I’ll never forget the smell of burnt hair that night. The flat iron was set to singe and I must have straightened my hair five times before I left the house. It was still chilly out so I had my cutest plaid jacket on, skinny jeans that fit me just right and silver and white flats purchased at the shoe store I worked in—just for this night. Leaving my house I felt confident and nervous, the type of combination of nerves and excitement that always made me tingle from sternum to stomach in the worst way. Maybe this hesitation was foreboding but so quixotic in my bubble was I that I ignored the rumblings and made my way to his house.
He and I had been speaking for months, over the computer, over the phone and online. We went through all the regular steps of nouveau-courtship that came with dating over the internet, the same steps my friends were going through. Goodnight phone conversations turned into good morning marathons calls, getting the approval from my friends on his photos and of course mine before sharing my own. We shared the same sense of humor, same intellect, same taste in obscure rap battles and The Sopranos.
The anticipation for us to meet was mounting. But, I wasn’t stupid. I knew the danger of meeting people you can’t vet via mutual friends and he may have sensed that. He dialed the musings of romance back and became my friend. With ease, I told him about my sin, betrayals committed by men in the past and even the tragedies of my own friends. After months, he made me comfortable enough that one night I decided to meet him.
Though I was going under the guise of friends, my youthful naivete makes me laugh in heartbreaking retrospect when I remember wondering, “Would he kiss me? Would he hold my hand?” When we met, in a well lit park near his home, I finally exhaled. I felt at ease and when he eventually held me while we watched the water, I sunk into him, elated that I had been independent and brave enough to come out and meet him. When he suggested we watch a movie at his place, I leaped.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten to witness the President of my country mock a woman who spoke about her sexual assault. I watched as he garnered laughter over his performance as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who came forward to tell her sexual assault story at the hands of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, someone who will most likely go on to have one of the most powerful positions in the country. Over the past two weeks, I watched how women were vilified for coming forward about a serial rapist (who admitted in a deposition, that he routinely drugged and raped women) because he was Bill Cosby.
On September 21st, Trump tweeted, “…if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents….” It’s this rhetoric of placing sole responsibility on the victim, without understanding their mindset, that kept me from reporting.
The night Dr. Ford had in 1982 differs from the night I had several years ago. There wasn’t a third party who had the opportunity to act as a hero or a villain at the discretion of his own flawed moral compass and, more significantly for me, I didn’t get away. When he threw me onto the bed, face first and forced the jeans (that fit just right) down along with my panties, I was mad that I had made myself look pretty. When he penetrated me while my face was muffled in a pillow, I believed I willed it by telling him my sexual history or hoping he’d kiss me on the way over. So strong was my ability to place the blame on myself that when I wrestled him off me, I didn’t hate him. My parents couldn’t report because my parents don’t know.
When I returned home that night, I could still smell the burnt hair from the flatiron and was angry with myself for making my hair look nice.
And worse than any one part of that story, is the fact that it’s not an original.
As a woman, I’m a keeper of secrets for other women. Within the confines of my mind live dozens of stories just like my own, from women who have been violently raped by strangers or by a loved one. I house the stories of women who had to lie down silently as a defense mechanism when the choice was sex or losing their life for saying “no.” I can write a novel and fill the pages with tales of women who never said anything about their sexual assault because they weren’t the “ideal” victim, because their abuser was a “good kid,” because their violation would bring shame on the family or it was date-rape or because a plethora of other reasons that fall into the impossible so-called grey area of sexual assault.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, in the United States alone, “One in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. 46.4% lesbians, 74.9% bisexual women and 43.3% heterosexual women reported sexual violence other than rape during their lifetimes, while 40.2% gay men, 47.4% bisexual men and 20.8% heterosexual men reported sexual violence other than rape during their lifetimes. Nearly one in ten women has been raped by an intimate partner including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration or alcohol/drug-facilitated completed penetration. Approximately one in 45 men has been made to penetrate an intimate partner during their lifetime.”
So, in response to your tweet Mr. President, I say, yes it was as bad as I
recall. Yes, my parents love me and no, charges were never filed because I believed the narrative you’re currently pushing. Even as a feminist, a liberal and a warrior for good, somewhere deep in my psyche, the myth of victim blaming lived on. So again I say, Mr. President, please don’t ever speak on behalf of victims until you become an advocate for them, which time and time again you’ve proven you don’t have the competency or heart to do.
