Tag: Would You Report Your Rape?

Another reader provides yet another angle:

I’ve been reading this thread with fascination, thinking back to events from my own college time. This fits into the category of “men supposedly can’t get raped, plus there’s that grey zone…” We were dorm buddies. She was coming on to me. I didn’t want sex. She did. I said no. She persisted. I got hard – at that age, nothing much stopped me from getting hard (“oh, she’s wet, that must mean she wants it” – ummmm). The details honestly aren’t important. She ended up fucking me. I just lay there and waited for it to be over.

I told her a few days later that she hadn’t listened to me saying no, and she suddenly looked at me in horror.

She was a pretty radical feminist at the time. I never had another conversation with her, even though we lived in the same dorm. I have no idea who she is now.

But non-consensual sex is what it is. I recognize how easy it is to end up in that position. I wasn’t going to push her aside, like some might suggest. I was ridiculously larger than her, but use force? Um, no, not in a sexual situation when two people are naked. Plus, I didn’t trust her to not turn the tables and accuse me of forcing her. So I kept quiet. I just let it happen, passively. Lots of bad sex happens at that age. Mine came attached to the words, “Look, I don’t want to do this, stop, okay?” and then it happening anyway.

People end up in situations they don’t want. Then they just act to end the situation as best possible. I think it’s human nature. I have told a few people, but reporting it otherwise didn’t make sense. What was there to report? Sure, saying No and getting fucked anyway, but she wanted to get laid – whatever, it wasn’t the end of the world.

It’s interesting that the event never really bothered me that much. I had non-consensual sex. I will do better next time. My wife and close friends know, and they agree that I don’t seem traumatized, and I trust them. I have friends (male and female) who experienced something similar, and we all agree that it’s not rape, and also not consensual, and we aren’t too bothered by our past. (Hell, plenty of us married folks admit to plenty of times of having sex when we kind really don’t want to and do anyway – and 95% of the time it ends up fine, and the other 5% is because your spouse really needed that moment, and none of that is rape, when we talk about it, either.)

In no way am I minimizing rape, nor the reactions to non-consensual moments that others have experienced. Not at all. A close family member was brutally gang raped and beaten and left for dead in a forest and survived. (Notably, she doesn’t carry her trauma with her, having chosen to carry her life, based on the miracle of still having it.) A close close friend was raped by her (former) best friend and is still totally freaked out by it. There are spectra of events, spectra of reactions.

I realize that in writing, you might end up publishing, but I doubt you will. Kind of a boring story. But there’s a link to a tumblr I want to share, because it might help those whose reactions are different from mine. It’s a really rough read, but reading there has helped me as I’ve stood by people who have gone through trauma. By reading and learning, I can embrace and help them, bring compassion to my interactions with them, listen to voices saying what they aren’t ready to say yet. If you could share the link, maybe it would help some folks. Thanks.

Another reader recounts a horrifying experience:

I’ve been following this thread closely.  Thank you, as always, for providing a forum for these kinds of conversations.  I’m grateful.

I’m an over-educated, professional, heterosexual male, single, no kids.  I’m also a recovering sex addict.  Several years ago I was to meet a woman whom I had met online at a party at a sex club, a club where she said she was a member.  I had never been to one of these kinds of parties before.  I was still very active in my addiction at the time, and I had not yet found my way to meetings or rehab or therapy or honesty.

She did not show up.  I stayed at the party anyway.  It was a pretty amazing environment at the time, given my current state of mind.  At some point during the evening (the details are still a bit sketchy), I was drugged.

It was a drink someone gave me, or mine was spiked – I don’t know. I woke up several hours later, alone in a room, bleeding, naked, battered, very high.  I had no active memory of what had happened to me, but I wasn’t stupid either.  I quickly gathered my things, put myself together as best I could and stumbled out.  My driver’s license, debit cards, credit cards and cash were gone.  I was barely coherent, barely conscious, barely able to move or walk. I did not know how I got out of there; I did not know how I got home. And I was in an incredible amount of pain.

On some level I knew what had happened to me, but my mind very quickly and very effectively buried and burned any memory away.  Three or four days later, I went on vacation with my girlfriend overseas for two weeks.  She did not know about my “other life.”  I told no one, and two days later I did not remember why I had bruises on my body and face – seriously.  I still didn’t know where my wallet had gone.  I had no conscious explanation, so I chalked it up to maybe I had been in a bar fight.

