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Oh wow, I don’t think she’s ever shared this before. On her note about telling her husband it wasn’t rape, her denial, I had a friend in college who casually discussed a sexual experience she had that I immediately recognized as rape but she very obviously did not. I gently told her that it was rape and I watched the realization sink in and immediately after the denial. I still wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but maybe (hopefully) at some point it helped her.
I had a similar experience, but I wasn't sure what to tell her. I felt like if she didn't see it that way, maybe it would be unfair of me to make her see it that way? Or that maybe she knew exactly what it was and that was her way of coping, and I didn't have the right to tell her otherwise. I just got quiet and let her keep talking. I know she ended up making a #MeToo post years later, but I don't think that was included in it. I don't know if she ever came to terms with it. Sometimes I feel guilty about not talking to her about it. I know there's a slim chance that her reporting it would have made a difference, but who knows how many other girls he did it to?
I remember in watching the show The Wilds, a character wailing when it sunk in that she was molested by her physical therapist, years after the fact. One of the most haunting scenes I've ever watched, because I wailed that exact same wail when I came to terms with the fact that what happened to me as a child was sexual assault, also years after the fact. You never forget feeling or witnessing that moment.
The Wilds is a pretty stupid show overall, IMO. But the story line where it suddenly hits Martha that she was molested by someone she trusted (and that her refusal to testify against him let him get away with it) was heartbreaking.
I also had such a conversation with a young woman, and I will never forget her expression when she “reckoned” with the thought. Women are strongly socialized to blame themselves for rapes by “friends”, “boyfriends”, etc.
It took me some time to recognize that my husband had raped me and it wasn’t my fault.
I said for a long time that my hope was for people to be able to talk about sexual assault the same way they now talk about cancer. Tell someone you’ve survived cancer, and you’re celebrated. I want the same response for sexual assault survivors. I want no shame with the victim. The shame of the act belongs with the perpetrator: they’re the ones who committed the heinous, shameful act.
My hope has also changed, however. And it is less a hope than a renewed determination. I want this violence to end. Sexual violence persists not because of something unchangeable in our human condition, it exists because power structures are in place that allow it to happen. Those power structures are so pervasive that no one is immune from them. They breed thoughts like “I must have done something to cause this.” And our society agrees: “Yes, you brought this upon yourself.” That is false and it must change. The violence ends when the power structure changes.
Goddess I love this woman. I absolute hate that this happened to her, but I am so thankful that she has the strength to talk about it. Her words are a balm to this primal wound so many of us share.
The amnesia, the denial, the self-blame, the journey it takes to come to recognizing the violence for what it is, and the blessings of kind-hearted friends who will listen and speak truth in a nonjudgmental manner.
I’ve navigated a lot of unwanted advances. This was not for me to navigate. This was beyond that. That’s why I’ve talked so much about acquaintance rape, because many people still think of rape as a man jumping out of the bushes. This was a friend who made a unilateral decision.
And so often we refuse to see that this person was never a friend at all - they were predators even before the violent betrayal, often planning and waiting for an opportunity where they can make that unilateral decision.
I will always love Mariska Hargitay. Powerful stuff.
I was raped by a "friend", as well. The feeling of betrayal was also a real struggle for me because I genuinely thought he had my back.
I hate that this happened to you, too. For years I kept making excuses for my "friends", as if it wasn't really their fault they sexually harassed and assaulted me. I thought they ultimately cared about my well-being as a beautiful and charming young woman and that they were disgusting, brainwashed, but redeemable, "like all men are". The betrayal hurt for a long time, but then I realized I was betraying myself by making excuses for them. I was wrong, they weren't ever my friends. My judgment was clouded by my naivete, and theirs by depravity.
The name was familiar and then I realized her mother had been a famous actress, so-called “sex-symbol” (poor her! She died in a car crash when her children were little).
Mariska seems like a very worthy, hardworking, compassionate woman. I admit I was a bit surprised to read that she too was sexually assaulted, because I thought that a privileged (financially speaking) woman like her would not be violated like that.
The fact that she was demonstrates - again - that all women run this risk. Unless you have 24h protection, like a queen or something, all women are potential victims. This axiom hits me again, and again, with renewed and brutal certainty.
Like many women before her, she spun poison into gold. Brava, Mariska!
I admit I was a bit surprised to read that she too was sexually assaulted, because I thought that a privileged (financially speaking) woman like her would not be violated like that.m
I’m curious why you thought that?
I incorrectly thought that women with money can curate a life where they don’t meet rapists, OR that the rapists will not attack rich women because they can fight back. I probably took the logic of this article too far.
That’s an interesting article, but it’s not accurate. I have spent portions of my life poor and living in neighborhoods like the one she describes (and the cops didn’t bother to come for plenty of calls, because it was a tiny station for a place with a high rate of drug-related incidents) and portions living among wealthy people (I wasn’t wealthy myself), and there are rapists, perverts and pedophiles at every level of society (some of them very very famous, like Polanski, Woody Allen, and Harvey Weinstein). They, too, “rescue” women and expect payment, or they offer them internships or jobs and then expect the women to “express gratitude”, they put roofies in really nice cocktails or trap them in out of the way parts of prep schools or Ivy League campuses, and these women are expected to stay silent just like all women.
LIt’s true that if a stranger rapes a wealthy woman, the police will come when she calls, so it’s likely that the stranger danger is a higher, but wealthy women know just as many perverts personally as poor women do.
Mariska Hargitay has also led an effort to increase testing rates of collected SAE kits. Apparently police collect these evidence kits and there are many thousands of them sitting around in storage untested.
My guess is the testing is underresourced financially and deprioritised. And no wonder that so few of even the reported rapes lead to a conviction!
SVU had an episode with Jennifer Love Hewitt that showcased this. It's so awful and I'm grateful for all of her efforts.