Back in the early 1980s, I was in my early 20s. I did some dumb things and made some bad decisions. Like most people in their early 20s, I had a crappy job and I lived with my parents and there weren't too many places to go in our town. My friends and I would go to Friendly's, or to the movies, or to this local dive bar. It was that post-sexual revolution, pre-AIDS, classic rock and disco time period -- we spent a lot of time dancing and drinking.
One night I went out with a bunch of my girlfriends to this local bar. It was a rundown piece of lumber, and the music always got louder as the night wore on and the people there got drunker and louder themselves. But the beer was cheap and even though the floors were sticky and it usually reeked of eau de piss before midnight (because you only rent beer, as my friend Janet used to say), we usually managed to have a good time. We were there so much we knew the bouncer and the bartenders and in those days the bouncer or the bartenders would end up buying you a free drink for every few you purchased. Then around four in the morning, everybody would get into their cars and either drive home or to the nearby diner (drunk, I am sorry to say, but that's how it was then).
So this particular night, we met this group of men who had not been in there before -- the bouncer was their friend; one of them had a sister I knew from when I'd worked at the beach in my summer job; one of them was a neighbor, even though I didn't know him very well because he was older than we were. There were maybe four or five of them, and probably six or seven of us, and we all ended up dancing and talking and laughing, but at last call I looked around and realized all of my girlfriends were gone. Another one of the guys offered to drive me home, and the bouncer didn't warn me off and the guy hadn't done anything to set off any alarms so I agreed. I lived about three miles straight north of the bar. He said his house was on the main road before that but it was no problem taking me home. I got into his car and I was very drunk.
The car was a Cadillac. It was the nicest car I'd ever been in and when you got in a recorded female voice softly said, "Your door is ajar." When he parked the car, it gently said, "Your lights are on." And when he parked the car I was not at my house. We were at his. I was only halfway home, and it was four in the morning in February. And he said, "If you don't give me head right now, you're walking."
I remember the color of the pre-dawn sky. I remember being very cold. There were no cell phones then and I didn't have parents that would have been very sympathetic to my calling them to come get me at that hour, drunk, even if I had been able to get to a payphone. I walked. It was four degrees.
I am not done.
The next week, after ranting at my friend Janet about what had happened, we went back to the bar. Janet told me that my friends had thought I was having such a good time I didn't want to leave the week before, but promised deserting me wouldn't happen again. She and I sat down and after a little while that same group of young men made themselves comfortable at our table. We talked and the guy who'd not driven me home kind of hung back, which was fine with me. Less said the better, I thought. Until his friend, the brother of my former co-worker, who was now home after being recently released from playing for a pro football team, started telling stories. I found myself boxed in between two of them with another full table at my back. Janet had gotten up to go talk to the bartender or pee or dance, and the bouncer was at the door doing his bouncing thing. And this very large, former pro football player informed me that his friend had told him his version of what I'd done the week before and that he didn't see why I couldn't take two of them, or all of them, on. He told me that he'd done things like this when he was playing in the league. He told me, breathing beer on me and crowding me into that spot, about a night in Texas when he and three other players had managed to lure a girl out of a bar and "partied" with her. That they had raped her with their bodies, and then they had raped her with a flashlight, and they had gotten away with it because who was going to believe the word of some drunk slut against the word of four clean-cut football players? He thought this was very funny.
To this day I do not remember how I got out of there, whether I escaped to the bathroom or Janet saved me or ... but I got out and that was the last time I went there. Because who was going to believe me? I had been sitting among a group of raucous men, talking with them for the second week in a row. They were all clean cut, popular...and I was a girl who had been a regular, who liked to drink and dance. Who would have believed me when I said I hadn't done as demanded the week before? And you know what else? Here's what he said to me about why I should just go off with all of them, as if they'd be doing me a favor: "After all, you aren't that pretty."
It's been over 30 years since that happened, and even now as I write my hands are shaking with anger. Anger that I allowed myself to be put into not one bad situation, but two. Anger that I had to escape rather than confront, even though realistically there was no way I could've done any physical damage to any one of them, let alone the ex-pro. Anger because I was a coward, that in all this time I've probably told less than half a dozen people that story, and because of my silence he might've had other opportunities to attack other girls.
