This semester, I have become increasingly aware of the problem of sexual assault on Colgate’s campus, on other campuses, in the U.S., in the world. It is a huge problem, but many people at Colgate are coming together to work on addressing it in our community.

In order to understand the problem and to feel how powerful and urgent it is, it has been important to hear the stories of victims/survivors. We have read them in the Sexual Assault Expose section of this website and on bathroom stalls and have heard others at the Speak Out. However, all of the stories that I have been hearing are from women. Male survivors need to be part of the conversation.

According to the Campus Climate Survey, 7% of men have been sexually assaulted since coming to Colgate. Sexual assault is defined as non-consensual oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Of the 686 men who took the survey, 48 had been sexually assaulted since coming to Colgate. 48 is not an insignificant number. The rates of sexual abuse and attempted sexual assault are even higher. These numbers are probably underestimates as it is likely that males under-report even more than females.

I would like to put a call out for men to share their stories of being sexually assaulted or abused while at Colgate (anonymously if desired).

In what contexts has this been happening? What can be done to prevent it? What was the gender of the perpetrator? What was the aftermath like for you?

As with female victims of sexual assault, it was not your fault and you definitely deserve a voice.

On November 11th, at 11 a.m., I stood on the Chapel steps anxiously watching members of the Colgate community gather in front of me eager to hear what I had to say about sexual abuse. Below is the original speech I prepared for the speak-out. It is important to note that the movement my close peers and I have started to abolish sexual abuse in our campus is completely grassroots. We have no affiliation with any student-run or Colgate organization’ and our work is a direct product of our passion to make positive change.

My speech, entitled, “Our History, Our Reflection: Putting Colgate Back Together One Story At a Time” is the introduction to the whole event which lasted for almost 3 hours. Brave women came up and shared stories of pain, suffering, and hope; and men shared their passion to fight the abuse that occurs in our community all too frequently. Even Charlotte Johnson, dean of Colgate, stayed for the entire event braving the cold weather and tears of rage with us. We truly achieved a tangible and working sense of community that day!

Hello everyone,

My name is Angelica, and, like you all, I am concerned about the state of our community. And while there is much to discuss about building a positive and more welcoming environment, one aspect we are all especially concerned about is the sexual climate. Up until the Campus Climate Life Survey was officially released last week, there was a lot of speculation about the sexual climate here. Is it true that sexual assaults and rapes are underreported? Or is that idea a farce? And if it is true, how many assaults are not reported?

The Campus Climate Life Survey has given us a wonderful opportunity to take a look in the mirror, and get a glimpse of who we truly are as a community of students, staff, and faculty. Regardless of where we all stand in our community, we all have a significant impact on each other as members of the Colgate community. No matter how we try to divide ourselves, we all are connected by the fact that we all live in Hamilton together, take classes together, and create change together. We exist in a tightly knit environment, and while it may have been easy to avoid our reflection before it is impossible to do that now.

So, here we are. We are looking in the mirror. What do we see? We see the numbers: 45% of women in our community have experienced sexual abuse, and more than 25% of women in our community have experienced an attempted sexual assault or an attempted rape.

We all know these numbers are remarkably high; our presence shows our discontent with our reflection. But before we begin to make changes, we need to learn to our history. There are moments in our history similar to now, where survivors of sexual assault like me have stood up and demanded change. And changes were made, and revoked, and then forgotten. Our responsibility is to figure out why we have lost sight of our history, and to ensure that today’s movement will never be forgotten.

On May 11, 1984 – just 14 years after Colgate became a mixed-gendered university – an article was published in the Syracuse Post-Standard investigating curiously high numbers of reported sexual abuse. This article tells us that during the span of one school year, about 7 months, there were 8 reported rapes, 21 sexual assaults, and 20 threats of sexual assault to a nearby crisis center. That is 49 cases of reported sexual abuse by women of Colgate. How many other cases of sexual abuse in 1984 and before then occurred in our community and were not reported?

Three years later, in 1987, Kristen Buxton was gang-raped by three men in one of our fraternities. Kristen reported this crime, and it should have been an open-and-shut case. All the evidence was there! Her attackers even confessed! But they received no jail time. Once again, our community lost sight of our reflection, our history. We were distracted by our personal interests, dividing once more into smaller groups and distancing ourselves further away from Kristen. She fought the administration of Colgate and the leaders of the fraternity for justice in a 5 year lawsuit and won. Her story is out there. It is called, “Silent No More.” All we need to do is reach out to Kristen and learn from her story…

In 1990, three years after Kristen was gang-raped, another one of our sisters was sexually abused. While digging through archives in the Women’s Studies Center, I found a letter written by two very concerned RA’s to the Dean. They question the Dean and the members of the Sexual Misconduct Board for finding a man guilty of “two serious charges” of sexual assault and yet allowing him to stay on campus. If the perpetrator is still on campus with no punishment, they argue, then he is given full power to commit sexual abuse again. And again.

