WashU #MeToo Stories
COMPILED BY EMMA HOWARD
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOMINIQUE SENTEZA
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOMINIQUE SENTEZA
The #MeToo Movement gained its credence in Hollywood, in a sphere of celebrities who already have a platform to speak from. But, the experiences those survivors have reported span to people everywhere, in every city, in every field, in every setting – including in our Wash U community. XMag has collected a compilation of stories for those affected in our Wash U community to share their experiences with sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. These are their stories.
**Please note that these stories were collected via a voluntary survey and therefore include a limited perspective. While these excerpts portray the experiences of heterosexual cisgender women, it is essential to remember and reflect upon the fact that the LGBT+ community faces higher rates of sexual violence – rates that increase exponentially for the transgender community and people of color.** “I was drinking with my group of friends freshman year. We all lived together and knew each other pretty well. My humor is super flirty and everyone was super okay with that and knew I was not interested in any friends. But I guess this time one of my guy friends was taking everything too seriously. Since we lived in the same building I was hanging out pretty late after other people have left. He ended up not letting me leave and forced me to give him a blow job. I was able to leave since I was so trashed he was worried about me and wanted to be sure I was okay. The worst part was that he did honestly care about me as a friend he just didn't believe me when I was saying no. I thought about telling our friends but the next week he got a serious girlfriend and I knew nothing else was going to happen so I let it go.”
~Anonymous “I was dating a guy for a year and a half up until this past September. The relationship was riddled with emotional abuse, and every day I am thankful that I managed to leave. One time, we were having sex in the shower, but things weren't quite working out - mechanically - if you see what I'm saying. Instead of acting the way most people would in this situation and just giving up, he slammed me face first into the wall and forced himself into me. I started crying, less out of pain, but more out of shock, and despite the fact that he noticed I was crying, he still continued and told me that I must have been okay with it since I eventually stopped crying. Internally I justified it as the situation being normal; he was frustrated with me, and that was an appropriate reaction from him. It took me until this past November to finally come to terms with the fact that this was sexual assault, and I have still been completely unable to tell anyone about it. It is difficult to recognize that sexual assault can happen even if you are in a relationship with someone. Sometimes it is assumed that consent is always given if you are in a sexually active relationship, which is simply not true, and it took me almost six months to finally accept that.
~Anonymous “I was drunk, he was sober, and he had offered to walk me home. Thinking that our relationship was completely platonic, when he asked to cuddle for a minute before I went to sleep I agreed. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I felt his hand slide up my shirt and grope my chest. Fortunately, I was conscious enough to push him away. Not knowing what to do, I lied still, pretending to be asleep until he left. I will never forget that gross, dirty feeling of being taken advantage of while drunk/asleep, even though it never got further than a grope.”
~Anonymous “As a junior in high school, my English professor sexually assaulted me, threatening to fail me in the AP class, hurting my chances of getting into a top university, if I reported him. Out of shame, I did not report. After telling a friend I believed I could trust, they spread the story until the entire school knew and openly mocked me in the hallways. When I finally decided to report him the last day of my senior year, my principal threatened to expel me if I didn’t drop the charges. We lived in a small town where this information would tarnish the school’s and his reputation. He valued that over his students safety and justice for what happened to me. The only way to keep my admission into WashU was to drop all accusations and tell investigators I had lied for attention. The reporting process ended up causing more damage than the assault. I still wonder how many other victims there are and will be.”
~Anonymous Anonymous survivor recounts the story below from her couch.
*“Before:
My story begins with being naive and trusting. In the beginning of my freshman year, I got really close with a group of guy friends, all of whom were fun and chill and gave you the “Hey you’re one of the guys” type of feel. Despite growing closeness there was also growing tension with one guy in the friend group. Some things he said or did seemed to make some of the guys and other people slightly question him, but since he was the one I happen to be closer to, I would always stand up for him trying to tell people to peel off the layers and see that he really was a good guy, to just look at his intentions and talk to him if you need him to realize his impact. What I didn't realize was that, in many ways, I was reinforcing his behavior by making it seem like he was oblivious to what he was doing. Big mistake. He was one of those people that could just charm anyone that he met; the type of charisma that enchants you into believing his words to the point where they could do no wrong. He always had the room’s attention and was able to start conversation with anyone. I later recognize his enchanting charismatic ways makes you blind to who he truly is: a manipulator. Some of my friends in a different friend group were not as easily swayed by his charisma, and warned me about his actions and words. They heard his actual words, I heard my caring best friend. They told me to be very cautious, but I didn’t listen and trusted that he would never hurt me since I was different. As we got closer, I felt like I could tell him anything and we would talk for long periods of time and hang out decently often to build the friendship. I felt like he was one of those people who was actually able to see who I was, and therefore was always able to say the right things in such a seemingly natural way. For my first fall break I decided to stay on campus. My first night, my roommate left earlier in the day and only a few people on my floor remained, including one of my suitemates. We all decided to try to go to a club that night to celebrate the beginning of break. We started getting dressed up - dancing and blasting music throughout the suite drinking heavily before our night out. The pregame took over and eventually most of them got too drunk to make it off the floor. Everyone passed out asleep in their respective rooms. I, on the other hand, was still decently drunk and couldn’t sleep quite yet. I decided to text some other friends who I knew were still around. I ended up hanging out with them for a while, when