I do not know whether powerful men recently accused of sexual misconduct have actually committed these acts. I do not know whether the many, many women who have come out as their accusers are all telling the truth or are looking for attention in one of the saddest ways I can think a woman would ever conceive of seeking attention. I will watch as evidence falls into place and witnesses come forward and conclusions are made.
But I know what happened to me, and how close I came to something much worse. And I know I thought for a long time it was all my fault, and I kept silent about it -- because it was my fault for drinking, my fault for talking to people I didn't know, my fault for getting in that car, my fault for going back to a place I regularly went to, my fault for not doing something about what he told me he'd done and wanted to do again. My fault for basing my expectations of behavior on other men I'd known who had driven me home without demanding sexual favors, or had a conversation with me without recounting terrible things they'd done -- because they'd never done them. Basing my reality on knowing other men who were respectful and intelligent and...it was my fault for not second-guessing that some night I might run into someone who thought forcing sex on me would at least make me feel pretty for a while. And if you think not actually being physically raped or sodomized doesn't count, maybe you should go inside the head of someone who deals with those kinds of thoughts, those misgivings and doubts and fears that they will never be able to judge someone else's character correctly again.
Last week I read that about a million women had responded to a newspaper article asking if any women who had been sexually assaulted would share their stories. A million women.
And now it is a million and one.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
I'm telling it now.
Back in the early 1980s, I was in my early 20s. I did some dumb things and made some bad decisions. Like most people in their early 20s, I had a crappy job and I lived with my parents and there weren't too many places to go in our town. My friends and I would go to Friendly's, or to the movies, or to this local dive bar. It was that post-sexual revolution, pre-AIDS, classic rock and disco time period -- we spent a lot of time dancing and drinking.
So one night I went out with a bunch of my girlfriends to this local bar. It was a rundown piece of lumber, and the music always got louder as the night wore on and the people there got drunker and louder themselves. But the beer was cheap and even though the floors were sticky and it usually reeked of eau de piss before midnight (because you only rent beer, as my friend Janet used to say), we usually managed to have a good time. We were there so much we knew the bouncer and the bartenders and in those days the bouncer or the bartenders would end up buying you a free drink for every few you purchased. Then around four in the morning, everybody would get into their cars and either drive home or to the nearby diner (drunk, I am sorry to say, but that's how it was then).
So this particular night, we met this group of men who had not been in there before -- the bouncer was their friend; one of them had a sister I knew from when I'd worked at the beach in my summer job; one of them was a neighbor, even though I didn't know him very well because he was older than we were. There were maybe four or five of them, and probably six or seven of us, and we all ended up dancing and talking and laughing, but at last call I looked around and realized all of my girlfriends were gone. Another one of the guys offered to drive me home, and the bouncer didn't warn me off and the guy hadn't done anything to set off any alarms so I agreed. I lived about three miles straight north of the bar. He said his house was on the main road before that but it was no problem taking me home. I got into his car and I was very drunk.
The car was a Cadillac. It was the nicest car I'd ever been in and when you got in a recorded female voice softly said, "Your door is ajar." When he parked the car, it gently said, "Your lights are on." And when he parked the car I was not at my house. We were at his. I was only halfway home, and it was four in the morning in February. And he said, "If you don't give me head right now, you're walking."
I remember the color of the pre-dawn sky. I remember being very cold. There were no cell phones then and I didn't have parents that would have been very sympathetic to my calling them to come get me at that hour, drunk, even if I had been able to get to a payphone. I walked. It was four degrees.
I am not done.
