I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.
--E.M. Forster
For those of you who read my column with any sort of regularity, my feelings on sexual assault are well-known. I hate it. I hate it so much that just thinking about rape and other forms of sexual violence literally makes me nauseated.
Given the passion and voracity with which I've written about the issue here at Duke, you might be surprised to know that this wasn't always the case. In fact, my physical disgust is a relatively recent phenomenon. For the majority of my life I frankly didn't think much about sexual assault.
As I revealed last spring in my column "The longest of weeks," that all changed spring semester of my freshman year. I met a woman. I met her in passing at a local restaurant, a purely random encounter for which I will forever be grateful. She opened my eyes to things that I had never seen before. She taught me so much about pain, about courage and about fragility.
It was with her that I first became witness to the realities of sexual violence, that I saw its devastating impact upon a woman's vitality.
My first love also taught me about emotional scars, principally that most people try desperately to hide them. When I first looked into her eyes I saw so many things. I saw intelligence, playfulness, self-confidence and intensity. What I didn't see at first, however, was pain. Crippling pain, actually, the kind of pain so vicious that she relentlessly stuffed it down into the deepest depths of her soul, hoping she might manage some day to keep it locked up in a place where it wouldn't hurt so much anymore.
She was pretty successful too. Ninety-nine percent of people who knew her probably had no clue about the scars she bore.
No matter how much she opened up to me, there were always things she held back. She particularly avoided talking about the details. She would tell me where and when and who, but she never told me how. She never described what it felt like. To this day, I have no clue as to what happened. I did, however, see the mental breakdowns, the panic that results from post-traumatic shock and its never-ending flashbacks.
I cannot ever shut out the things she and I talked about. Her words have left a permanent mark upon my character. Because of her, there is a fury inside of me that does not subside.
Last Monday, The Chronicle included a guest commentary entitled "Sexual assault reality," a first-person narrative about the Oct. 9 attack in Wannamaker Dormitory. Needless to say, the piece affected me in some very interesting ways.
For starters, it reminded me of how I felt Oct. 10, what a slap in the face it was to hear about the attack. What really hurt was that I was less than a 100 yards away from where one of my fellow students lay struggling. I was up then, too. In fact, I walked up the West-Edens Link firelane at 4:40 a.m. But I heard nothing. I was up until after sunrise. I heard nothing. Maybe if I had opened my window, maybe if I hadn't been listening to music, I might have heard something.
You know, I would have given anything to have been able to stop that attack. One of the most sobering consequences of meeting my former girlfriend three years ago is that I have felt so helpless ever since. I couldn't protect her. I couldn't protect her from the attacks that took place before I even met her and I especially couldn't protect her from her own thoughts. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't take away any of her pain.
For three years I have wished for an opportunity for redemption. And yet while someone became imprinted with a lifelong scar, I played online chess.
The Oct. 9 attack made me realize two things. First, no matter how desperately I want to change things, there's surprisingly little I can do. Despite all my rage--as the song goes--I really am just a rat in a cage.
That brings me to my second point. There are lots of other men like me in the world, men similarly affected by sexual violence. Clearly, however, there are not enough of us.
Most men, of course, are cowards. They are scared little boys afraid and embarrassed at the notion that sexual assault happens everywhere around them. They must be. How else to we reconcile the fact that only 5 percent of date rapes are reported? How else do we reconcile the fact that 10 percent of all Duke women will face some sort of sexual assault before they leave?
Either most men are cruel and indifferent to the plights of their female friends, or they feel so uncomfortable with the notion of sexual violence that they are willing to bury their heads in sand for comfort. I'm guessing it's the latter.
I'd like to end by referring to my opening quotation, which I'm including to make one final, difficult observation. When I read last Monday's piece I was touched but also disappointed, disappointed because it had been written anonymously.
I know that I am in the sharp minority of people who do not judge victims of sexual violence. I can write until my hands cramp up that one of the strongest people I've ever met was a victim of rape, but it's not going to change how much people gossip and how fear and insecurity will make them label you as responsible for your suffering.
I can say without a doubt how committed I am to stopping sexual violence only because of the physical nausea I feel every time I write a column like this. I have that feeling because someone offered me a glimpse into their most painful memories. Before my eyes were opened, though, I used to be ashamed and embarrassed about sexual assault just like everyone else.
There is a conflict to be fought, a fight that only victims of sexual violence can wage, namely society's dismissal of its victims as somehow responsible for the attacks made upon them. I wish I could wage that fight for you, but I can't.
People are going to hurt you for being brave, they are going to make you feel miserable and vulnerable and worthless. I'm so sorry for that, but we are going to need you to be brave all the same.
Nick Christie is a Trinity senior and an associate sports editor for The Chronicle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.