How to know who or what to believe has been in our national consciousness a lot
these past couple of weeks. It feels as if we’re standing alongside Pilate when
he asked Jesus, “What is truth?”
Here
is my truth.
My
“what-almost-happened-yet-thankfully-didn’t” incident happened during my
freshman year at Davidson College in 1980. A freshman guy had invited me for a
ride in his sports car, although taking me whizzing through the Appalachian
foothills was not the way to my prone-to-motion-sickness heart. He seemed nice,
so I invited him to a mixer that my hall was hosting a couple of weeks later.
At the mixer that night, he was a different person. He kept putting his hands
all over me while we stood talking to other people on my hall. Having someone
constantly touching my back, butt, and breasts was annoying and embarrassing. I
nudged him away. I elbowed him away. I would take his hand and remove it from
my body, and he would put it right back. All while we were standing and talking
to other people. Finally, I got tired of it and, for the only time in my life,
resorted a lie so common it was trite: “I have a headache. Good night.” I
walked back down the hall to my dorm room, leaving all of my hallmates and the
loud party behind in the lounge.
Although
I’ve forgotten many details of that evening, what happened next stands out in
precise, specific clarity. I walked into my dorm room and stood there with my
back to the door, my head in my hands. I said out loud, “What just happened?”
And I heard a voice behind me. “I didn’t get a goodnight kiss.” “Fine,” I said
out loud, and, as I turned to face him, I finished the sentence internally,
“anything to get this date over with.” We kissed, me halfheartedly, and him
with increasing energy. I moved away slightly, signaling the end of the kiss.
He pressed his mouth harder against mine. I pushed away less subtly, and the
pressure of his mouth increased. I tried to use my arms to push away from him.
He pinned my arms and kept kissing with greater intensity. I was having trouble
breathing, and I struggled, worried that I might pass out. Finally, he took his
mouth off of mine.
I
inhaled a deep breath of air and gasped, “Stop!”
He
said, “No.”
I
remember the cold chill of terror that coursed through my system when I heard
him say that one word. I did the math quickly. He was much stronger than I was,
and I had already proven I was unable to fight him off. Every one of the girls
who lived on my hall was at the mixer, and my room was at the far end of the
hall. There was no one who would hear me yell for help.
I
kept fighting against him as he kept kissing his way down my body. Suddenly,
and I will never know why, he let go, dropping me onto the floor. He stood over
me and smirked before turning and walking out. I got up and ran to the door,
locking it behind him. That night, I told my roommate and other girls on the
hall.
Point #1: To whom else would I have reported what almost happened? I counted my lucky stars that “nothing”
happened to me. Would I have contacted campus security, or his football coach,
to report that he seemed to be about to rape me but then stopped? I imagine the
coach might have praised him, “Way to go, son, for stopping when you did.”
My
story continued.
At
Davidson, the dorms are mostly in one part of campus, and the classroom buildings
are in the main quadrangle. As a result, students tended to walk en masse along
the same path to class. The following week, I was walking to class when he came
up behind me, putting his arm around my shoulder. I elbowed him hard and ran
ahead to walk the rest of the way in safety with a group of friends.
Shortly
after that, he called me to invite me to Midwinters, one of three formal
weekends Davidson hosted. I was shocked that he thought I would go out with him
again. After all, his final image of me from our date would have been me lying
on the floor where he dropped me as he strode out the door. I told him I
wouldn’t go to Midwinters with him since I already had another date, which I
did.
Point #2: What I experienced as a terrifying “almost date rape,”
he experienced as “a date.” It didn’t even register to him that what he had done would have
any impact on me and my willingness to go out with him again.
One
of my friends on my freshman hall called me a little while later. She told me,
breathlessly, that he had been so despondent over my refusal that he had driven
off in his sports car. She asked me to join the search party and was surprised
when I declined.
She
knew what he had done to me. Somehow, she didn’t understand that, although I
didn’t wish him ill, my participation in his life ended the moment I locked the
door of my dorm room behind him.
Point #3: Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you aren’t a product of the same culture. It can be complicated to disentangle ourselves
from it.
He
did, by the way, return to his dorm safely that afternoon. And, thankfully, I
never spoke to him or saw him again.
Point #2, reprised. My distress came from attempted date rape. His
despondency came from being turned down for a second date. Our different vantage points in terms of
power and gender created entirely different responses to the same event.
So
why tell my story now? After all of these years, I really am fine. This
experience was one more thing that helped me to recognize the good, kind man
that I met and married a few years later. Right now, though, many people of
good faith from throughout the political spectrum are trying to know what to believe.
I wish that I could have begun my story by saying, “You’ll probably never
believe what happened to me,” and that people would have found my story
unbelievable, not because I was one more woman telling a story of violence that
has become all too common, but because we lived in an era when such behavior
was inexcusable. What if we found such stories unbelievable because we lived in
a time when young men were taught that “stop” was not a challenge but a
mandate? We’re not there yet, but I believe it’s worth it to try to get us a
little closer to that vision.
And
so I’m allowing you to know about this thing that almost happened to
me. Add my voice to the voices you’ve heard. And dream and pray along with me
for a day when such an experience will be truly beyond belief.