It took several years, two months of inpatient rehab, 30 months of Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings and 12-step work, and two years of incredibly intense therapy for the memories to begin to return.  I had been gang raped by at least three people that I can remember that night.  The memories came in bits and pieces for a day or two, and then everything, all at once, while I was driving across a bridge.  I almost wrecked my car, and then I almost parked it and jumped.

When “it” all came back, I cannot begin to express the level of shame I felt, the level to which I blamed myself.  I believed that because of how I had been living my life at the time I deserved what had happened to me – I believed that to my core.

And the next day I went to work.  I was in my office, socializing with my co-workers, again hiding my real daily experience from those around me, although this version was much different than what I had believed to be the exciting double-life I had been living before – as a sex addict, screwing everything in sight.

I have since told four people what happened to me, about my gang rape – my sponsor, my therapist, a sibling, and one close friend.  It is still almost impossible for me to even type those words and own them.  I have never spoken of it again until writing this email.  I did not “report” it … what would that have even meant for me?  Call the cops?  What would that phone call have sounded like?  HOW would I have even reported anything?  I could not even begin to wrap my head around that concept.

It was an experience that, on a very deep subconscious level, drove me deeper and deeper into my sex addition.  I was left suicidal for a very long time and kept heading full speed for rock bottom until I lost everything of any value in my life.  Only then did I somehow find my way to a residential, inpatient treatment center out of state.  I still don’t entirely understand exactly how that came to pass, but it is the only reason I am alive today.

Obviously the name on the email account is fake – the account is a burner account – but I would still like to remain as anonymous as possible.  Part of me fears that I have already given away too much detail in this email, that someone will find out its me.  No one (apart from those mentioned) in my life has any idea of what I’ve been through, what I experienced.  I still struggle with reconciling this experience in my life with being a heterosexual male, dealing with all of the fallout and aftermath, in the context of our society and culture, in the context of my “identity”.  It’s challenging everyday, but the ones I have shared this with have been (to me) surprisingly supportive and understanding, never failing in telling me that it was not something I deserved to have happen to me.

by Dish Staff

This reader thread, sparked by Danielle Campoamor’s story, is among the most powerful ones we’ve had this year. So far we’ve heard from a convict who was raped in prison, a white coed assaulted by a black basketball star, a young teenager sexually abused by his teacher, a followup from a woman who told us about her rape, and several others. Our next installment is from a gay reader – with an unexpected twist:

When I was 26, I was raped while traveling to London. I stayed several days longer than my straight friends and decided to go hit up the gay bars after they left. I met a guy from Germany, we danced and decided to go back to my hotel room. At some point he started to try to put it in. I told him that I wasn’t bottoming unless he wore a condom and that I didn’t have any. He held me down and went at it anyway. Which is the dictionary definition of rape, isn’t it?

I did not report the incident immediately and waited till I returned to the US several days later to seek treatment. I was honest with the doctor about what happened. She exerted extreme pressure on me to report the incident and get counseling. The process of trying to report such a crime is horrible. The police engaged in every behavior victim’s advocates dislike; victim blaming, disbelief, and homophobia were a constant.

The counseling service was likewise useless. I didn’t receive a return call about my situation for nearly two weeks. The woman who did call me back made it clear that she didn’t think my incident was worthy and then offered me a time-slot months in the future. I ended up just scheduling an appointment with my normal psychologist to discuss the incident.

I felt horrible and I wasn’t even traumatized by the rape itself. I couldn’t imagine what dealing with this bullshit and an actual traumatic experience would be like. I enjoyed that night with the German – a lot actually. He stayed the night, we hung out the next day and I stayed at his hotel that night. We had breakfast the next morning and said our goodbyes. I’m Facebook friends with him now. I expect to travel to Germany this summer to visit friends and we’re actively planning on meeting up for a day or two in Berlin.

Sex is a powerful experience. Like any powerful experience you can get hurt. I took a risk going out and picking up a random person to sleep with. I could have been very badly hurt but I wasnt. I did not contract any STDs or get physically hurt – both real possibilities. I learned to take some basic precautions and be prepared. I’ve started on PreP. I make sure to qualify hookups more than I used to.

I’ve also learned that I can’t be open about my experience because it doesn’t fit the narrative. I’ve literally had people blow up at me when I admitted that he’s apologized and I’ve forgiven him. I’ve learned never to suggest that other people might feel similarly; that makes me a rape-apologist. In the end, I’m not honest about my experience because too many people think they can cherry-pick ideas that validate their preferred narrative. But that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it?

by Dish Staff

Another reader adds his story to the powerful thread:

I want to offer a male perspective from someone who has been through something similar, in order to say it’s not just women who have these reactions. As a young teenager I was sexually abused by a teacher/coach, someone who had become like a father-figure to me (I’ve never met my real father, who left before I was born). It happened a few times, but I was eventually able to avoid him when the teacher transferred to another school.

