Patrece Savino
Eyes fluttering shut, battling sleep, I strained to look at the slideshow at the front of the classroom.
It was August – freshman orientation – and I sat in a classroom wondering why I had to be in a mandatory meeting about sexual violence and consent. I mean, I was attending a great school. I was surrounded by smart people. This would never happen at a place like Wake Forest. This would never happen to a girl like me.
I shouldn’t have had that much to drink.
What I didn’t know was that rape doesn’t have a location preference. It doesn’t happen to a certain “type” of person. Consent is not just a matter of the words “yes” or “no,” because I didn’t say either of those.
Maybe he was just as drunk as I was and didn’t know what he was doing.
It was a Saturday morning, parents’ weekend. The sun flooded in from behind the blinds and I awoke with a start. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. Immediately, upon the sight of him, I squeezed them shut again. I focused what little energy I had digging for the memories from the night before, but there were none.
Where am I? Who is he? Where are my clothes?
I scrambled out of his bed, desperately hoping that I wouldn’t wake him. “I had fun last night,” he said as he rolled over. “We should do it again sometime.”
I gave him a weak smile before closing his door behind me. The back of the door had his name. It was ___________.
Maybe I just didn’t seem that drunk. Maybe he thought I was fine.
Walking back to my building, my mind was numb.
Surely, I couldn’t be a part of that one-in-four statistic they taught us about at as I sat in orientation. I mean, I don’t know if I told him “no.”
I thought that I was overreacting. I didn’t say a word. I suffered in silence.
It can’t be real.
I wondered what would have happened if I didn’t have that last drink. If I didn’t wear that top. If I was more responsible. Every time I saw him on campus, I thought about how I could have protected myself. I thought about how it was my fault.
Maybe if I blamed myself the pain would go away.
It didn’t go away. I was afraid to be a victim. I was afraid that if I called it rape, it would be real. I didn’t want to suffer any more than I already was.
I thought that being a rape victim meant I was weak. I thought that I had already been through enough, and with this extra burden, I would never move on.
Because I was drunk, I was asking for it.
I was wrong. Nobody asks for this. My top didn’t ask for this. My alcohol consumption that night didn’t ask for this. I finally found where to put the blame: on him.
I am a rape victim, but I am not weak. I am a rape victim, and I am not afraid to speak out. I am a rape victim, and I am not ashamed.
—
Patrece Savino, ’20, is an assistant photo editor for The Brown and White. She can be reached at [email protected].
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10 Comments
“I mean, I don’t know if I told him ‘no.'”
Rape and sexual assault is terrible and should not be tolerated.
If you have been raped or sexually assaulted go to the police. Get police records started on the perps.
If you don’t remember going to his room, knowing his name, saying “no”, or remember anything else…frankly how do you know you didn’t say “yes”? How do you know you didn’t make a move on him…maybe force him?
Rape is a terrible act and a terrible crime to be charged with and of which to be convicted. Rape and murder are the two acts that show the truly terrible side of human interaction.
Enjoy your drinking but in doing so remember some prudence because neither the male not the female students should get so drunk that he or she cannot tell if the other person can give clear consent. Both sides have responsibility for not going to blackout drunk.
Rape is terrible, let’s not cheapen its real horror – regret is not rape.
“Enjoy your drinking but in doing so remember some prudence because neither the male not the female students should get so drunk that he or she cannot tell if the other person can give clear consent. Both sides have responsibility for not going to blackout drunk.”
He clearly remembered that evening in rolling over and saying he enjoyed last evening, and so if the woman was too intoxicated to consent, it’s HIS responsibility to not be a predator. How about we blame the rapist instead of the survivor?
Fifty bucks says THE TAB is terrified daily that someone is going to come tell him that the women he raped are talking about it now, publicly. And he’s preparing for that inevitability by squeezing his eyes shut tight and rehearsing his defense, which you’ve just heard above. All the way to “nuh-uh, she forced me! SHE FORCED ME! I’M THE VICTIM!” No evidence! No collusion! She would’ve gone to the cops! I’m the victim! Etc., repeat.
Course, it’s not unreasonable. If a healthy proportion of Lehigh alumni aren’t worried, they sure ought to be. Time’s up, gents.
The lack of respect you were shown is appalling but apparently all too common on today’s college campuses.
Oh, not just today’s, Robert. Not just today’s.
Maybe the rapist will grow up and be embarrassed instead of putting a notch in his belt. If he was drunk sex would not be as filling as being sober. If he tried this in the real world he may find a different outcome
This is not the reason for not raping people who are too drunk to give consent.
Alternative?
Many observers find the prevalence of hook-up culture on college campuses to be a signal of the last gasps of traditional courtship and dating. Still others view that conclusion as the “moral panic” of the old and unhip. But what happens when a group of 15 college students find themselves with the unusual assignment of going on a date—no hooking up, no hanging out, no opting out—and reporting back about the strategy, the fear, “the rules,” the ask, the drama, and the A-frame hugs? In this discussion, let’s consider what has really been lost and found in the “case of the lost social script” of college dating.
Kerry Cronin earned her B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College and is presently a doctoral candidate in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, working in the area of moral reasoning research. She is the Associate Director of the Lonergan Institute at Boston College and the Faculty Fellow in BC’s Center for Student Formation. Fore the past 17 years, she has taught in Boston College’s interdisciplinary Perspectives Program (offering courses in the “Great Books” tradition). Additionally, she works extensively with undergraduates in retreat programs and is a regular speaker on college campuses, addressing topics of student culture and formation.
It’s really not that hard to go on dates, be romantic, and/or get laid without raping and otherwise assaulting people, Robert. It doesn’t require a whole new field of study. The guys who’re freaking about asking are the ones who’re sure the universe owes them a sex life they can brag about and that the job of women is to gtfo of their way and make sure they get their allotted sex life and status tokens. They don’t want to have to ask. They want to take, steal, lie. They don’t want to have to acknowledge that the women are people, and they’re incapable of seeing the world as anything but a competition where everyone’s out to murder them.
Note that the same guys usually present themselves as genius salary negotiators. It’s not the idea of asking out loud that bothers them. It’s the idea of women having power in sexual relationships. And that’s their problem, not the women’s.
Had I not spent a hour listening to one of Ms. Cronin’s lectures, I mostly would have agreed with you. I believe we need respect not power or more precisely: power, where it exists, with respect.