Rape

I was 19 when I was raped. I remember sitting in RA training the fall I got back, a sophomore in college and feeling accomplished for spending a summer in New York City, working three jobs and going to warehouse parties with an adorable soccer player I met on - get ready for it - the subway.

I thought a lot about how lucky I was, to have a cousin to give me a really fucking cool first (unpaid) internship, to have her couch to stay on and other (paid) retail jobs to sustain me. I remember where I was on campus when the idea came up, my mom on the phone.

I drank a bit that summer, but I smoked weed more. It’s something I very rarely talk about because I hate it about myself and I dislike weed so. fucking. much. now. This guy, Leo short for Leonardo, was part of a Nike promo video about soccer across the boroughs; I showed my friends and family the video when I got home on Youtube, thinking about him but never speaking to him again. He was six or seven years older than me, a life guard, had a dog named Chopin (yes, like the pianist), and my relationship with him became fodder for my poetry for the next ten years. I spent time with this guy and his friends, he pulled me around to parties and apartments and put halves of pills in my drinks I didn’t ask the names of.

So many of my friends back home did so many more drugs than I did, I didn’t worry about it. It wasn’t me; it wasn’t real. I don’t have an addictive personality, I was never worried about that. It was New York. New York is hardly even real — it’s all the things we see on tv and movies, its all this fast-paced success. It’s all this love and happy accidents and hard things you overcome with friends.

And sometimes, it’s rape. Actually a whole fucking lot of times, it’s rape.

At RA training that fall we had a certain chunk that must have been about sexual assault or laws or something as a whole, all I remember from it is a slide they showed us defining different kinds of rape. I was in the front row of a huge auditorium and I bit back tears hard and froze. I commit to memory Gray Rape. Apparently that was legalese for what happens when you have alcohol in your system and someone chooses to have sex with you and you don’t want it. It’s Gray. Because rape has a category that’s gray. Nevermind saying No. Nevermind trying to push someone off of you who will not be pushed off. Nevermind not having any idea where you are, in the days before Lyft and Uber and maps in your palm, leading you home.

I wasn’t raped by Leonardo, but by a friend he told me to go home with, Calvin. Calvin shared my birthday (I looked at his license to prove it), told me he designed baby shoes for a living, and as I wondered if the taxi we were in was going to take us to his apartment, if he had a television, if Leo would meet us later, I realized he had taken me outside of a motel and I had no idea where I was. I remember when he got the room, how I stood outside and placed my palm gently against a wet ledge, held up my hand and looked at the droplets. Thought that ending up here wasn’t that surprising, felt numb, couldn’t think of any option other than going along and waiting for it to end. In the room, I tried to get Calvin to stop. I gave up. After, I let him bum a cigarette and smoked my own beside him in bed. I didn’t sob or soak in scalding hot water until I got home. I asked him to pay for my taxi and he didn’t. I asked him to find me a taxi because we were definitely not in a place where they casually meander down the streets; he called a car and I never saw him again.

I was 19 when I was raped, and 28 when I was assaulted, and I never name those things. I have never named those things. And the assault, the person who did it who I knew fairly well, the next day or however many days after, he thanked me and told me I could have called the cops.

Before he said it, I didn’t know, I didn’t realize that was an option for me. Because I don’t get _____. Because that’s for the women who are part of those huge statistics. One in six women has been a victim of rape. In New York and nine years later I did not have the concept that what happened to me warranted legal intervention. I didn’t consider that I could speak and action could happen, should happen. I was, and have been, and am, above all, Horribly Embarrassed that this has happened to me. It’s infantile and it’s still 98% how I feel. I am an adult woman with two degrees and countless trainings of mediation, sexual harassment, and legal reporting. I never considered Telling Anyone.

With incredible, empowered, knowledgeable women friends I am slowly shifting the thick layers of patriarchy and stigma and - I hate claiming this word - pain. This Was Not My Fault. And a much much smaller voice says, I did not deserve this.

I’m wrote this post at three in the morning because recently in Brooklyn a series of events jogged this and made it very real for me. I ended up at a police department for more than five hours; I talked to detectives; they said the words felony, attempted rape.

I don’t want to write this. My brother and sister and father could see it. My friends, an ex or two, people who worked with me can read it. People who do not want to consider for a second, people I Do Not Want Considering Me Like That For A Second can read it. They can know, now, that this happened to me. That I’m part of the statistics. And I want to protect them from that truth.

The thing is, though, the thing is, do I want that for myself? Do I want the memory of this? Do I want to carry the shared stories of countless women friends who have had countless encounters? Do I want to carry the story of how and when and where this happened, kept quiet for 11 years because I believe I put myself in that position, despite vocally and physically Saying No? If I hadn’t been… if I hadn’t done… if I was more careful…

I’m tired. Today I wish that when I was 19 I had been able to tell someone. I don’t really care about legal action (because internalized patriarchy), I just wish I had known someone that could help me wade through the After. I wish I had the friends I have now. I remember the first months of that school year being So Hard. I remember the first time I told someone and all I could think was Gray Gray Gray and that person just reinforced the things I should have done differently. I don’t even remember who it was, I think a boyfriend. That person looked at me Some Kind Of Way. I didn’t tell anyone else for years, and still have told less than the fingers I have on one hand. I’ve given slight comments, little validations, tiny affirmatives in conversations about this topic, but I don’t know if I’ve ever said I Have Been Raped.

Recently I went on a Facebook tirade about sexual assault and a woman commented something akin too “well you’re more feminist than I am and -” and I try to but if I practiced what I say I believe I would have started talking a decade ago. I wouldn’t be so fucking terrified to publish a blog post. I would talk about my story. I would own who I am.

I learned a lot today. I’m learning a lot in this unemployment submarine. I’m learning a lot every time I come back to New York.

I’m pretty sure whoever reads this is going to have some kind of reaction. I know it will be centered on me. Don’t. I’m 30 now, I’m doing shit, I don’t want to have this conversation with you. This post is important but I am frankly terrified of mother like figures feeling sad or responsible for me. I bet part of why I can post this a because my mother is dead, and I can only imagine the horror she would feel knowing this about me.

I am terrified of how many loved ones I know have their own stories, worse than mine, with higher frequency, with someone they love rather than an acquaintance, with someone they have to keep seeing. Talk to them. Have a conversation. Tell them it’s not their fault. Tell them over and over and over it’s not their fault.

And if, God fucking forbid, this ever happens to you or anyone you know, go to the police immediately. Be patient. Be brave.