Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email Share on print More Sharing Services 309
On a chilly night in 2013, as the stress of the semester was coming to a peak, I had the most scarring experience of my life. In the moment, I wasn't aware that it was happening. Yet I will always remember the trauma. Being sexually assaulted—raped—shattered my self-image and confidence in my own voice. My self-worth was stolen from me by someone I previously trusted. In hindsight, it’s painfully obvious that he did me wrong. He violated me. He is to blame.
Still, I was the one who dealt with the repercussions.
Since then, I have healed. I went through a process of denial, acknowledgement, sadness, anger, therapy. I now love myself more than ever before. Though I will always carry the burden of my experience—and the knowledge that human beings are capable of exploiting each other without the slightest hesitancy—I have healed.
I want to share my story for several reasons: to paint an accurate picture of how rape happens at this prestigious institution, to encourage my peers to take an active role in prevention, to dispel the notion that sexual assault is a spectrum, and to tell other assault survivors that they are not alone and they are not to blame.
*****
It’s first semester sophomore year. A friend and classmate asks me to be his date to his team’s fall formal, held at a final club. My first date event! How could I say no to dressing up and getting free booze with Harvard athletes?
I agreed, but despite my anxious desire to experience what the chosen few did, I had reservations: On the second-to-last afternoon of freshman year, we had been smoking weed in his barren single, and his body language screamed of interest in initiating a make-out. I asked another guy friend on the same team whether, by going to the event, I’d be sending mixed signals where I wanted none. He assured me that my friendship with the soon-to-be perpetrator was solid enough such that I wouldn’t feel pressured to “do anything.”
That night, we get to the final club, and we’re each handed a bottle of Rosé. I look around and don't recognize any of the girls. Take a sip from the bottle. I have a handful of friends on the team, but they’re lost in the sea of made-up girls and rowdy guys. Take a sip from the bottle. I stay by his side. We mingle with other couples, take a sip. The guys start singing a repetitive chant, I don’t know what to do. Smile and nod with the beat, I guess. Take a sip. The bottle is gone. I’m 5’3”, 115 pounds. I don’t remember leaving the final club.
I also have no memory of the walk to his House, or the walk up the stairs, or the walk to his room. Next thing I do remember, I’m naked in his bed. I see his face—he’s on top of me, he’s inside of me, he’s sweaty. I vaguely realize what’s happening, and I explicitly realize that I don’t want to be where I currently am. Despite my confused state, I have an overwhelming instinct to leave. I get him off of me, and look for a way out. I walk into his roommate’s single, still naked. Wrong place. I walk through the common room, still naked, out the front door and into the hallway. I walk down the hall. I sit down and lean on a wall, maybe someone’s door. I black out again.
The next morning, I wake up alone in a foreign common room in a t-shirt that isn’t mine. I have bruises staining my sore legs, evidence of a nasty fall or two—evidence to anyone I was with that I was too drunk to consent. Still drunk, head pounding, throat dry, I quickly remember, in blurred bits and pieces, what happened. I’m confused, I don’t have any of my belongings, and I want to go home. So I do.
*****
I’ve always been a strong woman. Like many of my peers, I’ve been the captain of a team, I’ve been the president of a club, and I’ve been confident in my academic and social abilities throughout my entire life. Perhaps so firmly believing in my power and worth as an individual made being a rape victim more difficult to accept.
But even more powerful was the nauseating notion of sexual assault inhabiting a “gray area” in which alcohol blurs previously clear boundaries: What if he didn’t notice I was that drunk? Why was I that drunk to begin with? He was drunk too, so how can he be to blame? The gray area is bullshit.
Alcohol is an integral part of the college experience and the society we live in, for better or for worse. Alcohol also makes people more vulnerable. But everyone has the right to get as drunk as they want to without the threat of being raped. It’s easy to understand, but not so easy immediately after you’ve experienced an assault: Victims are not guilty for being drunk. Victims did not “put themselves in that situation” as a result of having been drunk. Victims should not ever feel ashamed of having been drunk.
In my case, and in many other cases of sexual assault on campus, alcohol played a role for the perpetrator as well. This does not excuse his guilt. Whatsoever.
Look at it this way: Everyone that consumes alcohol is aware that it distorts cognitive function. When a drunk driver enters a car, he knows he is impaired, which is why he is responsible for the death of the person he runs over. Likewise, at a party, a perpetrator knows he is impaired, and should be held accountable for the drunken assumptions he makes and acts on. He alone is to blame for the assault—not the alcohol, and certainly not the victim.
