We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out

by Annie E. Clark

  8:25 a.m.

  We exchange numbers and I mention that the following night there’s a free screening of the movie The Hunting Ground, with two UNC survivors who began the Title IX work and the producer of the movie in attendance. She thanks me and says she’ll be there. I realize that this project is bigger than me, and I feel overwhelmed with emotions. I am furious. I am defeated. I am exhilarated.

  9:17 a.m.

  “What is all this for?” some student asks. As I walk toward him with my pen and paper in hand, I do not know what to expect. He seems distraught. I tell him what the forks stand for, adding that one in six men will be assaulted in his lifetime.

  “That is not true!” he yells back. I am shocked by his reaction and freeze for a second. I feel that if I inquire further I will be prying, but if I don’t, he might be offended because I didn’t care enough to ask.

  I take a deep breath and ask the only question I can think of: “How are you?”

  “I just didn’t think that was possible. I did not think [my guy friend] could have been telling me the truth,” he responds, gulping back tears. I hug him and say, “The survivor’s journey is never-ending, and you can choose to be a part of it still. It’s never too late.”

  He thanks me and asks if there are any resources on campus. I tell him about all the student organizations doing amazing work, including SAPAC, the Sexual Assault Prevention Awareness Center. My emotions catch up with me and tears start to trickle down my cheek. Meagan, another coordinator, runs to me with a box of tissues, holds me, and stands in silence with me. I think that sometimes what’s hardest for my friends and family is to know how to engage me. I can’t speak for all survivors, but from my experience, words cannot always encompass what it means to be a survivor. We are not so much victims of the crimes committed against us as lonely survivors of a sexual war on our bodies and minds.

  11:58 a.m.

  I decide to sit on a bench and just observe without interacting. The bell tower strikes noon; students pour out of the building. A few hover over the signposts, reading. I see a group of women approach the signs, then drop to their knees and make the sign of the cross. I walk by to hear their prayer.

  “The Lord is with thee,” they pray in unison. I kneel down and join my prayers with theirs. “In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Then I introduce myself. They share their experiences and say that prayer and faith have helped them overcome what they’ve been through. That’s great for them. As for me, my experience pushed me away from “God” and made me question my twelve years of Catholic school. I questioned it all.

  1:10 p.m.

  It’s time to type up all my notes in detail before I forget any of my interactions or experiences throughout these difficult hours. As I type, everything seems to flow. I realize how much of this process has been healing. For once, I was forced to react and let my emotions be, instead of holding them all back. I let myself feel.

  3:07 p.m.

  The unexpected happens. As I sit in front of my computer, in the middle of the fishbowl—the computing library—I see him. My assailant. I don’t think he sees me right away. My first thought is to get out as quickly as I can. My heart rate is increasing, my blood is boiling. I have fought back tears before, but never this hard. Don’t let him see me cry. He does see me, though, and this turns into a game of cat and mouse for him. He taunts me, coming right up behind me, without saying a word. I freeze. Looking up, I see him in front of me, with only a 21.5-inch iMac separating us. It isn’t enough for him. He needs to get more out of me, as if what he’s done already is not enough. He decides that out of all the 250 computers, he needs to sit at the one right next to me. I realize in this moment how much he has altered my life. How every day I make decisions based on that night. My first night on campus. I was naïve, high on my newfound freedom, and felt like I had the whole world at my fingertips, until he forced himself onto me, slammed my face into the dorm room mattress, and left me there, alone and naked. But now, enough is enough. I decide to bear it through. I want to be the cat and he can be the mouse. I feel it becoming uncomfortable for him. Uncomfortable. After everything, that is the least I can make him feel.

  11:53 p.m.

  For 5,806 survivors, 1,200 teal forks. They healed me.

  * * *

  Then Came Activism

  A Chorus

  I got involved with advocacy work at the university. There were ways it needed to improve.

  My assault was handled very publicly. I used that public-ness as my way to be open about it and to help others.

  I am starting out in business communications and marketing, but I would love to help men and women get the help they need.

  April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and we had an event on campus called “Speak Out.” We kept a blog, and anybody could post an anonymous testimonial. Then every year we would collect those and members of our group would read them out loud on campus. It was an organized event, with food, music, and advocates in case someone got triggered. There was an open mic at the end so people could share. It was one of my favorite events. The hardest night, but a healing night.

  Activism looks different. It looks different every day. Getting up and doing anything at all is activism for me.

  I wanted to do something, to have a voice. I was on the philanthropy committee at my sorority. Our philanthropy was domestic violence. I felt like it was my way of helping people who had been through situations similar to mine. Working on that committee—that’s when I got my rhythm back.

  I’m glad I encouraged my friend to get justice in her life.

  Working on myself is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Learning how to accept myself and not hate myself is the biggest thing. That right now is my activism.

  I’ve come to terms with the fact there’s nothing I can do regarding the assault. I’ve experienced this gross injustice and I’m not able to do anything. But it’s not okay what they did. Until I do something I don’t think I’m going to get over it.