my closer guy friend *Michael, shows up. We all ended up hanging out together late into the night, until I decided I was finally ready to go to sleep. Michael offers to walk me home, despite being really close to my freshman dorm, but I knew I was still a little drunk so I let him. The entire walk over we just talked about random things, and when we reached my building I began to say goodbye when he told me he wanted to stop by to see a friend of his that also lived in my building. We entered together. I reached my floor and I started to hug goodbye, since I knew his friend lived on a different floor, but he started to insist that his friend was probably asleep. He then asked if we could hang out longer. I agreed telling him that my roommate was out of town and my entire floor was passed out asleep, so it shouldn’t be a problem. How convenient. We entered and sat on my bed for a while when the conversation about hook ups and hook up culture began. He asked me questions about my opinion on it, and I answered honestly and openly about how I like to think I’m an easy-going person when it comes to hooking up and hate making a big deal out of it. He leaned in and kissed me. I stared at him confused and questioned him. He used my answer against me. I sat and wondered how to make a counter argument. If I said no, it would look like I lied, and if I said yes then I would engage in something I didn’t want to be a part of. He leaned in again and I kissed back without coming to a conclusion. Before I knew it we started making out, but a small voice in the back of my drunken brain was yelling “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”. I pulled away and sat back and said, “I don’t want to continue, (thinking quickly of an excuse),…. I previously hooked up with your roommate and didn’t want to come between the two of you.” I knew that he knew about his roommate and I, and I assumed he would let it go and we would stop. But it wasn’t clear enough, for he went on to tell me that his roommate never really cared about me and that they talked about me multiple times and were comfortable knowing they each got with me. I sat and thought some more, unsure of what to say, but still recognized that I felt hurt that I was essentially passed on like any other reusable object. He proceeded to lean in again and I didn’t react fast enough to pull away. I emerged into active recognition of what I was doing again; I pulled away. I looked at him and told him that I was afraid of ruining our friendship that I didn’t want this type of friendship with him. He again reassured me that we would stay friends, and that this is what a friendship could look like between us. I again sat there thinking and confused about what he just said. He leaned in and kissed me again, this time removing my shirt and taking off his. We start again when he bluntly asks me to blow him. At that point I became very aware of his intentions, “No.” “Why not?” “Because I don’t want to…” “Ok, I understand…” We continue to make out. I continuously felt a pit in my stomach growing. Something told me this conversation wasn’t over. I was right. He asked again. “No, I said I don’t want to.” “What, are you just uncomfortable?” “No, I just don’t want to.” If I agreed and said I was uncomfortable nothing would stop. I just knew it. Something told me that my answers were irrelevant until he got to fulfill his desire. “Blow me.” “No.” “Why not” “Because I don’t want to” “That’s not a reason” “What do you mean? I just don’t want to” “That’s no excuse” “Well I’m not gonna do it” “Arrrghh… I just don’t get it” For what seemed like every few minutes, I got questioned and shot down as to why I wouldn’t just consent to blowing him. I kept reaffirming my answer, over and and over until I got tired of reaffirming my answer. I questioned my reason. Maybe “not wanting to” wasn’t a good enough reason? Maybe I’m being to harsh? I gave up. I felt small. “Fine.” After: I told him he needed to leave. It was late and I wanted sleep. He agreed. Grabbed his things and left. I sat in my bed stunned. I sobbed as soon as that door closed. I was alone, hurt, confused, and plain disappointed in myself. I reached for my phone and tried to call a friend. After a few tries, I call another guy friend of mine from home. When I told him what happened, he only reaffirmed that it was my fault since I was drinking. He hates drinking. I should’ve known he would only focus on that and not on my cry for help. I went straight to bed frustrated. I woke up the next morning. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “It was miscommunication. Nothing bad happened. You overreacted. You’re stronger than that.” I then remembered I had plans to hang out with him later that night. I went to see him and acted like nothing was wrong. We hooked up. “See it’s all repaired. It was just miscommunication” That’s what I kept telling myself. I started to just ignore the situation and completely forget about it. Throughout the rest of my semester, I slowly began to talk to people that night. I described it as a weird pressure that prevented me from standing my ground. The more people I reached out to, the more I was able to come to recognize what actually happened to me. I was sexually assaulted. That strange pressure that convinced me out of my OWN thoughts, the blame I gave myself had a name. Those two words took over 3 months to admit to myself. Once I learned the name, I decided to confront him about it with the support of my wonderful friends who helped rebuild my strength. I was too optimistic when it came to my approach to that conversation. I got convinced that it was my fault in the conversation, and almost wished I never brought it up; I thought I missed our friendship. But I had the strongest people by my side that were able to help me work through my emotions and confusion until I was finally able to untangle myself from his manipulation. I finally got strong and started to look into taking action. Eventually I settled for a band-aid on a surgery level injury because of school policy. Now, over a year since the experience, I still feel like there are parts that are unresolved, but at least I know I wasn’t beat.” *Name change and timeline shifts ~Anonymous “I was in a frat basement my freshman year. An older boy in the frat started dancing with me. He made a move to start making out and I reciprocated. After about 30 seconds of kissing, he asked me to go up to his room. I said no, not right now, and we kept kissing. Quickly, his kissing became aggressive. I tried to pull my head back but he grabbed the back of my head and kept my face smashed against his. He was holding onto my head and my neck so tightly that I began to get a headache from his fingers pressing into the nape of my neck. He asked me again to go up to his room and I said no. I kept trying to pull away but he pushed me up against a wall so I had no way of escaping his grip. He stuck his tongue further down my throat. Finally he pulled back for a moment and I was finally able to wiggle out of his grip. I grabbed a friend and left the fraternity house. When I got back to my dorm that night, I spent hours in the shower with scorching hot water. I felt disgusting.”
~Anonymous |