The next week, after ranting at my friend Janet about what had happened, we went back to the bar. Janet told me that my friends had thought I was having such a good time I didn't want to leave the week before, but promised deserting me wouldn't happen again. She and I sat down and after a little while that same group of young men made themselves comfortable at our table. We talked and the guy who'd not driven me home kind of hung back, which was fine with me. Less said the better, I thought. Until his friend, the brother of my former co-worker, who was now home after being recently released from playing for a pro football team, started telling stories. I found myself boxed in between two of them with another full table at my back. Janet had gotten up to go talk to the bartender or pee or dance, and the bouncer was at the door doing his bouncing thing. And this very large, former pro football player informed me that his friend had told him his version of what I'd done the week before and that he didn't see why I couldn't take two of them, or all of them, on. He told me that he'd done things like this when he was playing in the league. He told me, breathing beer on me and crowding me into that spot, about a night in Texas when he and three other players had managed to lure a girl out of a bar and "partied" with her. That they had raped her with their bodies, and then they had raped her with a flashlight, and they had gotten away with it because who was going to believe the word of some drunk slut against the word of four clean-cut football players? He thought this was very funny.
To this day I do not remember how I got out of there, whether I escaped to the bathroom or Janet saved me or ... but I got out and that was the last time I went there. Because who was going to believe me? I had been sitting among a group of raucous men, talking with them for the second week in a row. They were all clean cut, popular...and I was a girl who had been a regular, who liked to drink and dance. Who would have believed me when I said I hadn't done as demanded the week before? And you know what else? Here's what he said to me about why I should just go off with all of them, as if they'd be doing me a favor: "After all, you aren't that pretty."
It's been over 30 years since that happened, and even now as I write my hands are shaking with anger. Anger that I allowed myself to be put into not one bad situation, but two. Anger that I had to escape rather than confront, even though realistically there was no way I could've done any physical damage to any one of them, let alone the ex-pro. Anger because I was a coward, that in all this time I've probably told less than half a dozen people that story, and because of my silence he might've had other opportunities to attack other girls.
I do not know whether powerful men recently accused of sexual misconduct have actually committed these acts. I do not know whether the many, many women who have come out as their accusers are all telling the truth or are looking for attention in one of the saddest ways I can think a woman would ever conceive of seeking attention. I will watch as evidence falls into place and witnesses come forward and conclusions are made.
But I know what happened to me, and how close I came to something much worse. And I know I thought for a long time it was all my fault, and I kept silent about it -- because it was my fault for drinking, my fault for talking to people I didn't know, my fault for getting in that car, my fault for going back to a place I regularly went to, my fault for not doing something about what he told me he'd done and wanted to do again. My fault for basing my expectations of behavior on other men I'd known who had driven me home without demanding sexual favors, or had a conversation with me without recounting terrible things they'd done -- because they'd never done them. Basing my reality on knowing other men who were respectful and intelligent and...it was my fault for not second-guessing that some night I might run into someone who thought forcing sex on me would at least make me feel pretty for a while. And if you think not actually being physically raped or sodomized doesn't count, maybe you should go inside the head of someone who deals with those kinds of thoughts, those misgivings and doubts and fears that they will never be able to judge someone else's character correctly again.
Last week I read that about a million women had responded to a newspaper article asking if any women who had been sexually assaulted would share their stories. A million women.
And now it is a million and one.
So one night I went out with a bunch of my girlfriends to this local bar. It was a rundown piece of lumber, and the music always got louder as the night wore on and the people there got drunker and louder themselves. But the beer was cheap and even though the floors were sticky and it usually reeked of eau de piss before midnight (because you only rent beer, as my friend Janet used to say), we usually managed to have a good time. We were there so much we knew the bouncer and the bartenders and in those days the bouncer or the bartenders would end up buying you a free drink for every few you purchased. Then around four in the morning, everybody would get into their cars and either drive home or to the nearby diner (drunk, I am sorry to say, but that's how it was then).
So this particular night, we met this group of men who had not been in there before -- the bouncer was their friend; one of them had a sister I knew from when I'd worked at the beach in my summer job; one of them was a neighbor, even though I didn't know him very well because he was older than we were. There were maybe four or five of them, and probably six or seven of us, and we all ended up dancing and talking and laughing, but at last call I looked around and realized all of my girlfriends were gone. Another one of the guys offered to drive me home, and the bouncer didn't warn me off and the guy hadn't done anything to set off any alarms so I agreed. I lived about three miles straight north of the bar. He said his house was on the main road before that but it was no problem taking me home. I got into his car and I was very drunk.
