Brett

Trigger warning: rape.

Thank you, Mr. Will. Your opinion piece in the Washington Post, a heinously misogynistic and condescending treatment of sexual assault on college campuses, finally forced me to confront and label my own rape. That young woman whose story you derided, whose “coveted status” as a surivior you called into question? She was raped. And you know what? So was I.

After more than two years of bargaining, of trying to find a gray area where none exists, I finally said it. I am a victim of rape. My first thought after that wasn’t that I was traumatized or that I should tell someone what I had finally come to terms with. It was that I am a statistic. I am the one in five women who will be raped during her time in college. I know too many women who fit that statistic, but I had never counted myself as one of them. I was one of the other four, the lucky 80% whose bodies were never violated.

It was the second semester of my senior year of college, and my then-boyfriend and I were staying at a hotel off campus, our Valentine’s Day present to ourselves. We had talked the night before about a morning roll in the hay, but I woke up feeling differently. I just wasn’t in the mood. He climbed on top of me, and I just thought to myself, “okay, I guess we’re doing this.” I knew something ...