Of course, while I believe ending drunken hookups would be an extremely effective way to prevent sexual assault on campus, I’m not naive—this is an unrealistic goal. More importantly, while alcohol is a risk factor, it is not the ultimate cause of the sexual assault epidemic. Rather, the social factors underlying the manner in which we engage each other create an unhealthy party environment that far too often leads to assault. Education that emphasizes mutual respect and camaraderie among the student body, as well as the responsibility and accountability of the perpetrator, is indeed realistic. It’s also essential, and it’s also lacking.
To avoid being a rapist, learn how rape happens, and don’t do it. There are no gray areas.
Take active steps to seek consent before you and the other party begin drinking. As sexual assault education on campus increases, we should develop the maturity, respect, and compassion to overcome the social awkwardness of asking someone how they feel about engaging in a physical relationship. The discomfort of soberly communicating that you’re “down to sleep together tonight” is nothing compared to the discomfort of being penetrated against your will. If this approach does not align with your party habits, then stop having sex with people after parties. If you feel like you need the aid of alcohol to convince someone to hook up with you, then you shouldn't be hooking up with that person to begin with.
At a school that breeds goal-oriented individuals, it’s no surprise that this characteristic seeps into our hierarchical social scene where many seek and thrive on the self-validation of getting laid. Rather than hunting for the immediate gratification of sex on a Saturday night, here’s a thought: Get her number on Saturday, invite her over the next day to watch a movie, and see where it goes. We must curb the short-sighted perception that party nights are the only nights to have sex, and understand the fact that we are all equals in the same community with unique human desires and boundaries. It is imperative that we respect each other to make our school safe again.
Yes, it’s on Harvard to provide better education. Yet it’s also on individual students to be better people.
Primarily with the support of my loving sister, the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, and Mental Health Services, I did accept what had happened. I did accept I was raped. Upon doing so, I felt even more pain. But then, I felt relief.
If you feel unsettled or wronged after any sexual interaction, you are absolutely entitled to your reaction. It’s your body. If you feel unsettled or wronged, or confused, or unsure—much like I felt the days following what was clearly a case of assault—reach out. It feels so, so, so much better to do so. Reach out to OSAPR, to MHS, your family, your blockmates, even to me. You don’t have to carry the weight of your experience alone, because you’re not alone. And no one should ever have to handle sexual assault alone.
Viviana I. Maymi ’16 is a neurobiology concentrator in Mather House. If you have experienced sexual assault and wish to report the incident or make use of Harvard's sexual assault resources, please use the contact information below.
Harvard University Police Department, urgent line: (617) 495-1212 (24 hrs)
Office for Sexual and Gender-based Dispute Resolution (ODR): (617) 495-3786
Office of Sexual Assault Prevention & Response (OSAPR): (617) 495-9100 (24 hrs)
Counseling and Mental Health Services: (617) 495-5711 (24 hours)
Partying hard n' drunk with her hoodrat friend (best friends by choice, sisters by blood — with Ash Graddy at Sunset Music Festival 2013 :: Raymond James Stadium :: 5/25/2013.)
Convenient that her black out ends with her coming out mid-thrust.
She also goes against her own logic by suggesting that people plan on consenting before getting fucked up. Im not sure that's in line with her position. Just do fuck blind drunk girls cuz she said it was ok earlier at lunch.
Date: October 10th, 2015 2:28 PM Author: beady-eyed gaming laptop idea he suggested
"I was too drunk to consent!", she shrieked after spending the night aggressively berating the guy in front of his friends for being a fag by not immediately hooking up with her
If you decide afterwards you shouldn’t have had sex with him, it’s rape. When a man does that same thing, it’s called fat-shaming.
But in this new half truth (or lie) making rounds after being published first in the Harvard Crimson, the Judeo-feminist agenda of redefining rape is presented in a colorful retelling by Sephardic Jew Viviana I. Maymi. Maymi’s account goes back to 2013, where she went out to party alone with a man who had previously shown unrequited sexual interest, got black-out drunk, and, in a fleeting moment of sobriety, later realized she was having sex with this homely man at his dorm.
While sober, she “pushed him off” (translation: the alleged “rapist” let her leave), which unleashed a series of events where she was running around the Harvard dorms fully naked until blacking out again. The next thing she remembers is waking up in a strangers dorm, perfectly safe, after making a drunken and irresponsible commotion. If a man was frantically running around the Harvard dorms naked and trashed, he would’ve woken up to tasers, blue and red lights bouncing off the wall, and a couple of pending felonies–the privileges patriarchy get you.