The car was a Cadillac. It was the nicest car I'd ever been in and when you got in a recorded female voice softly said, "Your door is ajar." When he parked the car, it gently said, "Your lights are on." And when he parked the car I was not at my house. We were at his. I was only halfway home, and it was four in the morning in February. And he said, "If you don't give me head right now, you're walking."
I remember the color of the pre-dawn sky. I remember being very cold. There were no cell phones then and I didn't have parents that would have been very sympathetic to my calling them to come get me at that hour, drunk, even if I had been able to get to a payphone. I walked. It was four degrees.
I am not done.
The next week, after ranting at my friend Janet about what had happened, we went back to the bar. Janet told me that my friends had thought I was having such a good time I didn't want to leave the week before, but promised deserting me wouldn't happen again. She and I sat down and after a little while that same group of young men made themselves comfortable at our table. We talked and the guy who'd not driven me home kind of hung back, which was fine with me. Less said the better, I thought. Until his friend, the brother of my former co-worker, who was now home after being recently released from playing for a pro football team, started telling stories. I found myself boxed in between two of them with another full table at my back. Janet had gotten up to go talk to the bartender or pee or dance, and the bouncer was at the door doing his bouncing thing. And this very large, former pro football player informed me that his friend had told him his version of what I'd done the week before and that he didn't see why I couldn't take two of them, or all of them, on. He told me that he'd done things like this when he was playing in the league. He told me, breathing beer on me and crowding me into that spot, about a night in Texas when he and three other players had managed to lure a girl out of a bar and "partied" with her. That they had raped her with their bodies, and then they had raped her with a flashlight, and they had gotten away with it because who was going to believe the word of some drunk slut against the word of four clean-cut football players? He thought this was very funny.
To this day I do not remember how I got out of there, whether I escaped to the bathroom or Janet saved me or ... but I got out and that was the last time I went there. Because who was going to believe me? I had been sitting among a group of raucous men, talking with them for the second week in a row. They were all clean cut, popular...and I was a girl who had been a regular, who liked to drink and dance. Who would have believed me when I said I hadn't done as demanded the week before? And you know what else? Here's what he said to me about why I should just go off with all of them, as if they'd be doing me a favor: "After all, you aren't that pretty."
It's been over 30 years since that happened, and even now as I write my hands are shaking with anger. Anger that I allowed myself to be put into not one bad situation, but two. Anger that I had to escape rather than confront, even though realistically there was no way I could've done any physical damage to any one of them, let alone the ex-pro. Anger because I was a coward, that in all this time I've probably told less than half a dozen people that story, and because of my silence he might've had other opportunities to attack other girls.
I do not know whether powerful men recently accused of sexual misconduct have actually committed these acts. I do not know whether the many, many women who have come out as their accusers are all telling the truth or are looking for attention in one of the saddest ways I can think a woman would ever conceive of seeking attention. I will watch as evidence falls into place and witnesses come forward and conclusions are made.
But I know what happened to me, and how close I came to something much worse. And I know I thought for a long time it was all my fault, and I kept silent about it -- because it was my fault for drinking, my fault for talking to people I didn't know, my fault for getting in that car, my fault for going back to a place I regularly went to, my fault for not doing something about what he told me he'd done and wanted to do again. My fault for basing my expectations of behavior on other men I'd known who had driven me home without demanding sexual favors, or had a conversation with me without recounting terrible things they'd done -- because they'd never done them. Basing my reality on knowing other men who were respectful and intelligent and...it was my fault for not second-guessing that some night I might run into someone who thought forcing sex on me would at least make me feel pretty for a while. And if you think not actually being physically raped or sodomized doesn't count, maybe you should go inside the head of someone who deals with those kinds of thoughts, those misgivings and doubts and fears that they will never be able to judge someone else's character correctly again.
Last week I read that about a million women had responded to a newspaper article asking if any women who had been sexually assaulted would share their stories. A million women.
And now it is a million and one.
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