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PAGE 4A
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2014
TEXT
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Text your FFA submissions to (785) 289-8351 or at kansan.com
All this talk of 7-footers.
imissjeffwithey
Shout out to Professor Reed for ending class an hour early.
The new art in The Studio is awesome.
Days are better when I don't go to my 8 a.m.
Just got poked in the eye by a tree branch. Not a good morning.
This muffin from the dining hall is on point!
Actually Snoop changed his name back to Snoop Dogg... get with the times.
Dear girl who didn't hold the door open for me, I'll remember your face and never hold the door or elevator for you. Have a nice life.
Natural Ties is the highlight of my week
Where do all these 7-foot-tall basketball players come from? It used to be really rare to reach that height. Really rare.
To the guy with the red in his beard - Me too! I have brown hair but learned I have a red beard. All the men in my family have brown hair and red beards.
There are extremists in every group: Christianity, Islam, conservative, liberal. Yet the only term to get in the ax is feminism?
When you tell someone you love them with all your heart, you really mean you love them with all your brain because your brain controls your heart. Mind blown.
My relationship with fast-food is getting a little out of control.
WhatstCooking
Looking at all of the model kitchens in IKEA makes me so jelly.
The A/C is on in my class...why?
frozen
This week is almost over! SLAY.
Can we talk about how bipolar the weather is this month? Like take a chill pill... or naw
Kentucky wishes they were hot like us. Also, hit yo boy up, Drake.
Let's talk 'bout those Mr. KU guys
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE MULLINIX/KANSAN
OPINION-EDITORIAL:
RAPED, BUT NOT 'RAPED'
A KU senior shares her story of sexual assault and what happened after
Editor's note: The author of this letter has chosen to remain anonymous to protect her identity and the identities of those involved. The Kansan's policy is not to name victims of sex crimes.
The purpose of publishing this letter is to make public what survivors of sexual assault often struggle with after the incident. Victim-blaming is wrong, and reporting sexual assault can be beneficial, but for the author — and for many others — placing any blame and choosing whether or not to report are gray areas.
If you have been sexually assaulted and would like to file a report through KU, you can contact the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access online at ioa.ku.edu/ file-complaint, or by phone at (785) 864-6414. Campus police can be reached at (785) 864-5900 or 911. GaDGi SafeCenter victim advocates can be reached by phone 24 hours a day at (785) 843- 8985. The Willow Domestic Violence Center help line is also available 24 hours a day at (785) 843-3333.
It happened to someone I know at a house party, to someone else at a fraternity formal, and to someone else after a first date. It happened to my guy friend when a girl threw herself on him at an overnight date party. It happened to my friend from high school when a boy she had a thing with got high with her and tried to teach her how to play the piano.
It happened to me on my friend's 21st birthday last year in October, when I had already had too much to drink, but I really, really liked him. Even though we don't like to admit it, it has probably happened to your classmate, your sorority sister, your cousin or you.
Someone had sex with us when we were drunk or high While we're not in a sound state of mind, our sexuality was exploited in a way we weren't comfortable with and without our expressed permission.
But people don't like calling what happens to us rape
They tell us we were drunk, we left our friends,and boys will be boys — what did we expect when we went home with him anyway?
All I can say is, I know. I don't know what I expected. I guess I thought that a boy wouldn't assume that me flirting with him automatically meant I was willing to have sex with him. I was wrong, though. Didn't my mother always say boys only wanted one thing? I wish I would have known better. I really should have known better. It wasn't his fault, it was mine. Or that's what I kept trying to tell myself.
People don't like calling what happens to us rape. People make jokes about it. Following popular culture's lead, even a few of my friends made jokes about it too. "Is it love?" they asked me, and "When's the wedding?" You're right, you're right. It's funny. I wanted to wait, could you believe it? Someone special, like I was a schoolgirl.
He even laughed about it. He laughed the next morning, when he came to my sorority to drop off my shoes, purse and pants, which I had left in his room as I was fleeing from him the night before. He laughed and patted me on the back and said, "How ya doing?" He laughed and rolled his eyes and said, "I was so drunk." He laughed.
Because even though I bled over the toilet bowl that morning, it didn't feel real. But instead I let a craggy laugh catch in my throat. If he was really "so drunk," then he probably didn't even realize what he was doing. So it wasn't really his fault. He shouldn't have to feel guilty. It was my fault. My fault. My fault.
He laughed. And I wanted to cry and ask, "Did we have sex?"
It's not anyone's fault, some of my friends said. People have sex all the time. It didn't have to be a big deal. I didn't want to make it a big deal, so I pretended like it wasn't.