But missing from her piece is any mention of a police report, in fact, she herself admits she doesn’t exactly remember what happened. Nonetheless, in her mind, penalizing men for “drunken hookups” is the solution to “campus sexual assault”, and that men who themselves have a sexual encounter with a willing woman that is also under the influence are guilty of rape because it “feels” right. The self-proclaimed “strong” and “powerful” woman, in other words, suggests that women ought to have the adult right to drink alcohol, but none of the grown-up responsibilities that come with it.
Maymi’s angle here is obvious: draconian California style “yes means yes” laws that place the burden of proof on men wrongly accused of rape, all while real sexual assaults are enabled by the same Jews utilizing blacks, to the tune of 40,000 white women per year. The ultimate goal is to make every man a rapist (all sex is rape, the Andrea Dworkin definition of heterosexual intercourse) until proven innocent (except for blacks), and plant more seeds of confusion and contradiction in the Gentile host society.
In light of this revision of the definition of rape, men must begin to come forward with their own stories as well. Have you ever downed a few, taken a blowie from a fat chick, and then felt disgusted with yourself afterwards? How many of you married men out there have gotten divorce papers from your victim-shaming wives after being taken advantage of after gorging on free shots at the pub?
Date: October 10th, 2015 3:47 PM Author: Adventurous point
Aside from the Joo conspiracy stuff, he raises some good points. Running around naked all over the dorm like she claims would have caused a lot of commotion and there should have been witnesses, if not security footage from the hallway or common areas. And of course there's the whole "not reporting it" thing even though she claims she immediately recognized it was a rape. Better to wait a couple years, then give just enough info that a fair number of people could identify him.
Between the party and the dorm there should be plenty of people who could verify or debunk her story.
Date: October 10th, 2015 9:35 PM Author: disgusting tanning salon
WTF SHITLIBS -- CONSENT CAN NOW BE PRE-APPROVED?
Take active steps to seek consent before you and the other party begin drinking. As sexual assault education on campus increases, we should develop the maturity, respect, and compassion to overcome the social awkwardness of asking someone how they feel about engaging in a physical relationship. The discomfort of soberly communicating that you’re “down to sleep together tonight” is nothing compared to the discomfort of being penetrated against your will. If this approach does not align with your party habits, then stop having sex with people after parties.
college hookups are soon going to become like a trip to the hospital for surgery where all parties sign a stack of forms giving the other party informed consent to fuck their incapacitated, gin-soaked brains out on a tattered futon after a barn dance.
Date: October 10th, 2015 10:05 PM Author: Talented bat shit crazy space associate
this won't hold up in SHITLIB court because you can retract consent, so obviously your alcohol-fueled decision NOT to retract it can't be taken as that you ACTUALLY wouldn't have retracted it when it came down to it.
On the second-to-last afternoon of freshman year, we had been smoking weed in his barren single..
That night, we get to the final club, and we’re each handed a bottle of Rosé
Take a sip from the bottle
Take a sip from the bottle
Take a sip. The bottle is gone.
Next thing I do remember, I’m naked in his bed
I black out again.
Victims are not guilty for being drunk. Victims did not “put themselves in that situation” as a result of having been drunk. Victims should not ever feel ashamed of having been drunk.
Of course, while I believe ending drunken hookups would be an extremely effective way to prevent sexual assault on campus, I’m not naive—this is an unrealistic goal.
Dear Viviana:
You got stoned, drunk, went to a guys room, went to a guys room and fucked him and who knows who else. Not rape, sorry.
Date: February 22nd, 2016 8:58 PM Author: Odious national liquid oxygen
It's an interesting article. It's the standard shitlib attempt to criminalize heterosexuality, but it's written in a clear and articulate manner. It makes its point without throwing in a bunch of long buzzwords and flavor of the month dog whistles. Basically what the unhinged weirdos at Oberlin/Wesleyan/Bryn Mawr/etc. are trying (and failing) to say.
One other observation: the subtext of the article is, I'm a big time social butterfly party animal who parties so much, and gets pursued by Chad so hard, that I'm an authority on the subject. And I have so many Chads chasing me that I wasn't even interested in the one in question.
Date: February 22nd, 2016 9:01 PM Author: infuriating elastic band
isn't there a case to be made that the real damage is created by our cultural view on rape? it becomes a traumatic event to self-absorbed cunts like this because that's what is expected of them. odd case since, by her own telling, it's an event she can barely recall