Raped in Nashville, TN
On Friday morning, my friend got raped.
She had let a guy come into her house who she knew - they had had a fling a few years ago. He’s engaged now and she had explicitly told him multiple times, 4 times to be exact, that he couldn’t touch her, and that she was not interested in messing around with him now that he’s engaged. She got into her own bed, fully clothed, rolled over, and went to sleep.
When she woke up, he was behind her, having anal intercourse with her.
Stop.
Yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t she make him leave? Why did she let him in? Was she hammered? Was he hammered? Why were they hanging out in the first place? Why was he in her room?
None of that matters. Her getting raped isn’t her fault.
She threw him off of her. He was confused and said, “What? We were fooling around. I thought you wanted to.” She said, “We weren’t fooling around. I was asleep.”
She called me in a really confused way. She doesn’t want to ruin his life. But like, he raped her. Right? Did I think she could have maybe consented in her sleep? How can somebody that you know and would even consider a friend do something like that? He goes to the women’s marches though… with signs. I mean, she wasn’t violently attacked in an alley behind a bar. Is that still rape? He talks a lot about women’s rights and stuff - even poverty and racism. How can somebody who talks about stuff like that still unhook a woman’s bra in the middle of the night and shimmy her skinny jeans down to her knees and have anal intercourse with her? Did you know that they don’t call rape “sex” because sex is supposed to be consensual, and intimate, and kind, and loving, and pleasurable for both parties. Rape isn’t sex.
I told her to come over to my house after I got home from the grocery so she could talk. I asked her what she wanted. She wanted for it to not have happened to her because she doesn’t want to do this. She doesn't want to go to trial. She doesn’t want to be ripped apart in court. She doesn’t want a lawyer to tell a jury that, “She wanted this. Why did she let him in and why has she been liking his tweets for years?” She doesn’t want to tell a million people. She doesn’t want for this to be her story. She shouldn’t have to fucking deal with this - she’s the victim here, not the rapist. Why is she the one who’s having to make all the decisions and do all the work?!
But more importantly, for her, she doesn’t want it to happen to another women. She doesn’t want for somebody, who she thought she knew, to actually be a predator. With the voice that she has and the support that she has, she can do something to prevent this - even if that’s just by telling her story. Because, what does he do to his fiancé while she’s sleeping? Has this happened before? Can it happen again? If he can do this to someone that he knows, imagine what he could do to just anybody. I asked her something that I ask myself all the time: “If she were a little girl, what would we do, what would we say, how would we help her?” We’d stop asking her questions, we’d document all of this, we’d make decisions later, and we’d believe every word that she said. We googled, “What do I do if I get raped.” We called the hotline where no one picked up. We kept googling and calling and finally found out that there’s only one hospital to go to in Nashville where you can get a rape kit done: Nashville General Hospital. So we drove there and honestly, we just didn’t know what to do. Do you just go to the ER and say, “I was raped. What now?” We didn’t stay. We didn’t even park. We drove back across town to the Midtown Police Precinct on Saturday evening… it was closed. Did you know that police Precincts close? We do now. So we called the non-emergency line and waited for an officer to arrive in the parking lot where my friend had to tell her whole story to a man in a uniform - who was kind and attentive and answered all of our questions - he asked us for his name. He validated my friend by saying, “Everyone knows that you can’t take something that hasn’t first been given to you.” He then escorted us to Nashville General Hospital where my friend got her vitals taken by a female nurse named Karina, got some blood drawn, had to retell the story to a detective - Craig, also a male - and then again to Jenny, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, who is absolutely fantastic by the way, and then again to an extremely kind man from the Sexual Assault Center of Nashville. He was kind and open enough to share that he was sexually assaulted which led him to his current work. He mentioned that it must be hard for my friend to keep telling her story to the men that were coming in and out of her room asking questions. He was right. But my friend is brave, and smart, and kind, and clear. So she just kept telling it over and over and over. She didn’t leave out any details. Even the details that answered the officers question, “Ma'am, when you say he had pulled your pants down, were you wearing underwear?” “Yes, officer,” she answered, “he had pulled those down too.”
The nurses said that they had more fun with us than they had in a long time. That’s because, like children, we had decided we didn’t want to say, “penis” or “anus” or “rectum” anymore so we lightened the mood a little and started calling it his “peepee” and her “poop-hole.” That sentence turned into, “You actually and literally don’t just get to put your peepee in my poop-hole while I’m sleeping.” And at midnight on a Saturday when you’ve been talking about penises and rectums all day long, that sentence makes for a welcome laugh. Oh, but here’s another word that came up that night: probe. Gentlemen, and those of you who maybe don’t know this, when a woman goes to see her gynecologist, we put our feet up in these cold metal stirrups (mine sometimes puts socks on them so they might feel a little more inviting and less torture chamber-y), and the gyno lubes up a probe, inserts it into your vagina, and literally cranks it open so they can stick fingers up there and feel around - or in this case, check for tearing and get a giant q-tip up there. However, when you’re seeing a SANE nurse to get a rape kit done, she can’t put lubrication on the probe because it could potentially kill any DNA or other stuff that might be left over from the creep’s peepee that he decided to insert into you without your consent. So imagine you are violently attacked and raped and some guy has been thrusting his penis into your vagina over and over and over until he comes. And then you go to get a rape kit done, and to check for vaginal bruising and tearing, which has absolutely occurred, and the SANE nurse can’t even lube up the probe that she’s going to insert into your vagina and crank open. Not to mention the discomfort of getting your poop-hole swabbed…
After getting a prescription for HIV medication that often makes you violently ill for 28 days, three separate bandaids covering spots where they had tried to get blood, a shot full of antibiotics that covered multiple STDs in the butt cheek, and having her mouth swabbed and everything else swabbed, we finally left the hospital at 1am.
