When I came to Bible college that fall as a freshman, I was so vulnerable, and so unwitting. I came from a safe and loving home; I had just broken up with my first and only boyfriend, a sweet and innocent first love, as we parted ways for school; I had been raised in the church to trust God and other believers without question; no one had ever tried to hurt me. I came with implicit faith that I was going to a place where I would be loved, respected, protected. I was so, so eager to please.
I struck out into my new life without hesitation, meeting new people, diving into my assignments, earnestly absorbing the preaching and teaching. I met and started dating another freshman, a local boy from a well-known family. Those first weeks of this new season were a joyful fresh start. But soon, my fledgling relationship took a disturbing turn. My new boyfriend began to act in ways that made me uncomfortable. When we were alone, he started to push the boundaries of our physical interactions.
This development was not just unwelcome, but unfamiliar. I lacked both experience and education. I'd been taught about sin, but not about consent. Most of what I'd been given to understand about male sexual desire was that it was my responsibility. And yet, in this situation, I was communicating clearly that these actions were undesirable, and things didn't improve--they got worse.
My obvious resistance wasn't an obstacle for long. He blew past it as though he barely noticed. Honestly, I don't even remember the first time it happened, just the way it worked. When I didn't move the way he wanted, he pushed me, or pulled me. When I pulled back, struggled to free myself, he held me. Sometimes he held me just long enough to show that he could hold me until it suited him to release me; and then he pushed, or pulled, again. If I protested, my protests were muffled, overwhelmed, ignored. In a strange way, it felt not just powerless, but like being invisible--like he was in the space with my body, but me, the real me, was floating outside of us and could not be seen or heard.
He always knew when to stop--short of anything that could be technically considered "sex" or that I would have recognized as rape or assault.
Later, he was sorry. He asked forgiveness for his weakness, he'd gotten carried away. He would try hard to do better, to avoid temptation, and he needed my support and help. After all, it was in his nature to fall, but he was trying to be godly. These were terms I understood. The shared language of our faith was used to gaslight me into submission, compliance, participation.
I forgave, at first, as I'd been taught. I respected him for his honesty, his vulnerability, his effort. I offered a second chance. And that chance was taken, not just once, but again and again. There were arguments, recriminations, reminders of his promises, but they made no difference. I agonized over what to do, but I told no one. I had only been warned that this was a situation I should prevent, but never been told anything about what to do if it happened. I prayed. And after a while, after a handful of frightening, upsetting defeats, I decided I had to cut myself free. I told the boy that I was done with the relationship. I walked away. I was lucky. And I thought that was the end.
Within a week or two, I got a visit from his roommate. The roommate told me, "I know what he did to you. You need to report him to the dean." I declined. I wanted nothing to do with this boy, this story. I wanted to put it all behind me and go back to my normal life. But I couldn't, the roommate said, because "he's still doing it to other girls." I was the only one who could stop him. I could help others who would otherwise have the same experience I'd had. I still refused. I said I had no knowledge or proof of this, and the boy himself had told me that he'd had a "spiritual awakening" and God had changed his behavior. If the roommate was so concerned, let him talk to the dean. He insisted that he couldn't, since he wasn't "a witness"; he had no way of proving what he knew. He pointed to multiple Bible verses that commanded my help for other believers, including the one who was trapped in sin, and once again the faith we shared compelled my responsibility to and for this boy. After a long and heated discussion, I agreed, reluctantly, that if I gained personal knowledge of other girls being harmed, I would go to the dean.
It was a small campus, and it wasn't long before I had two conversations with girls who had gone out with the boy in high school. They had noticed I wasn't spending time with him anymore. Unsurprisingly, I learned that their experiences with him were the same as mine. I told them about my talk with the roommate, and our agreement that I would go to the dean if I heard of his mistreatment of any other girls. They both said they would go with me if that happened. Within days, a girl who lived down the hall knocked on my dorm room door in the middle of the night. She was crying, and I wasn't surprised by the story she told. So now there were four of us.
You know what happened after I went to the dean. Campus was in an uproar. Everyone knew that we were all called to a disciplinary hearing. The boy asked many people to be "character witnesses" for him, even though no such witnesses were allowed. He spread the rumor that I was a jilted girlfriend who was taking revenge on him with false charges, that I had coerced the other girls to participate. I was approached on campus by people who showed me Bible verses about forgiveness, who "confronted" me about "persecution". I sat in classes where people made prayer requests for their falsely accused friend. I was ambushed in my dorm by a group of girls asking me to go to the dean and retract my statements so the hearing would be stopped. You remained silent. No statements were made on campus, no actions were taken to prevent any of this, no protection was offered to us.
