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Dear Todd Akin: A Message From Women Who Have Been Raped
Dear Todd Akin: Messages from Women
On Sunday, Rep. Todd Akin had the audacity to state that women can’t get pregnant from rape if it’s “legitimate” rape. Already, tens of thousands have spoken out calling for his resignation. Even more powerfully, rape survivors have begun to speak out. Below are stories from UltraViolet members, addressed to Rep. Akin, about the realities of rape, pregnancy, and the impact this type of ignorance has on real women.
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Dear Todd Akin and like-minded conservatives, I experienced a sexual assault by a janitor in my high school, and then again by a Resident Adviser in college. When I was 15 and in the winter Musical Theater production, we stayed after school for rehearsals, and would often go to the cafeteria to purchase soda from the vending machines. In order to get there, we had to enter doors to the industrial arts corridor, and then exit through doors at the other end which led to the cafeteria. One evening, during dress rehearsal when we were in the building late in the evening, a few of us went to purchase soda and found the doors to the cafeteria locked. A janitor came through the entry doors to the corridor and we asked if he would open the cafeteria doors. He said yes, but only if I would give him a kiss. None of us moved as we thought this was a joke, but it wasn’t. He approached me and insisted that I kiss him. At that moment fear befell all three of us, but what could we do? We were trapped between locked doors and a very large man. He lowered his face to mine and as a confused 15 year old, I gave him a small peck on the cheek so he would go away. He said, and I quote, “you call that a kiss?” My friends and I ran to get past him to the other door, at which point he laughed and said he was only “joking,” and unlocked the other doors. We didn’t bother turning around and going back. To this day my stomach turns when I remember that incident, and I wish that I had thought to tell someone, but I had never been taught that what he did was grossly inappropriate and a sexual assault – I had, however, been taught to be polite and respect my elders, which was what allowed my 15-year-old-self to be victimized. As you know, and RA is a fellow college student who is employed by a university to support and advise younger students on the floor of a dormitory. I both lived and worked in the dorm as welcome desk staff, and had to work with the perpetrator both before and after the assault. I was 20 years old. One evening during second semester I had gone to this RA’s room, which was kitty-corner to my own, to talk and seek some needed stress relief. I was under stress, emotionally drained, and inadvertently fell asleep while he took a phone call. I don’t know how long I was asleep, nor what time it was when I was awoken, but what woke me was the feeling of something heavy pressing down on my back (I was on my stomach). In my just-waking-up state, I slowly realized that the heaviness was also moving, and it was moving up and down against my body. I realized I was being violated by the RA. I found myself gripped by terror without any knowledge of what to do – I was alone and pinned down and all I could do was stay still and hope he wouldn’t do something worse. He “finished” and left me there, sticky and disgusting and feeling completely humiliated and ashamed, and acted as if I had been asleep the entire time. I couldn’t leave until the next morning, and then, to add insult to injury, not only did I have to continue to live kitty-corner to him the rest of the year, I had to work with him later the same day. When I told him to stay away from me, he had the unmitigated gall to act surprised and ask me why I was upset. I didn’t have the words to describe what had happened to me until after I sought professional counseling, because I, apparently similar to you, was uneducated about rape and sexual assault, and thought that only strangers committed rape by jumping out of dark places. At 20 years old, I learned that this is a myth in the most sickening way possible. My body didn’t shut down, BECAUSE IT CAN’T, that’s not how biology works and if you don’t know that you should go back to school and take a biology course in human growth and development with an emphasis on WOMEN’S bodies. Even after counseling, and decades later, I still get sick to my stomach and want to throw up just retelling what happened.
Clara, MI