  So after I was assaulted I threw myself into activist work. That summer, while I was working at the rape crisis center, one of my good friends opened up to me as a survivor. She had never told anybody.

  My worst fear after being assaulted wasn’t that it would happen again, but that someone I knew was going to have to go through it. I would think, “If something’s gonna happen, let it be to me because I’m already sort of broken. I don’t want them hurt.”

  We spoke to the police, and we were able to get more sexual assault awareness training for the campus police. We also got the school’s health center to prescribe Plan B.

  It was very important to me, to be that person someone could trust, because for years I couldn’t trust anybody.

  I’m now trying to mind my own business and trying to graduate.

  When I was a sophomore, I became very involved in an event called “Consent Day.” We would teach students about consent—what it is and how to obtain it. Of course, the event had free condoms, so that was the incentive for pretty much everyone (especially the guys) to show up. Regarding consent, it is very important to know yourself before starting a conversation with anyone else about what you want. If you like to be kissed, but maybe not touched certain places, that is more than okay! It is always okay to stop. You are 100 percent allowed to stop or take a break at any point in any physical interaction with a partner. It may sound simple, but it’s true. You only have to do what you want to do—nothing more.

  I started working with Planned Parenthood, because we started giving students information about reproduction and women’s health.Also, when I was working with survivors of rape I would refer them to Planned Parenthood when the survivors didn’t want their families to know they had been raped, and of course Planned Parenthood offers confidentiality.

  Advocacy has become my new thing. I want this guy to come to justice, but in nine years, nothing has changed in the whole system. The bathroom is apparently a
common place to rape. And these guys convince and coerce the same way. Are they reading a book? How come it’s so pervasive? I want it to be over for everyone rather than just find some kind of sanity for myself.

  I want to give that guy or that girl who reads this book that same feeling of “Oh my gosh, some girl knows what I’m feeling.” I want to be that person in someone’s life. I want to give back.

  * * *

  The Professor

  SOME NOTES ON MY EXPERIENCE

  KATIE ROSE GUEST PRYAL

  You decide who touches you.

  We have a cat named Richard. When we got her, she was only three weeks old, abandoned by her owners, and we picked out a name we liked. Turned out she was a girl. But we couldn’t change her name at that point.

  The kids are really good with her and she with them. But sometimes she doesn’t want to play. So I say to the boys, “Does it seem like Richard wants to be petted right now? Does Richard get to decide who touches her? Yes, she does, just like you. She’s in charge of her body, and you’re in charge of yours.”

  Even now at ages four and six, they don’t have to hug people they don’t want to hug. I want them to grasp this idea of bodily autonomy.

  Remember: you get to decide who touches you.

  How my career took shape.

  I graduated from Duke and got a master’s in creative writing from Johns Hopkins. Then I went back to law school at the University of North Carolina, passed the bar, and worked as a lawyer while I also worked through my doctoral program in English.

  I finished my Ph.D. in 2007 and started working at UNC as a professor. At first I taught English and also law; then, after a few years, I went to the law school full-time as a law professor. After a few years, I got promoted.

  I remember that day clearly. My niece was born, Nelson Mandela died, and I got promoted. Everybody said, “Congratulations!” And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so unhappy.” Sometimes it takes getting exactly what we think we want to show us that we really don’t want it at all.

  I took an unpaid leave of absence, and that leave made it clear I didn’t want to go back. So now I write full-time and do consulting.

  I was raped in graduate school. Here’s how it happened.

  I was dating a person, and we were on the verge of breaking up, but I still really liked him. I was supposed to fly and go see him the next day. But there was this other guy I’d known a long time, a graduate student at UNC. He was really smart, really charming.

  I was hanging out with him and others at a bar one night. I remember saying to my friend, “I’m going home with him.” My friend said, “Really?” and I said, “Yup, I don’t care. I’m so annoyed with the guy I’m supposed to be dating.”

  I was in a relationship with this person who didn’t live anywhere near me. But meanwhile there was this really great guy who could be something more, who was closer to me in age, and who wanted to hang out right now. I didn’t think we would have sex; I thought we’d just watch TV and go to sleep. I had done that many times with other guys.

  It didn’t have to turn into something so ugly.

  So I left with X. (That’s what I’ll call him.) My friend at the bar expressed worry, but I was like, “No, I’m fine!” I wasn’t a kid, I was close to thirty. I knew I was drunk, but I thought things would be fine. Why wouldn’t they be? We all knew each other. We’d known each other for years.

  I remember X not talking to me at all in the car. I remember thinking that was weird. This funny sweet guy from the bar disappeared as soon as we got in the car.

  * * *

  I was drunk, but I thought things would be fine. Why wouldn’t they be? We all knew each other. We’d known each other for years.

  * * *

  Once we got to his apartment, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t open my door or undo my seat belt. He had to help me out. We entered his place through a sliding glass door that had a lip to it, and I tripped over it and fell on the carpet. When I fell, I burst out laughing. He said, “Shut up. My brother is sleeping.”