The authors of this letter also say, “[the perpetrator’s] presence on campus impairs the academic performance of the women directly involved and many other concerned men and women on campus.”

Jump forward 19 years to last semester when the Campus Climate Life Survey was conducted. One of our sisters writes in the discussion section: “I was raped and not only did Colgate do NOTHING, they dismissed me after I did not do well academically..when I was forced to see my rapist around campus.” This woman expresses the same exact concern the RA’s 19 years ago expressed to the dean: the perpetrators of sexual assault are still on our campus with no punishment, and this is having a direct effect on our entire community.

During the past 40 years when women have been present on this campus alongside men, there were brief moments in history that challenged our perception of sexual abuse at Colgate. And lucky for us, they have been recorded. It is important to remember, though, that these moments are extraordinary because of the simple fact that they were recorded. Know that there are many more moments in our history when our sisters were sexually abused and they were not recorded. We cannot read their stories; we can only feel the shadows of their grief in our dorm rooms, in our class rooms, on these chapel steps. Their memories have manifested themselves in the current state of our community: they are present in our reflection!

In loving memory of the women whose stories can never be read, we are going to make sure that our history will be recorded, remembered, and used to make positive change. Some of our sisters today have found the strength to write about their experiences of sexual abuse and share them with us. We have read them online and we have seen them in the bathroom stalls. These essays also provide another opportunity to look into the mirror, and get an honest reflection of our community.

In her essay, one of our sisters puts all the numbers we have been throwing around into perspective and into our hearts. She says:

In her story, she reminds us that these numbers are the women in our lives – our roommates, our classmates, our professors, our girlfriends, our sisters, our mothers. We can keep citing and gathering numbers, talking about them until we are blue in the face. But it is impossible to fully comprehend what is going on if we do not stop….acknowledge that these numbers are in fact people….and that we already know them.

How many of you know someone who has been sexually assaulted?

The most unfortunate fact about sexual assault is that once you know the true history of Colgate University, those numbers cited in the Campus Climate Survey – 25% and 45% – aren’t surprising at all. What becomes most appalling, is that these numbers have persisted over the years unnoticed. Why?

The common thread among the stories I have just shared with you – and the stories you will hear today – is that the focus is only on the victim. But we never gain sight of the perpetrator. There are brief moments, but then they slip.

Where are the perpetrators who are sexually abusing 45% our sisters? They are in our community! None of them have been punished!

Imagine! Making friends with a brother who seems cool, welcoming, smart, funny; and when you trust him enough to be alone with him, he betrays your trust and violates your physical and emotional space. He psychologically manipulates you to feel that you brought the unwanted aggression on yourself. This isn’t really sexual abuse, you’re just complaining to save your reputation. You don’t want to be labeled as a whore or a tease; you want to be labeled somewhere in between; you want to be normal.

After the traumatic experience is over, you fight to feel comfortable in your own skin again. Trying to reclaim the physical and emotional space that is yours, you shower away the dirtiness of it all hoping that it will eventually disappear. Each step you take is your first step, wavering and unsure. You keep moving with hopes that eventually you can become stable.

But you can’t leave your room without seeing him. He is there to remind you of that moment when you had no control, no power, no rights, no existence. He is there to remind you of your uncertainty – maybe you did cause that “mess;” maybe you shouldn’t have drunk so much or spent so much time talking to him; maybe you could have avoided that party; maybe…

You might even find the courage to report it a week after that horrible night. You go to campus safety and battle to the end of the interview, reliving the experience for the sake of having a solid report. You seek out the dean of discipline, and sift through his coded language. You deal with the lengthy amount of time it takes for the dean to get anything done. You deal with the fact that he is still here, passing you on the your way to class; and all of his friends, who were once your friends, are now retaliating against you – calling you a slut, a whore, a stupid bitch who asked for it. You sit in front of the sexual misconduct board. You share your story in front of him. He questions you when you are done. You leave and you wait to hear your case. The board finds him guilty, and they punish him with probation.

He is still here with no understanding of what it is exactly that he did wrong. He is not educated; he does not understand the consequences of his actions. And by law, he cannot be forced to understand, to be educated, to be punished for his crime. You cannot whisper his name to your girlfriends to warn them, lest you get punished. You still have to pass him on campus, see his friends who continue to treat you like a banished leper…

Imagine! This is the plight of 45% of our sisters! If there is one thing that divides us it is the fact that the perpetrators of sexual abuse are still terrorizing our sisters with no incentive to change their behavior. If they are not punished, why should they stop?! And furthermore, if the perpetrators are not punished, why should our sisters report their abuse?!

