Brock Turner in A day in the life...

Let’s talk about Brock Turner. You know who he is…the college kid who was caught sexually assaulting an unconscious young woman behind a dumpster at Stanford University. The poor young man whose life, according to his father, has been “deeply altered” because of “20 minutes of action.” This poor kid, according to dear old dad, will “never be his happy-go-lucky self again.” Are your eyes welling up with tears yet? Mine are…with tears of rage.

What about the young lady whose life has been FOREVER altered by this event? She has to live with what that rapist did to her every day for the rest of her life. Where’s the sympathy for her, dad? She also has to live with the fact that, thanks to Judge Persky, her attacker pretty much got away with it. Six months in county jail, which will most likely be reduced to three if the rapist behaves himself. Are you fucking kidding me??? What kind of message does that send out? That if you’re a rich white boy you can do whatever you want to whomever you want and get away with it? It’s disgusting.

This has hit me so hard because I was raped when I was 18 years old. My friend K and I drove to Michigan one Friday night to visit my boyfriend E. After we got there and hung out in E’s dorm room for a little while we got into E’s friend’s car and headed to a party at someone’s apartment off campus. One of the guys who lived in the apartment was a friend of E’s. Yes, there was lots of drinking going on and yes, I drank. No, I shouldn’t have been drinking as I was definitely under age, but I did. I also drank on an empty stomach and back then I was pretty tiny, weighing in at maybe 110 pounds, if that. Needless to say, it didn’t take much alcohol to affect me that night.

After a little while I started getting a horrible headache and the lights and loud music were just making it worse. I told E I wasn’t feeling well but neither he nor K wanted to leave so I was stuck. E asked his friend who lived in the apartment if I could lay down somewhere. His friend called over a friend of his, a guy named Bob, and told Bob to show me where his room was so I could lay down.

I remember laying down on the bed and thanking Bob and closing my eyes. I heard the door close and assumed Bob had left. Then I felt him sit on the side of the bed next to me. I remember opening my eyes and asking him what he was doing and he said he just wanted to make sure I was okay. I closed my eyes again, and that’s when he started kissing me. After that I remember pushing him away and saying “no” and “stop” over and over. I remember not being able to catch my breath because at one point he was sitting on my chest and trying to push his penis into my mouth. I had on a skirt that night with nylons on underneath it. He tore my nylons off of me…they were literally shredded. My skirt ended up around my waist and then he was inside me. I was sobbing at this point and begging him to stop. My friend K walked into the room, I guess she and E were ready to leave, and saw Bob on top of me. She turned around and walked back out, closing the door behind her. She thought Bob and I were having consensual sex. Apparently she went back out into the living room and told E I was “getting laid.”

When Bob finished he got up, pulled his pants up and buttoned and zipped them, and walked out of the room without a glance back. I found my underwear on the floor and pulled them on, still crying. I left the nylons there because what was I going to do with shredded nylons? When I walked into the living room Bob was laughing with some of his buddies and E wouldn’t even look at me. Me, K and E got into E’s friend’s car and went back to E’s dorm room, where I threw up several times. After that E took me to the dorm room next door (whoever stayed in that room was gone for the weekend) and showed me where I could sleep. I cried myself to sleep while E went back to his room and fucked K (which I found out about several months later because she bragged about it to some mutual friends of ours).

I never told anyone, not while I was in Michigan and not when I got home. E would hardly speak to me the rest of the time we were there and I could hardly look at K because all I could think of was her walking out of the room and leaving me in there. And I never told anyone when we got home (in Illinois). When I was a teenager my dad had told me that girls who go to parties and get drunk deserve whatever happens to them, so a part of me felt like it was my fault.

So I kept my secret, and the impact it has had on my life is indescribable. But after reading about what that scrumbag Brock did and how the judge gave him nothing but a slap on the wrist I’m almost glad I never told, even though 28 years later I’m in therapy for PTSD because of it.

This world is so messed up…and it’s just getting worse.