What I want to tell you is that this story is rare. Hardly happens. Sucks for my friend but I’m sure she’ll be fine cause she’s brave and kind and smart and clear. But it’s too late for that isn’t it. We all know it’s not rare. We all know the hashtag #metoo has been used over a million times on Instagram alone. We all know that our current president thinks that it’s ok to “grab ‘em by the pussies.” We all know the term, “locker-room talk” is appalling, unacceptable, and actually does translate into dehumanizing other people. It speaks to a sense of entitlement and power over someone else that is scary, threatening, and, for lack of a better term, just totally fucked up.
“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
“There is no greater threat to the critics, cynics, and fear mongers than a woman who is willing to fall because she has learned how to rise.”
“‘no’
might make them angry
but it will make you free
- If no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger.”
“Scream so that one day a hundred years from now another sister will not have to dry her tears wondering where in history she lost her voice.”
Because my friend so openly shared with me, with the officer, with the nurse, with the detective, with the counselor… I’ll share with you. That's how stories work.
#metoo:
The first time I had sex, I was in a hot tub and I told the guy that I wasn’t going to have sex with him, especially not in a hot tub. Before I knew it, he was having sex with me and there was blood everywhere. I ran into my friend’s room leaving wet, bloody footprints up the stairs. My friends put me in a warm bathtub and we talked about how embarrassing it was. We didn’t tell my friend’s dad who was a doctor because nobody wanted me to get in trouble. None of us have talked about it since.
#metoo:
Another time, I had slept with a guy a few times and I woke up to him with his penis in my rectum too and I pretended to stay asleep and just roll over so he’d stop. He got up and jerked off in the bathroom and got back in bed. In the morning he was like, “Hey, funny story: I think I might have tried to have sex with you while you were sleeping? Sorry about that.” I didn’t see him again.
#metoo:
I have more stories than I’d like to admit about having sex with someone just because I wanted them to finally leave me alone.
#metoo:
One time a guy said, “It’ll be quicker if you just let me.” I agreed with him.
Each one of those times, I did nothing. I didn’t call the cops. I didn’t smack them away from me. I didn’t believe that they were wrong. I didn’t know that I had a choice. I thought that part of my power was making men want to have sex with me. And honestly, it’s not hard to make a scumbag want to have sex with you.
But what I know now, is that I get to have sex with someone who I want to have sex with who wants to have sex with me too.
On Saturday night, as I thought about my many stories from my past, I wanted that hospital to be filled with women - women who know exactly what consent is and that they have a right to it. Women who are willing to say the name of the asshole who thinks he could put his penis where it isn’t welcome. Women who trust that they’re not alone. If every woman who got raped on a Saturday night at some bar or in some frat house or at her job showed up at Nashville General Hospital with a friend holding her hand needing to see Jenny and talk to Craig and call in an order for HIV meds, people might get the picture. See something, say something. Know better, do better. Be the change you wish to see in the world. What ever your bumper sticker is for making a stand, I want to live that.
And here’s what I wish I had known as a young woman: yes, worse things happen to good people, and you are important too. Taking care of YOU is important. Because standing up for yourself, is also taking a stand for everyone else. If every guy who casually rapes someone while she’s sleeping had a record, then it would be way more likely that any guy that grabs pussies outside of bars or in her place of work, would maybe think again, or think at all. If every rapist had the cops calling him to let him know he’d been accused of rape, when he had just thought they had been fooling around, maybe the next time he and his friends are talking about getting laid, they’ll be more attune to the ‘ol “locker room talk” and tell their buddies, “Woah dude. Rape jokes actually aren’t funny.”
And here’s what else I know: to every person who doesn’t call the cops, who didn’t get a rape kit, who’s embarrassed that she got played by a jerk who never deserved her in the first place, I stand with you too. This system isn’t fair. And, while I’d like to ask you to call me and I’ll go with you to see Craig the detective, and Jenny the SANE nurse, I understand if you don’t want to and I honor that too. This is your story and you get to choose how it shows up in your life, not anyone else. Not the asshole that raped you, or anyone who shames you for what you chose to do next.
Every name in this true story has been changed to protect the person's identity.
If you’ve been sexually assaulted, please call the Nashville Sexual Assault Center
Crisis & Support: 1-800-879-1999
Local Nashville: 615.259.9055
If you own a place of business where people are often sexually assaulted (I’m talking to you bar owners - did you know that alcohol is the most common date rape drug?) please help make your place of business safer by becoming a Safe Bar.
From SAC:
Someone has disclosed to me that they were assaulted. What do I say? -
Listen. Be there. Don't be judgmental.
Be patient. Remember, it will take your friend/family member some time to deal with the trauma.
Help to empower your friend or family member. Sexual assault is a crime that takes away an individual's power, it is important not to compound this experience by putting pressure on your friend or family member to do things that he or she is not ready to do yet.
Let your friend/family member know that he or she has the right to report the rape or sexual assault to law enforcement.
Let your friend/family member know that professional help is available through SAC. Encourage him or her to contact the SAC crisis support line, but realize that only your friend can make the decision to get help.
If your friend is willing to seek medical attention or report the assault, offer to accompany him or her wherever she/he needs to go (hospital, police station, campus security, etc.)
To my friend,
I love you and I'm so proud of you every day.
Love always,
k
ph: Kelsey Cherry