There is a system here that seeks to protect our justice, but this system has not encouraged our sisters to heal and the perpetrators to reform their behavior. We see this in Kristen Buxton’s story, in letters written by RA’s to the dean, in the CCLS, and in my own experience. As sad as we are about what is happening to our sisters, we all must realize that the administration has good intention in their hearts. However, the administration must also realize that their intentions are not matching the products – they are providing a forum for us to report and seek justice, and the few who do utilize this system see nothing but injustice. Our sisters are still subject to sexual abuse, and the perpetrators still remain in our community.

We assume that the perpetrators are men, but we cannot tell which men. How can we tell the perpetrators from our brothers apart, especially when the perpetrators are friendly acquaintances? Where are our brothers, the men of good-conscience?

In our attempts to understand why our community is so grief-stricken, we have further divided ourselves by gender, by class year, and by our role here at Colgate as students and administrators. This picking and pulling apart of our community, our identity, OUR REFLECTION, is completely counter-productive. Our mirror is cracked into so many pieces. We are confused by all the little fragments of our reflection. Let’s put them back together.

In order to make proper changes, we must build bridges – among men and women, students and faculty. Since we cannot decipher the perpetrators of sexual abuse from our brothers, we have all made rash assumptions about half of our campus. And further, since we never hear the true stories of our sisters who are sexually abused, we are left to assume that another half of our campus is silent and bitter. These gaps must be filled.

To our brothers, the men of good-conscience, our community needs your help in this trying time! The longer it takes you to speak-out against the horrible crimes being committed towards our sisters, the more our sisters will feel alone! To our sisters who have survived sexual abuse, speak-out and reclaim your agency! Tell us your experiences; bring your cracked pieces of the mirror to their rightful place; show us the cause of your suffering! To that 19% of our brothers who have also survived sexual abuse, please expose to us the complexities of our community! Give us the glue and help mend our fragmented reflections!

When our mirror is whole, we can finally see ourselves reflected – complete with our history, the good and the bad, our present, our agency, and our motivation to work for a more welcoming a positive future.

So, here we are. We have our fragments of the mirror. I have the history pieces. And it looks like you have the number pieces. I see some more stories over there. Good! You have the glue! Are we ready?!
Awesome!

So, this is how this speak-out is going to work:

The essays written by our sisters who have survived sexual abuse will be read aloud. We must hear them and we must learn from them. These essays are powerful and they have a lot to share. Remember, this is a safe space and we all welcome our history and the beautiful members of our community. So, I welcome the survivors of sexual abuse whose stories have not yet been written or published to come forth as well and teach us.

Also, it is our responsibility to work together to create change institutionally so that this movement will make changes, and will forever be remembered. My fellow activists and I have been working on drafting a proposal of very specific things we want to see changed in our justice system here at Colgate. We want you all – students, staff, and faculty – to be a part of this. Here is a notepad. Write down your name and email address if you are interested in helping us make these changes, and we will email you the proposal so we can work on it together. And then, as a community, we can present this to the administration and create change!

One last thing before I step down. Everyone is free to speak. Remember that our goal is to heal and become a more unified community. There will be heated moments of frustration, confusion, anger, and sadness. Try not to judge. Use these moments to empathize and create a stronger connection with each other. This is our glue! Let us channel these emotions, and transform them to be productive, to make solid changes! Thank you!

This is the short speech I gave at the Sexual Assault Speak-out. Various people requested that I post it.

I’d like to tell you about what I see as an identity crisis at Colgate. This crisis isn’t happening within any one person. It’s not happening only on frat row, or only in the dorms, or only in the offices of McGregory. This is a community crisis. I think we can all admit that we are not the community we could be – one characterized by positive qualities such as tolerance, mutual respect, interdependence, and individual integrity. Now that we recognize that there is a need, we have to reimagine this community. We have to shape it into the one we’ve always known it could be. To do this, some of us may need to reconnect with the idealism we had when we entered Colgate. I’m going to share with you a story of when I was a freshman, to help you see Colgate again through the eyes of one who has not yet had to settle for a community that didn’t meet expectations.

It was my first full day of classes at Colgate. I was excited, as I’m sure you all were on your first day. Having already set up a good rapport with my floormates during orientation, I thought that meeting people I didn’t know at college was always going to be that easy. I figured, “This is college! I’m connected to every other student here by the fact that we’ve all chosen to spend these years of our lives on this very same, beautiful campus.” So it was that I set out of Curtis Hall on the way to my first class, optimistic about the people I would meet, befriend, or just come to know by sight as we passed each other on the way to and from class each day.

I passed dozens of students, casually looking them good-naturedly in the eyes with what I thought was a welcoming, unassuming smile. I passed students of all class years. I passed all the people of my community. Not one student returned that smile. Not one of the fellow Colgate students whose community I had been fancying myself a part of even gave me more than a second’s look, and then sometimes with narrowed eyes (and I’m quite sure I wasn’t being creepy).