  His words were really harsh.

  After he spoke to me, I was like, okay, fine, this guy’s an asshole. I proceeded to stretch out on the carpet and go to sleep. My attitude was, “Fuck you, go upstairs to bed without me. I’ll just sleep here.”

  But he picked me up and got me upstairs to his bedroom. He had a giant bed. I said, “Excellent,” and plopped onto the bed fully clothed, with shoes. I was instantly asleep.

  He woke me by grabbing my feet and pulling off my shoes. He was standing at the foot of the bed, naked. Then he grabbed my pants and yanked. I remember hanging on to my underwear with both hands. I hung on to my underwear and said “No” the whole time he was touching me.

  He took my shirt off. Then he pulled my bra off without unclipping it, and I remember how violent that felt—my unclipped bra got caught on my hair, my earrings, my face. He just ripped the bra over my head. And I was this floppy thing. I could barely sit up. He was holding me up with one hand and tearing my shirt and my unclipped bra over my head with the other.

  I don’t own that shirt anymore. I gave it away.

  He was bigger than me, and I was still holding on to my underwear with both hands, hanging on for dear life. He flipped me over. Put an elbow in my back, tore my underwear to the side, and raped me from the back with my underwear still on. I do remember he used a condom.

  I passed out.

  The next day I remember I woke up to the daylight and sounds of birds. Everything hurt. I was so sick—there are no words for how sick I felt.

  * * *

  I was so sick—there are no words for how sick I felt.

  * * *

  I can’t remember asking X for a ride but I must have done so. Somehow I got home, got my bag, went to the airport, and got on a plane.

  I vomited the entire plane ride, until I was dry heaving. The flight attendant was so nice to me. And I was trying to be funny, too, making jokes about being airsick. But I’d never really thrown up from drinking or from flying, so I wondered if I had food poisoning.

  Sitting there, on that plane, I was thinking inane thoughts. “Wow, what did I eat? Was it the crab cakes?”

  How about, “I was brutalized for the last six hours?”

  When did the reality that I was raped hit me?

  Right away. No doubt in my mind. I was lying there, holding my underwear, yelling, “No!”

  But I didn’t report him.

  I was raped off campus. I didn’t know who to report it to. I could cancel my flight, get a rape kit, report to a doctor? No way.

  Also, I have a psychiatric disability: bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed when I was twenty-one. In my mind, the prosecutor would say, “We can’t believe anything she says.”

  Another reason: I was raped before, when I was thirteen.

  After I was raped the second time, I thought, “Am I doomed to be a victim forever?” The next day, at the airport, I called a friend and said, “I can’t believe I’m a person who was raped twice. What does that say about me?”

  Then my brain shut off. I put it away. I had other things to do—I was busy, I had to finish my doctorate in three years! And luckily I never saw my rapist again.

  Years later, I decided to report.

  I didn’t report it to the police, only to the university. I wanted to have it counted. And I finally had enough cultural capital where I felt like I wouldn’t feel demeaned.

  I thought I had nothing to lose, but I was wrong.

  Reporting was awful.

  Here’s how it went:

  In July 2014, I decided I was going to report.

  So I called, and it took four or five people to get me to the right office at UNC, an office where someone could take my report.

  The whole time I was thinking, “If I weren’t me, if I weren’t a law professor at this university, if I were a scared eighteen-year-old, when would I give up?” There were so many hurdles I had to cross. The website was so bad I couldn�
�t find anything. There was no “If you have been raped, call this number,” except to call 911. And I didn’t want to call 911.

  Was the website hurdle too high? I think it was too high for 50 percent of the population. Then UNC would lose another 25 percent with the phone tag I had to play. I finally reached the guy, and he told me to come back next Tuesday. That waiting period? Having to wait so many days, UNC would lose all but 5 percent of rape survivors who want to report.

  So as I got ready to go to the Title IX office, I put on a nice dress, nice shoes. I wanted to look, literally, as powerful and forbidding as possible. I’m a law professor. I have a Ph.D. I introduced myself to the receptionist on the phone as “Dr. Pryal.” My reporting experience, I believed, was going to be very different from that of the undergraduates who feel so powerless in the face of these administrators.

  I wondered, “Why is it that I am meeting with a white guy? Was there not a woman available to fill this role? They couldn’t find a single woman to do this job?”

  I was going to talk about one of the most deeply personal events of my life with a white male who, given his biology, could not have had my experience. He was not a woman who had been raped by a man, and never could be. As I was ushered into an office with windows instead of walls, and with other people milling around outside, I felt totally exposed.

  * * *

  I wondered, “Why is it that I am meeting with a white guy? Was there no woman available to fill this role?”

  * * *

  Before going to UNC that day, I had written a detailed statement because I didn’t want to describe the play-by-play of my rape aloud. I handed this man the paper. After he read it, he said, “Where was your assailant’s apartment?” I said, “I don’t know.” I was super poised. I knew that if you get too emotional, they might think you’re nuts, especially if (like me) you have a major mental illness.