If you are just tuning in to my inconsequential life, here's what you missed: On May 7, 2001, when I was 19 years old, I was raped by two men while a third man sat and watched. I knew the two who raped me, but had never met the third guy. I believe the second guy to rape me was a ringleader, and that the event wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been there. I waver between being really angry with that third guy, and understanding him because I was too scared to fight for myself so why should I expect more of him?
Today has been a hard day. I felt a bit dramatic this morning, being so effected by the testimony of Christine Blassy Ford. As the day went on I learned through social media that I wasn't the only one, that this was a trigger for a lot of women. Coincidentally, I was scheduled for a counseling appointment at noon, before Brett Kavanaugh had testified. She told me many of her clients had shared similar feelings in the last couple of weeks.
I'm having trouble because I want to believe them both, and maybe they are both to be believed. Maybe she misidentified her attacker, or maybe he really doesn't remember and if that's the case, and if he's never done anything like that again, then I don't think he's a terrible person. And I don't think I'm a terrible person for thinking that.
This is the problem, right now. If I say I don't think he's terrible if that's what happened, I feel like a traitor. Like I am supposed to want him to suffer forever for what might have happened 36 years ago, before he was even an adult, but I can't say that is what I would want. I went to law school because I wanted to be a criminal defense attorney, I love criminal procedure, i love the checks and balances of due process, I love the presumption of innoncence, and I believe our flawed system to still be the best in the world. In some ways, I think I will never be able to give him a fair shake because I was able to catch at least part of her testimony live, and on television, and his I have still only heard over the radio.
But here's where I get tangled up - If he's guilty, I can forgive him, but if he's guilty, I want to hear him say it. I want him to admit to what he did, and I want him to promise that he has never done it again and never will.
He hasn't done that.
So either he is deceiving us all, or he is telling the truth, and she's lying, or she is incorrect in her recollection. And especially if she is lying, then I will feel like a fool for saying, "There's many reasonable explanations as to why she did not tell." She was scared. She was ashamed. She just wanted to move on. It wasn't rape. It's something she should get over. It's not worth the fight. I'll feel like a fool for saying "There's many reasons she waited until now." He is about to be appointed to the highest court in the land. It is unlikely his reach will ever grow beyond what it would be from that bench. Better late than never.
I believe all of those things.
Most people don't know the identity of the men who raped me. I only know the first name of the first guy, but I know him when I see him - And I've seen him. I could tell you the first and last name of the second guy, the ringleader. I've shared it with a few people, but I once made the mistake of sharing it with the wrong person. The next thing I knew, he was sitting in my bar, ordering a screwdriver from me, chatting with me as though we were old friends. So why did you serve him, you ask? I;m either really weak or really strong, because I just couldn't, or wouldn't fight with him. I guess that all depends on how you think I am supposed to act as a victim - or a survivor - of sexual assault.
Today I looked up his criminal history on the Kern County website. Since he raped me he pled no contest to an unrelated violent crime, and he has had one domestic violence restraining order. I feel guilty, because I wonder how things would be different, and for whom, if i had reported him. I wonder if he had hurt someone before me. I've recently read that women who don't report should be considered guilty of a crime too, but the law doesn't really work that way. The law doesn't generally tell us what we have to do, it tells us what we cannot do. We can't go around raping people
Did you read that? You can't go around raping people. It's not okay. Its illegal. It's illegal because it infringes on the rights of another. You don't get to intentionally put your hands or your penis on or in someone who says no, or someone who is resisting you, or someone who hasn't expressed to you that she or he wants your physical contact. Your right to your bodily autonomy ends where mine begins.
Speaking of, that's the whole concern for prolife advocates. Your right to your body begins where another's fragile, voiceless, defenseless life begins. I wanted Brett Kavanaugh to be our next Supreme Court Justice, because I believe he will rule consistently in favor of the rights of the unborn and that issue is critical to me. I don't want him to be guilty, but if he's not, I am afraid of what that means for me.What if the day comes that i have to tell?
People standing at either extreme are going to say that is exactly what the other side wants.
I'm just seeking the truth, and I don't think we'll ever get it here, but what I think is that we have to be honest in our search for the truth. Reasonable minds might reach different conclusions but I suspect the journey is what matters.
Throughout the day I had a lot of thoughts on what I would write tonight, but most of them couldnt make their way to my fingertips. So in the next few days I plan to look for the two most honest pieces I have written about being raped. One is called "Orange Dreams" and one is called "The Night I Died." I wrote them both in the two years following my rape. I had moved away to San Diego - Knowing I was going to move soon was one of the reasons that I chose not to report and in some ways I escaped, but in other ways, lost in a big and unfamiliar city, I had the freedom to be honest. I love those pieces because they show a pain that hasn't been demonstrated here. Being raped changed my life. It didn't just hurt me, but it hurt my family. And I don;t just mean my parents and siblings then. I will never know how my relationship with my husband and daughter today would be different if that had never happened. I don't get to know that, because I was raped when I was 19 years old, and you don't know who those men are, or where they've gone, but they did it. I had my chance to report them, and I didn't take it, and the consequence is that they have not been punished for what they did to me and I run the risk that i have to encounter them at any given moment. I respect - I love - the process enough to protect their names, and I am not sure what it would take to make me give that up. What I do know is that 17 years have passed, but what they did was as wrong today as it was yesterday.
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