Now one could think of this as a funny story, as I often have. The naive freshman thinks that everyone wants to be his friend. He actually believed the myth of the “Colgate Hello.” But who is that person who laughs at the naive freshman, who laughs at my behavior on that first day? Are we laughing out of a kind of superiority in knowing better now? In what way are we superior to that freshman? What if everyone had the same hopes for our community as I had on that first day?

I think we need to get in touch with that freshman in all of us. I don’t know about you, but I’m the same person as I was when I got here. I’ve gone through a lot, as you all have, I’ve changed a lot. But that naive freshman who just wants to feel connected to his community is still alive inside me. Who doesn’t want to feel connected to one’s community?

We are responsible for this community, and it is about time we took a good, hard look at what we’ve created. The Campus Climate Life Survey shows that we are not a particularly tolerant campus. Sexual abuse runs rampant here. I know just from being on this campus and talking to people that students here have a compulsive need to stay busy, between sports, extracurriculars, meeting the demands of classes, and perhaps most significantly, partying.

When my freshman self did not get his smile returned by all the students he passed, he concluded that students here must be angry about something. I couldn’t imagine what that could be. But after 4 years here, I don’t think it’s anger. I think it’s fear. I have often heard fellow students express a fear that if they stay inside just one Friday or Saturday night, or just choose to go to a movie and then go home, they’d be afraid that they’re missing out on something. Missing out on pre-gaming maybe, beer pong, going to the Jug, going to slices drunk, walking back home still smashed. I think the most frightening thing to some of us at Colgate is the prospect of not having a wild story to share about our weekend. I’m so used to hearing a new acquaintance start talking about how much they drank the night before, I just tune it out now. What if we didn’t have a blackout or terrible hangover story to share? Wouldn’t that be awkward, right?

And what kind of identity crisis are we witnessing here at Colgate, when we see our fellow students sexually abusing or assaulting 45% of the women in our community?

The freshman who just wanted to have his smile returned could never have imagined his community to be this self-destructive. If it were up to that freshman, we could party and drink to our hearts’ content, but there would be no need for this kind of destructive behavior. We’d have nothing to prove to ourselves, nothing to gain by blacking out, nothing to gain by coercing a Colgate woman into sex, nothing to lose by giving perpetrators of sexual assault the punishment we all know they deserve, and nothing to fear in just going to see that movie, or chilling out instead of blacking out.

The fact that you are all here today shows that there is a desire to turn this around. We can forge a new Colgate identity. All we’ve ever needed is the willingness to do it, and your presence today is proof that the willingness is here. It’s about time we got in touch with that freshman in all of us, and create the community we always wanted. It’s about time we returned that smile.

Thank you.

Send us an article, why don’t you?

(dmuniz@colgate.edu)

(achapman@colgate.edu)

To this day I still can’t believe that it happened to me. I have seen countless Lifetime movies, read stories, listened to stories my mom would tell. I was well informed, I was given the tools to avoid situations in which I would be raped, kidnapped, or even murdered. I thought I knew everything, I thought I could keep myself safe. I traveled in numbers; I contacted people and told them where I was at all times. I was pro-active. I was “smart”. Now, I just feel stupid. But then I yell at myself sometimes and scream “LISTEN”! I scream this word because it forces myself to listen and realize that how can I be stupid…stupid for going to a boy’s room…stupid for even becoming friends with him…why does that make me stupid?

I guess I should start from the beginning. He was very attractive, just like the boys I was used to back home. We instantly hit it off and we had hooked up twice; however, each time I denied intercourse. I would only have oral sex with him because I wanted to wait longer to get to know him better. I had not even really had full intercourse then. I was used to having sexual relationships with boys I have known for a number of years and I didn’t want to give into a guy this early into school (almost a month or so in). So, when he told me to come over to “chill”, I expected that ok this is the 3rd time we will hook up and it will be just like the other two times. I told my roommate where I would be and I had no apprehensions.

When I got there everything was fine, we hooked up. Then, he asked to “just put it in for a second” and I said ok put a condom on and then I’ll let you do it for a sec. Well, this is the moment I relive over and over. The what if’s race through my mind. He didn’t just do it for a sec, he kept going. I told him that I thought that a second was over, and that he needed to stop. Well, he didn’t and just told me to let him do it. I just laid there, afraid to yell, afraid to fight because when I would try to wiggle away he just held me down tighter. You tell me how a girl weighing 100lbs is supposed to go up against a man, who is very muscular and strong. I was afraid he would get more aggressive. I just let it happen. He tried to kiss me, tried to be romantic and make love, but I just felt disgusting. I would turn my face but he kept trying. It seemed like forever, but then it ended. He asked if I was ok and in my head I thought what the fuck do you think!!! But I responded “yes”. I could not get up for a while because my vagina was in so much pain that I was afraid to tell him to help me off his bed. He handed me my clothes and offered to walk me home. I said no of course. Why was he being so nice to me? I couldn’t help but think was this normal…was I supposed to let him do this? Was I just being a tease?

