“One in four women get raped in college”
One in four. Those statistics ring solemnly in your head as the whispers buzz around the room in uncomfortable hushed tones. “Do you really think that’s true? One in four? That just seems like so many.” Meanwhile you just sit quietly, internally nodding because you understand. You are that one in four.
You weren’t brutally attacked, no faceless scary man jumped out at you and beat you into submission. You were drunk, at a bar, at a party, and things got out of hand. Maybe you wanted to kiss him, maybe you didn’t want any part of it at all. Either way, something happened. One too many tequila shots taken in a desperate attempt to drown out feelings that will never fully go away, a couple more cause you’re always down to be the life of the party, and then it happens.
You wake up the next morning and you know. You can feel it. But you don’t know what to think. “Did I have sex?” “Does this mean I was raped?” You don’t want to say it because then you’re calling him a rapist. A rapist. That sounds bad. He’s not a rapist, right? You’ve known him for a while, he’s nice to you and your friends, he isn’t aggressive or mean. There’s no way this man could have raped me.
Denial.
“Well I was really drunk… how would he know I didn’t want to?” You argue with yourself. You feign laughter as all your friends tell you how drunk you were last night, but really you’re just thinking, “if they realized how drunk I was then why didn’t he?”
That’s when the moment you’ve been dreading the most comes up. Your friend suggestively asks, “So what did you and ______ do last night?” Your refusal to give a straight answer doesn’t help, it only fuels the fire. It isn’t fair. It doesn’t count .You know deep down that you never consented to this, in fact you didn’t even know it happened until the morning, several hours later.
“Drunk consent is not consent” you’ve heard it before. You remember it. You also remember people rolling their eyes at it, insisting that “she was asking for it” and “she knew what she was doing.”
It’s a terrible situation to be in, really. You don’t want to accuse him of raping you, he’s someone you know, a friend, even. So you forget, at least you try to forget. The guilt somehow falls on you. You feel bad about even suggesting that he would rape you. Your friends don’t understand. They insist it does count, no matter how badly you don’t want it to. They have drunk sex all the time, everyone does it, it’s no big deal. But you know this is different. This isn’t just falling into bed after a couple drinks with the cute guy you were flirting with at the party. You did not consent to this, you did not want this, so why is it your fault? You feel confused, angry, frustrated, and finally, helpless. “Nobody will believe me anyways. Nobody will listen.” So you push it out of your mind and try and move on. Eventually you do, until someone brings it up again. Maybe it’s your roommate teasing you about your hookup track record, maybe it’s a mutual friend who feels the need to bring it up when you two are around each other. So you smile, maybe push out a witty comeback, but you never really say what you want to say “I was raped.” Even saying it now feels weird. You are now a part of the statistic; a statistic, which admittedly is flawed because you know there are so many, just like you who never come forward, and probably never will. In reality that number is much, much higher.
But why does it have to be this way? Why do we as a society continue to encourage the idea that just because you didn’t say no means you said yes? You did not want this. You did not consent to this. So why does nobody take you seriously when you insist that you don’t remember it and that is doesn’t feel right? This nonchalant attitude should not be how we as a society treat rape. I don’t think we do it because we don’t care, but because we don’t understand. It’s easy to pin that awful man who assaulted a stranger in a parking lot as a rapist. We hate him. We hate that he’s done such a terrible thing to such an innocent woman. So why do we always stop there? Why is it okay to hate the faceless rapist but only if it follows the stereotypical definition of rape? No one should have to feel guilty about being raped; yet it happens all the time. All it takes is one night and it begins. The confusion, the anger, the guilt, the constant need to defend yourself from everyone who says it’s okay when you know it’s not.
After a while, you give up. You become numb to the comments and stop expecting people to understand. You smile when you see him, acting normal and trying to ignore the weird anger that you’ve harbored against him. You defend him. “He didn’t know.” “He didn’t mean to.” “He was drunk.” All the while ignoring what you truly feel and never saying the words out loud that you’ve been thinking all along: “I was raped.”
Editor’s note: If you or a loved one is impacted by crime, violence, or abuse, UCF Victim Services can help. Call (407) 823-1200 or visit their website http://victimservices.ucf.edu.