But after a few months pretending like it wasn't a big deal — pretending that
"You're right," I want to say to her. It is blurry. In fact, it's more than blurry, it's completely blacked-out. I don't remember anything until I woke up to a rhythmic, violent pain jamming itself inside me. Square peg, round hole. "This isn't right. What is this?" I thought. Then I realized someone was having sex with me. I pushed him off of me. I ricocheted off the walls like a human pinball machine as I stumbled down the hallway trying to get away.
it didn't happen, or (eventually) pretending that it did happen and that I wanted it to — didn't make it not a big deal. It didn't stop me from having nightmares about him and waking up in tears. It didn't prevent me from developing anxiety about my sexuality to the point that a simple hand on my back was enough to send my heart racing in fear.
But people don't like calling what happened to me rape. When I told one of my friends, she squinted and said, "Ahh, it's such a blurry line, though."
I don't say "trying" because he was chasing me, I say "trying" because I couldn't walk — because I so drunk I couldn't even walk.
But I was drunk, so people don't like calling what happened to me rape. Even one of my best friends said to me, "Do you really consider what happened to you assault? I mean everyone makes bad decisions when they are drunk."
I couldn't have consented,
my friend learning piano
couldn't have consented,
my friend at the formal
couldn't have consented and
my guy friend couldn't have
consented, either — because
if someone is too drunk, they
cannot consent. It's rape. It
is rape.
I know. I know. You're right. Almost everyone says that you are right. But are you? Because having sex that night isn't something that I decided to do. In fact, I couldn't have consented even if I wanted to.
But I don't like calling it that.
ripping deep within me. I couldn't have consented. What happened to me should be rape. By any definition it is rape.
I was completely blacked out until I felt that painful
I don't like calling it rape because I wasn't attacked in a dark alley and no one held a knife to my throat. I don't like calling it rape because I'm terrified people will accuse me of being dramatic. I don't like calling it rape because everyone says the man who did it is such a nice guy and "he is just a really sexual person, so I bet he didn't even realize what he was doing."
I don't like calling it rape because I don't think the man who raped me thinks that he raped me. I don't think he would have done it if he knew he was raping me.
And if you don't consider what happened to me rape, let me put it this way: I don't think he would have had sex with me when I was so impaired, if he knew how much it was going to hurt me later.
Due partially to the lack of education at the University on this topic, many students don't realize that having sex with someone who is too drunk to give consent is rape
dramatize to give consent is But the fact that they don't think they are raping people doesn't make it not rape either.
It is not enough to teach women "how to not get raped"—to post flyers in our bathrooms and give us drug-detecting nail polish. Men need to be educated as well: to protect their female counterparts, but also to protect themselves.
Out of shame, uncertainty and fear, I didn't report what happened to me. But I could have, and sometimes I think I should have. Sometimes I fear that by not being brave enough to report, I have enabled this person to go on and possibly do what he did to me to other women. But other times I'm not so sure.
Other times I agree with people when they say that this "nice guy" doesn't deserve to have his life destroyed for making a stupid, drunken decision.
However, I don't think my life deserved to be destroyed either.
"Belief in a just world" is a psychological phenomenon in which people believe that others get what they deserve in life, and if people cannot help or compensate the victims of misfortune, they turn on them. So in situations like mine, people blame the victim. People blame me. I blame me.
And I wish I could stop blaming myself for what happened. I wish I didn't feel guilty for feeling angry at the boy who did it to me. On an intellectual level, I know that victim-blaming is wrong, but on an emotional level, it doesn't seem so black and white to me.
I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a perpetrator-less crime, if the boy who did it to me was as drunk as he said he was, or if I should even be questioning whether or not I should blame him. Are we like two drunk drivers who got in a car crash? Do I have Stockholm Syndrome?
I don't know. I don't know if I'm a victim. I don't know if I should have reported it. I don't know if this "counts" as rape. I don't know. I wish I did.
Pretending this type of thing doesn't happen won't make it not happen anymore. Fortunately, the KU students, administration and extended community are finally talking about these issues that have been ignored and hushed for decades. We are in a powerful position to change the way that sexual assault is perceived on college campuses. And even though publishing this is terrifying, if people like me don't speak up, who will?
I do know, however, that situations like mine have happened to too many people I know and it shouldn't be happening to anyone.
I know that sexual assault awareness and education is not a perfect solution. It won't eradicate sexual assault, but I think it might prevent assault that stems from ignorance.
I think it might have prevented what happened to me.
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THE KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Emma LeGault, Madison Schutt, Cecilia Cho, Hannah Barling and Christina Carreira.
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