The only thing I do know is that I didn’t want to have intercourse with him at that moment in time because I was saving it for later. I would have had sex with him; I would have let him have me. But he decided to “take me”; he didn’t let me give myself to him. He ruined it and now I dread even hearing his name or running into him. Every time I do run into him, he stares at me or walks closely next to me or even talks to the guy I’m with if he knows them. Why does he think this is ok?

I do not think that he understands that now I look at myself as a sexual object. I do not see the beautiful girl I once saw and when people compliment me I cannot help but think that they see what he did to me. He made me feel like a “hole”. He made me feel that my only purpose was to lie down and spread my legs. I try not to think that, but sometimes I can’t help it. I am in therapy…but I have to say that I think that I need more help. I have been sleeping with guys just to reclaim that power, just to re-do what happened. Sometimes I have feelings for the guys, but I quickly put them behind me because I think that no one could love me. I just simply want to fuck, as much as I can to erase what happened. Sometimes, I wonder how many times or guys I have to fuck in order for me to be who I used to be. I won’t let him take me, I can’t. I am getting better, but I just want people to know that it can happen to you, I wish that it doesn’t but you should know that it is a brutal crime against your sense of self and body. Stay strong, and know that you are not at fault. As I work to get back to myself, I can’t help but hope and pray that no one in the world goes through this pain. I want my future daughter and/or son to be free of sexual crimes. I do not want them to be hurt like I was. This needs to stop!

*This story is a part of the Sexual Assault Exposé project. See this article for more information.

The last time I wrote, I was on the part of my journey where Maddy and I had engaged in a terrible fight that threatened to ruin our friendship. She came to Colgate to visit me so that we could work out the kinks in our friendship and left Colgate with me in a conflicted crush. Immediately after Maddy left I returned to my room and wrote in my journal that I was scared I would get attached to her because if I got attached, I would fall in love. I talked to Maddy about the status of our friendship, or whatever it was turning into, and we decided that we would continue doing whatever “this” was. Still, I felt confused, scared, nervous, and alone.

Most of my journal entries from that point until fall break were about how much I missed Maddy. How I not only missed her as my best friend, but as more. I spoke of worrying about whether I was no longer exclusively straight, but questioning or bisexual. I also worried about what would happen between her and I when I went home for fall break. In one entry shortly before fall break I wrote, “As badly as I do want to be with her, I can’t help but wonder how I’ll feel in public. And I don’t really believe in long distance relationships. But it could work if we tried. I’m feeling many doubts but I still yearn for her, you know?”

Fall break came and when it ended I was officially in a relationship. I had traveled home via bus, ate dinner with my family, then I went to visit Maddy at her house. We had not seen one another in awhile so we hugged and then we had our first kiss. Driving away from her house I felt conflicted, worried, elated, confused, overjoyed; I was a mixed bag of emotions. It was not until a Citizen Cope concert a couple of days later that I realized where my true feelings lay. Cope played a song “Holdin On” and I remember then that all I could think of was Maddy and how I felt about her. It was then that I knew I would become attached and eventually fall in love with her. I realized that they way I felt about her was the way I had felt about guys I had dated before. In my journal I kept stating over and over again, “I still don’t think I’m bisexual.” I wondered whether a relationship between us would last, how I would handle it, if I would feel pressured, etc. For me it was different. It was different because I had never dated a girl before and I did not know what to do. Again, I felt confused, elated, and optimistic.

From that point on our relationship was quite tumultuous. In December we had been dating for about two months and were already taking a break. Maddy and I were both very hard-headed, argumentative people at times. We often found ourselves arguing over the most miniscule of problems, but at the time they seemed very large. During those times I know I struggled a lot with reconciling my spirituality and my newfound love for this woman. I used to sit in my dorm room and agonize over whether I was going to hell or not, whether God would still love me for loving this woman. Coming from a Jamaican household, it was hard for me not to question my faith. I had always been very close with my mother, so I struggled with telling her about my relationship with Maddy. I felt that because I was so close to her, I should be able to tell her and I desperately wanted to.

The straw that broke that camel’s back came the day I was to leave home to head back to Colgate. Maddy had come to my house early in the morning and we were talking in my basement. My mother came down to find us sitting talking and I suppose her mind thought the “worst”. She asked me to come upstairs to our library, I went, and she asked me whether I was in a relationship with Maddy. Wanting to affirm our relationship I told my mother that yes I was in a relationship with her and I loved her very much. Immediately following that statement I broke down and began to cry. I didn’t cry because I felt I was going to get in trouble nor because I thought I had committed some heinous act. I cried because I knew that the relationship I had had with my mother would probably never be quite the same again. I cried asking my mother to still love me, to see that I loved this girl and that I was fine with it. My mother told me she was going to “help me through this”. I finished crying and went downstairs hugging and kissing Maddy goodbye. Watching her drive away that morning was the last thing I wanted to see.