When the hearing finally rolled around, the other girls and I sat in the lobby, waiting to be called in to testify before the disciplinary committee. The only other people waiting there with us were the boy and his mother. I guess you didn't see the need to give us a separate space to spend those hours. We were called in one at a time, to sit in a single chair, facing all of you at that long, long table. I don't know what happened to the others, but I was asked the most intimate, personal questions by you, in front of you--my adult male professors and administrators, and of course the student representative who sat on the committee. I was 18. You questioned me about illegal drug use, about drinking alcohol. I had never even tasted alcohol. A college freshman with a 17-hour course load, I was asked about my "unusual" sleep schedule, and how I could explain it if I wasn't using drugs or alcohol. You told me that the boy claimed that all our interactions were consensual, and that in fact I had initiated them, and that his mother was there to confirm this testimony. (Where were our mothers, us four girls?) I was asked, if this isn't true, if all this was really unwanted, why didn't I punch him, kick him, slap him? I could not imagine my 90-pound bookish self punching another person. None of you showed any awareness of the fact that freezing or compliance is a common trauma response of sexual assault victims, and of course I certainly hadn't been equipped to educate you. The president of my college called me stupid--elaborating on the insult by explaining that it was warranted because my actions were too foolish to be called simple naivete. I was carrying straight A's, but I was suddenly in a world where the smart, credible, trustworthy, respectable girl I had always been somehow no longer existed. I felt humiliated, contemptible, a disappointment. Displaced from the me I knew. Fallen.
When the interrogation was over and I was asked if I had any last comments to add, I asked one of you, the professor whose class I was due to attend in a couple of hours, if I could be excused that afternoon. I was granted the absence, and that is the total of academic reprieve I was given for this experience. You offered no additional time off, no followup counseling, no other kind of support. I did get, however, a message from the dean's office notifying me that you all had placed an official disciplinary warning on my permanent record, along with the inexplicable, insulting instruction to stay away from the boy. It wasn't made clear what the warning was for. The boy himself was expelled from school. We were widely blamed on campus for "ruining his life". We had not anticipated anything like this would happen--we had hoped he would be placed on "social probation", prohibited from dating, given mandatory counseling--the only things we knew of in our world that might make attempts to solve the problem, not just move it off campus.
A few days later, Sunday, I went to church, the same church that many of you attended and led, and as I sat in the pew, that boy served me communion.
I didn't want any of this. I didn't want what he did to me. I didn't want to be held responsible for "helping" him, or stopping him, or for determining his future. I didn't want to be part of this group of victims, or to have these conversations with the dean. I didn't want to talk about the intimate details of my shame in front of a roomful of adult men that I respected and whose approval I was desperate for. I didn't want to live with the reputation this earned me; I didn't want to lose the experiences it cost me. I didn't want to have the faith that I cherished co-opted and used to harm and manipulate me.
I was Brett-Kavanaugh-hearing-years old when I realized that what that boy did to me was a crime.
Sexual assault is a reportable criminal offense. It's a matter for the police. It's not something to be handled internally with disciplinary actions by a small group of campus administrators. But of course, you knew that. And if you didn't, you should have. It was your responsibility. I was your responsibility. At 53, I'm still unwinding the ways I was affected by this, not just by the physical offense committed against me, but by the aftermath--to be bluntly honest, by your treatment of me. This incident is the reason I cut off all ties with the school as soon as I was able. It overshadowed the entire rest of my college experience, and carried over well into my adult life. It was the first thing that began to change my view of men at the deepest level. And it altered my relationship forever with the church.
I hope you would do better now, if you had this to do over again. I hope your understanding is deeper, that your views have changed, that your hearts have changed. But I need you to understand that what you've done in the past still matters; it's not over and done with. If you are able, though, there is still time to make it right. You can't fix the damage that resulted from your actions; that can never be undone, for me or for all the others like me. But you can acknowledge it, and that would mean a great deal. Acknowledge your involvement, and your failures. Apologize.
Repent.
And then, use your privilege. You have always been the ones who hold the levers of power. Use your position to speak out for victims. Teach the leaders who come after you to do better. Give over some of that power to people in positions that will approach these issues differently. Change your culture. Make this the last story of its kind we all have to hear. There is a path toward healing for all of us. Make a start.
