when I had the chance, so I had to help prevent this horrible thing from happening to anyone else.
You might know me, have seen me around campus, sleeping on the couches in Nord between classes, playing corn hole in front of Strosacker. You'd never know – only a half-dozen of my closest friends know a watered-down version of the truth – that as a freshman at Case Western I was raped. I couldn't admit it to myself at first, let alone to my friends. I wasn't raped because I was walking home alone through dark, deserted alleyways or anything stupid; it was someone I knew, whom I called a friend, whom I trusted. He was older, and we had met at Poker Night of Welcome Days. We hung out there, and a couple times afterward in the following weeks. I wasn't interested in him romantically, I just thought he was a cool person and wanted to be better friends with him.
When he invited me over to his place to watch a movie, I thought it would be some more of the big group hangout stuff we had done earlier, but as soon as we got there we went up to his room to get the movie, and he immediately shut the door, put his hands on my ass and tried to kiss me. I dodged (I'm a master of the five Ds of dodgeball), spun, and elbowed him in the gut, saying, "Don't ever pull that shit again."
After my various attempts to leave, he finally slammed me onto his bed and climbed on top of me, one hand holding my wrists above my head, the other first lifting up my shirt and bra, then unbuttoning and pulling down my pants. I remember staring at the wall, half because he kept trying to kiss me and the other half because I couldn't stand to look him in the face…he was enjoying this. With every "no" or "please stop" I shot his way, his menacing smile widened.
He and I had talked about our love lives (or lack thereof) many times, finding humor in them. I am (was) a virgin, who had only ever kissed one boy, and never gone farther than that. I was inexperienced to say the least. As he explored my body – his mouth violating my abdomen, his free hand stroking my inner thighs, eventually making its way inside of me – I stared at the wall and prayed to both him and to whoever else was out there watching out for me for this to stop.
I thought it was over (silly, naïve me) when his hand left me and rested on my leg for a moment, but then he pulled my pants down farther and spread my legs open wider. One thrust. Please, stop. Two thrusts. Please, make it stop. A deafening sound…I couldn't tell if my mind was just hearing what I was feeling, or if there was actually a noise, but he had released me and when I opened my eyes I saw lights flashing. He pulled on his pants, looked at me as if to say "this isn't over" as he opened the door and left…The fire alarm had gone off.
It has been over nine months since this happened, and I am just now over it. For months I thought it was my fault. It wasn't even the physical stuff that messed with me. I would have gladly traded a couple more thrusts to not have to deal with the feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, and inadequacy I felt after he raped me. He took away my power, robbed me of my virginity, and left me a frightened mess of a girl, fated to piece back together the shattered pieces of my life as the person I was before looked on, helpless. It took me nine months to put that puzzle together, but even now there are pieces missing.
It takes time to get over this. You can't rush it. Everyone deals with it in their own way…counseling, talking to friends. Just know what you need to do, and take your time doing it. With the help of my friends I did get over it, and to deal with that last bit of guilt I feel for not having turned him in, I'm writing this article.
Even though I've come to terms with what has happened, I don't want it to define me. It will forever be a part of me, I just don't want people to know me by it, to see me walking through the quad, and say, "Oh, there's that girl who was raped." I don't need or want your pity; pity won't give me back my virginity, undo all the damage he's done, return the power I lost over my own life. I could be the girl you sit next to in calc, that person you have to dodge on the binary walk because I'll only step on the dark tiles, or even the friend you meet to play poker every once in a while. Don't make the same mistake I did in thinking that this can't happen to you.
To read other survivor's stories, check out the following resources: Saturday Night: Untold stories of sexual assault at Duke at http://www.duke.edu/web/saturdaynight/ or Voices of Courage: Inspiration from Survivors of Sexual Assault by Michael Domitrz. The Flora Stone Mather Center for Women has both copies available for library checkout.