I never told anyone until I was 19 or so, when I just couldn’t deal with my depression on my own and finally told certain friends and family. My mom reported it to the original school and contacted the police. They were sympathetic but didn’t do anything to follow up or take away his position. Mine was the only reported case. I did write a letter for the police and have it filed as a report, but I never followed up. I spoke briefly with a police investigator on the phone who was pretty clear that since it was several years prior, and my word against his, that it would be a tough case to push forward. I told myself that if other reports came up then I would testify or participate in whatever investigation was necessary, but didn’t want to go any further if it was just me, and ultimately didn’t ever follow up on it.

Later in my early-20s I did get counseling for my depression. The counselor wanted to pursue the police case again, since the individual was still a teacher in the school system.

I was doing better psychologically and she felt obligated to by law, as well as her personal desire to see the man behind bars. With my permission, she contacted a police investigator again. I spoke with him initially on the phone, but ultimately I still couldn’t handle it. I stopped seeing the counselor and did not follow up any more with the police. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision. It was like everything would shut down. I became so anxious that I went numb and just couldn’t face it. When pushed, I would answer questions and was open about it. But my subconscious reaction was to avoid the situation as much as possible.

I am not a weak man or someone afraid of confrontation. I served in the military, including a tour in Iraq. I have seen and faced some tough situations, but I never suffered the fear and anxiety that I faced when trying to report what happened to me or the idea of confronting my abuser. For the most part I do not suffer from PTSD related to my Iraq experiences. But I do, even still, suffer from PTSD related to my sexual abuse and find it difficult to have long-term, intimate relationships. I am in a far-better place then I was, but it is still there.

I know that if other reports came up that my abuser had done similar things to someone else, then I would gladly testify and confront him, do whatever I could do put that person behind bars. I’m not sure I could do that for myself though, and would still find it very hard to face him. I still feel guilty that I didn’t do more to report and push the case, as your other reader stated, and pray that no one else was ever abused because I didn’t have the courage or ability to follow through. I can understand completely why a woman wouldn’t want to report her rape, or might only report it to the school, but not push for a criminal case. That seems to be the natural reaction.

I agree with you completely that there has to be some defense process for the accused, even at the school level, but at the same time many schools and police need to be more assertive in pushing for investigations and going to the next step. Many victims just won’t be able to be their own advocates.

by Dish Staff

The personal thread takes a new direction:

Thank you so much for continuing the discussion on rape. My rape story is a little different. I never felt a tremendous weight of shame, but rather anger that some jerk could think it was okay to do that to me. And anger at the ways our culture fosters that kind of thinking.

I was a college student living in an off-campus house with several people. My birthday party that night was the usual: a decent amount of drinking and a lot of fun with friends and friends of roommates. I eventually went to bed, alone. My roommate wasn’t in bed yet, so I left the bedroom door unlocked for her. A little while later I woke up from a heavy, drunken sleep to an acquaintance beginning to rape me. He was a college basketball star, and a very tall imposing one. He is black and I am white. I fought him and started screaming, which finally caused him to stop the rape and leave.

I did not report the rape to the police or to the university because who would believe an underage drunk girl against a college basketball star? They would undoubtedly claim I led him on, and if I argued I did not, I felt there was a very good chance they would pull the race card. After all, why wouldn’t I be interested in the attentions of the local sports hero, unless I’m actually a racist?

I will echo some of your other writers and simply say that in a case such as this, of he-said, she-said, I felt it was not worthwhile to fight to be taken seriously. We all have a lot of battles to fight in life, and this isn’t one that I necessarily wanted to spend my efforts on, only to be interrogated, dismissed and have my reputation tarnished.

In the aftermath of this incident, my friends barely took my story seriously and continued to be his friend. I eventually moved away and graduated college elsewhere.

I abhor the worship of university sports heroes and “frat culture,” with its repulsive, dangerous combination of male entitlement and female objectification. I believe it is that kind of misogynist thinking that led my perpetrator to justify what he did to me. But I don’t want you to get the impression that I hate all men. I have been married for more than 15 years to a really great guy, and we are raising two smart, strong girls. I simply feel our culture has for too long tolerated certain behaviors that are not respectful or healthy for women (or men, for that matter).