At first, my mother seemed fine with everything. But the next day she called me angrily screaming about how she did not raise her daughter to be a lesbian and that the world would forgive Maddy and not I because I was a black woman. Screaming into the phone she told me to “cut that lesbian shit out” and hung up on me. At the same time, Maddy was going through a tough time herself so I didn’t reach out to her for support. I called my dad and told him what had happened and he assured me that my mother was having the typical “mommy reaction”. I didn’t talk to my mother again for two weeks and it was the hardest two weeks I’ve experienced thus far. At that point in time I was horribly depressed. I was not eating, talking to anyone, or doing anything really. I had even had suicidal thoughts. A big part of me was sure that my mom was going to throw me out of the house and a small part of me wondered what my grandmother, a highly religious Christian, would think of me. After the two weeks had ended, my mother called me to tell me that she was outside of my residence hall waiting to speak with me. My roommate hugged me tightly, perhaps thinking that she would never see me again. I took a slow, agonizing, painful walk down the hallway and opened the door outside. I remember that the air outside was so cold and crisp and all I thought of in that moment was when I could call Maddy to hear her voice again. I went to sit in the car with my mother and sat their quietly while she explained that she decided this was not something she was willing to lose her daughter over. She never asked whether Maddy or I were still dating, she really just apologized, subtly, in her own way. As I watched my mother’s car drive away, I knew that this battle had only just begun and that I would still have many barriers to break and that I would end up hitting many walls. All in all, I knew that my feelings towards Maddy were pure and true, of the simplest kind; I loved her. And although I was feeling all this confusion, happiness, and doubt, I would throw that aside to be happy with her.

Want to know what happens next? Check out next week’s post.

With Peace and Love,

Dena

Recent commenters have exposed an issue that people engaging in online discussions must address: the power of anonymity.

There has been quite a rigorous debate in the comments section of the article “Tell Your Story” among myself, Dan, and some anonymous people which has encouraged us all to challenge and understand victimhood, agency, responsibility, injustice, and that ever-present demon victim-blaming. In this section, people have accused me of having ulterior motives for the Sexual Assault Exposé, and even suggesting that my desire for people to claim their writing as their own – that is, with their identity attached to their words – implies some sort of aggression on my end. The most significant, and honestly, the most wounding comment is one by someone named “Anonymous the Second.”

This person stated: “YOUR reputation is what frightens me. You may not like it, but it’s the truth. For the record, you know who I am in real life. I would never disagree with you to your face, because I would be very, very, scared.”

How am I supposed to feel, when above all the victim-blaming this person slings in their comments that we are acquainted?

Think about this for a second, and just try to imagine how I am feeling right now.

The questions that are invading my thoughts are: Who is this person? How well do I know him/her? How much does this person know about me? How many other people know this person? Who’s on whose side? Is this person an enemy?

For all I know this anonymous person could be the man who sexually assaulted me in August!

Let’s discuss and think about what comes of anonymous online postings.

Remember that Juicy Campus incident, when a Colgate student mentioned shooting people at the school and it was difficult to make out whether or not this statement was a joke? Remember how this caused a huge stir on campus and people feared leaving their rooms?

Yeah, that’s kinda how I feel right now.

Remember the other threads on Juicy Campus that sexually objectified women, and in fact harmed some of my close girlfriends? Were you one of the girls spoken about on there?

Remember when Megan Meier, a 13 year old girl, committed suicide because some of her classmates decided to masquerade as an attractive boy on myspace toying with her emotions for 6 weeks and then dumping her because he “heard she was cruel”? Remember when that 14 year old Japanese girl committed suicide as well?

I’m sure there are many others.

Do you remember a website, similar to Juicy Campus, called schoolscum.com? I was bullied on that site pretty heavily, so were my high school friends, and so were many other students around the country because there was a forum for every school. Remember when that site got shut down because students threatened each other, and also encouraged teens to commit suicide?

Of course, the connecting theme in all these stories I just brought up is that anonymous posting is extremely powerful. Not only can it hurt people, it can kill people. I’m not sure of how much good can come from posting anonymously.

Are there any pros to anonymous posting?

The sexual assault stories themselves were posted anonymously, and for good reason. The perpetrators might come after them.

I understand posting anonymously to maintain one’s personal safety, as is the case for people who have been sexually assaulted. But when sharing one’s opinion, and especially calling my reputation into question, is no reason to keep one’s identity secret. What does one have to hide? It is a cop-out and gives one too much power: Power that no one deserves.

I responded to Anonymous the Second, “What you’re doing truly is a form of terrorism.”

Now I don’t care if this person says s/he is afraid of me and my reputation, because if s/he actually knew me this person would know s/he has nothing to be afraid of. After all, Megan’s cyber-bullies claimed she was “cruel.” How valid can one’s judgment of myself be if they post it in a public forum, anonymously, exposing to the world that they are in fact a traitor in real life but a friend to my face?

Some judgment of character.

Needless to say, I disabled comments on that post as nothing good was being birthed from that petty argument. Everything was just a re-hashed argument for victim-blaming (arguments like: If you walk into a fraternity, sexual assault is going to happen and you shouldn’t have been there in the first place! If you get drunk you’ll get raped, and it’s your fault!) and no response to the bigger question: Why isn’t anyone interrogating the perpetrators of sexual violence?!

I’m at a loss right now. I guess I was naïve to think that anonymous comments wouldn’t stoop this low. Should I continue to let people post anonymously if their safety isn’t being compromised? Right now I don’t want to, because I don’t want anyone to be cyber-bullied. I can delete comments, but I still have to read them. If there is no hatred in the post, I post it anyway because that is the ideology behind this site: everyone has a voice and everyone must be heard. But should the anonymous have a voice too? Doesn’t posting anonymously put the poster in a position of power, therefore making the conversation imbalanced and ultimately impossible to harbor a safe discussion?

What do you think about all of this? Should people be able to post anonymously?

*I will let people post anonymously here for now to see what happens. But absolutely NO CYBER-BULLYING: if you are posting anonymously, you have no right to call anyone’s identity into question especially since yours isn’t on the line!

In my estimation, the underlying key to a great film is character development. If a director, teamed with writers and actors, combine to create multi-layered, emotional, living, breathing people behind film characters, instead of vapid, empty shells that pretend to be real human beings, you are on your way to making a great film.

This is a huge reason why Zombieland (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 88/100) is receiving far more praise from the press than the idiotic and mindless Couples Retreat (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 14/100), the top two films butting heads at the box office lately.

(Well, people also love Zombieland because it involves killing zombies, which is always cool, and it’s pretty damn funny too. But back to my thesis.)

Ironically, the four main characters in Zombieland are only known by names of cities instead of actual names, as none of them want to get closer to each other for fear of getting emotionally attached should one of them die. Yet, the viewer cares for these characters, and wants to see them kill a boatload of zombies en route to staying alive. All have their unique quirks, and all keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat throughout the 87-minute thrill ride.

The gist of the film is this: The United States has turned into a post-apocalyptic society dominated by zombies after someone ate a contaminated fast food hamburger and received an odd human form of mad cow disease. This in turn spread like rapid fire, and the zombies feed on human flesh. Few survivors remain.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg—Squid and the Whale, Adventureland) is a former college student in Austin, Texas who is looking to get home to Columbus, Ohio. He is an obsessive compulsive agoraphobic who lives by a list of rules that helps him survive Zombieland. These rules pop up in the film often in the form of block letter graphics, i.e. “Rule 3: Beware of Bathrooms.” He kills off zombies and eventually meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson in a huge comeback role—Cheers, White Men Can’t Jump), an ass-kicking machine who lives to kill zombies and find the last Twinkie on Earth. He is also harboring a painful secret, but we don’t find this out immediately. Needing a ride, Columbus hops into Tallahassee’s car. However, a genius and devious sister pair also on the run, Wichita (Emma Stone—Superbad, House Bunny) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, My Sister’s Keeper, Little Miss Sunshine) mug the duo. Wichita and Little Rock steal Tallahassee’s car and guns, but through some guile and luck, the two men catch up to them. Eventually, all four realize that they need to stick together to survive in this world, so they all strive to reach Los Angeles’ Pacific Playland, a place devoid of zombies. En route, chaos ensues, a love story emerges (of course), and we get a great cameo from an A-List star that I won’t spoil.

Aside from excellent character development, the film is hilarious with some excellent dialogue, and the special effects are exceptional. The zombie kills are all great fun (My favorite has to be Tallahassee driving by a kneeling zombie on the highway and killing him with his driver-side door before continuing down the road.). My one small complaint is that Zombieland drags at times, particularly in the moments before the quartet arrives in California. That’s unfortunate, for the film is only 87 minutes and has little excuse to slow down. However, Zombieland’s failure to operate at a break-neck speed for its entirety is only a venial flaw, for overall, this film is fantastic. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Zombieland is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

He is a great guy- smart, funny, and kind. I even used to have a crush on him. But he hooked up with a lot of girls. He had the reputation. So after a brief hookup or two, I moved on. We were friends. That was it.

I was going through a rough time. I was sort of hooking up with this guy- in that awful ambiguous way that so many Colgate relationships happen- and he was not treating me with the respect I deserved. So I got drunk and saw my smart, funny, and kind friend at the Jug. We danced. I acted sexual, I know. It felt good to be wanted by somebody, even if I was leading him on…

I blew him off that night, thinking nothing of it, since he had a done similar thing to me in the past. The next night I got in a bigger fight with kind-of-hooking-up-with guy. I got more drunk. Too drunk. Saw my smart, funny, and kind friend.

The rest is a blur of bits and pieces. I know I wanted slices. I remember walking with him there and realizing that we weren’t stopping. He said we could order slices from his house nearby since the line was too long… then I was on my back. Naked. With him thrusting into me. I remember being so disoriented and so ashamed. I had lost my virginity only a few months prior and had only had sex a couple times before. This wasn’t sex. I couldn’t even feel it… slipped back into blackout.

He was gone from the room. I guessed he had finished. I remember feeling this panic that I had to leave. I gathered my clothes… somehow I was at the door with him compelling me to stay the night. Then I was crying on the street, completely lost… called my roommate and somehow she gave me directions home.

I took a really long shower. I didn’t tell anybody for a while. Then I just pretended that I wanted it to happen. We were drunk. We were stupid. Drunk sex happens at Colgate all the time, my friends have drunk sex all the time. Right?

I still think he’s a great guy. Smart, funny, kind. I don’t think he meant to rape me, he probably has NO IDEA that I even feel this way, and to this day I still can’t say that it was rape. I doubt he thought I was that blackout drunk. I’m sure I probably agreed to it at the time. I mean, I’m one of the most outspoken people that I know- nobody would rape me.

I’m not angry at him. I’m angry at myself for getting so drunk. And I’m angry at this campus’s culture that assumes that if I go home with you it means sex. I’m angry because so many women here get SO drunk and SO BLACK OUT that they sleep with people they would NEVER sleep with sober. We have sex with complete strangers – not because we feel empowered by our sexuality, but because we are desperate for love and attention, desperate to have FUN. Somewhere in the fucked-up social world of Colgate, somebody started the lie that blacking out and having sex you can barely remember and barely feel is FUN. Well, from this woman’s perspective, it is not fun.

I’m not sure if this counts as a rape expose. I don’t feel that my story is as valid as the one’s that these brave, amazing women are telling. But I do think that my story will hit very close to home for a lot of you. And I beg you- WAKE UP. Look at your life and decide if getting blackout and hooking up with strangers every night is REALLY the way you want to live. I am all for embracing your sexuality and experimenting, but do it on your own terms. You all can be fun and interesting people WITHOUT using alcohol as a social lubricant- I promise. And you will have the added benefit of remembering whether or not you gave consent. And that is my story.

*This story is a part of the Sexual Assault Exposé project. See this article for more information.

Cloth menstrual pads have many benefits over disposable products. They are cheaper, last longer, and do not end up in landfills like disposable sanitary napkins. They are comfortable, available in many styles and patterns, and can be customized to fit your body and needs instead of being mass-produced in a particular size and shape that may not work for you. In addition, cloth pads are made by women, and buying cloth pads means supporting women entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Cloth menstrual pads are available in many places online, both from larger companies such as Lunapads and by individual sellers on sites such as Etsy and LiveJournal’s Cloth Pad Sales community. Each cloth pad seller has a particular pad design and particular fabrics, some of which will fit your body and your needs better than others.

Pads are generally made from an outer layer of a soft, comfortable fabric, such as cotton flannel, and an inner layer of absorbent material, such as terrycloth. There are many options, with different thicknesses and fabrics for different levels of absorbency. Many women feel more comfortable with pads which are waterproofed with PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric) to prevent leaks, although pads without PUL are usually sufficient for women without a particularly heavy flow.

Adahy’s pattern and variations of rounded pad styles are very popular, although many pads have a more squared-off look or wider center. This and other styles are AIO, or all in one. Another style, which is used by Lunapads, has multiple absorbent layers which can be added to or removed from the pad base. Theses layers can be placed inside a pocket or held down with strips of fabric or rickrack. While AIO pads have the advantage of convenience, pads with multiple layers are easier to customize based on your flow and air-dry much more quickly.

Cloth pads tend to average about $5 apiece, depending on the fabric involved. (Bamboo cloth, for example, which is more absorbent than cotton and has antibacterial properties, is also much more expensive.) Depending on your flow and period length, you may need 15-25 pads to get through your cycle, which would be about a $75-125 investment. They are cheaper, however, in bulk and if you purchase seconds, pads with small aesthetic flaws which generally go for about half price. If you have the resources, there are also many instructions and patterns for making your own menstrual pads.

Unlike disposable pads, however, cloth pads generally last about five years. Depending on how much you pay for disposable pads, your investment will pay for itself in one to two years. And unlike cloth diapers, whose washing costs can eliminate much of the savings from not using disposables, cloth pads can be easily thrown in with the regular laundry. This helps save water, the environment, and your pocketbook.

The biggest advantage of cloth pads, however, is that they’re fun. Disposable pads are white, bland, and boring. Cloth menstrual pads come in a multitude of fun colors and patterns, such as Hello Kitty, Star Wars, and half-naked cowboys. They are not only customizable for your body, but also for your interests. With all the advantages for both you and the environment, it’s worth giving cloth pads a try.