Trigger warning: This article contains personal anecdotes of sexual violence and abuse that may prove triggering for some.
Lisa Hickey wants to have a conversation about rape. But until today, she didn’t know where to start.
The spot of blood on the sheet was a perfect circle, an “oh”, an exclamation. Bob and I stood at the foot of the bed, groggy, half-morning light, we leaned in together as we realized what it was. A split second of awkwardness, then he quickly threw the top sheet on top of it. We muttered some sort of “see ya around” and I dashed off, down the stairs from his third-floor attic room overlooking the fraternity quad.
I was 16.
I had been drinking, the night before, as always, as I had since I was fourteen years of age. Did I say, “yes” to Bob? I’m sure, at some point that night, I did. I’m also sure I said “no” or at least “I’m not sure.” I clearly remember saying, “wait,” over and over. But I wasn’t specific in my timeframe. I meant “wait” as – days, weeks, months. Not “wait a minute.”
Was that rape? How much does that matter? In some states it would have been statutory rape, regardless of what I said. It was certainly not good judgment on either of our parts.
But good judgment wasn’t something I had much of back in those days. I was 16 and a freshman in college, and trying my best simply to block out a past I couldn’t handle. Both my parents were abusive alcoholics. Back then, what they did to me was called “spankings,” but spankings don’t usually carry with them the out-of-nowhere rage that I rarely saw coming, an ongoing feeling of confusion and terror, and a perpetual sinking feeling that this time it might never end. No matter how much I tried to justify their behavior, a father usually doesn’t say to his daughter, “I am taking off my belt now” before he hits her with it.
♦◊♦
My father died the summer before I started college. I found out while was at freshmen orientation, sitting in an auditorium filled with 500 equally bright-eyed students. I heard the words from the man at the podium, “Is there a Lisa P. in the audience?” I stood up and said in a tiny voice “I’m Lisa P.” “Well, then, your mother wants to see you.” The crowd twittered. I had to climb over two people to get out. One of them said, “Your mother wants to see you. Boy, is that embarrassing.” I left a small navy pocketbook behind.
My sister has vivid memories of sexual abuse, by my father, of me. I don’t have the memories she has. I do have clear memories of sexual inappropriateness by my father, but prefer to keep it at that. My childhood was not all bad. There were swing sets and stargazing and Monopoly games. But what I do remember is that while other kids dreamed of being movie actresses or doctors or joining the Peace Corps, I dreamt of being kidnapped. It was a very specific dream. I couldn’t wait to be kidnapped by two men in a dark blue Ford Station wagon. That would be my way out. I used to wander the streets of Queens, NY, looking for that car. As a child, it was my only hope. “Please let me be a different kind of victim than the one I am now.”
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At midnight, Cinderella is supposed to lose her shoe, not her virginity. And not to a guy who was as stumbling drunk as she was.
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So by the time I met Bob, and was asked by him to go to a Fraternity Dance at the last minute, I thought I had arrived in a new type of civilization in all its glory. I was petite, I had a blue-flowered halter dress, my hair was spun gold. That night I thought I had finally made it––somewhere, somehow, despite myself. But by that time, I was already a blackout drunk. At midnight, Cinderella is supposed to lose her shoe, not her virginity. And not to a guy who was as stumbling drunk as she was. But I didn’t even have enough self-awareness to know that the story I was living wasn’t the one I thought it was. I wanted that Cinderella story, badly, with whatever bargain I had to strike for it. Bob and I barely talked again afterwards. I didn’t even tell my friends.
♦◊♦
I was gorgeous back then—almost every sixteen, seventeen-year-old is gorgeous, though, have you noticed? It’s hard to go wrong if you’re seventeen and perfectly in shape, have an easy laugh and don’t talk much. Beauty, sexual attraction—it was the only power I had. I think my resultant promiscuity all four years of college was simply a way to somehow, desperately attempt to take charge of my sexuality. And as odd as it sounds, being promiscuous was my guard against being raped. If I was the aggressor, if I was in charge, then things were not happening to me against my will. I was in control of my sexual destiny.
That was the megalomaniac in me talking, of course. The side of me with the inferiority complex realized I had already completely screwed up my sexual history to date, and felt awkward and guilty over it. But surely that didn’t matter. All could be forgiven. I would find someone to have sex with me; damn it, and one of those sexual encounters would turn out the way it was supposed to. The guy would have sex with me and fall madly in love with me. Of course that never happened. I had a series of one-night stands; sometimes while I was so drunk I was completely passed out. Clear, conscious consent? Not likely.
♦◊♦
The thing is—when I think about how important a clear, conscious “yes” is—I also know how difficult I made it for guys. I was handing them a “yes” on a silver platter the moment I walked in a room. I want to make this perfectly clear: I was not the only victim here. Sending confusing signals, saying “yes”, and then “no”, using sex not just as a release but as a form of therapy, convincing myself I was falling in love with guys—guys I didn’t even know—so that I could justify wanting sex with them. None of that was good. Not for me. Nor for men.
I was misguided in my intentions, misguided in my actions. In the screwed up mind of an addict, being wildly drunk each time gave me the perfect excuse for my behavior. I was the one who would stand in the dark hallway and say, “kiss me.” I sought out guys who were just as drunk as I was. I made it perfectly clear—at the start of the night—that I was ready, willing and able to have sex, because I thought that was what I wanted. But what I really wanted was just for the story to turn out differently.
And that’s why this has to be talked about.
♦◊◊
There’s no use in making generalizations about guy’s behavior, or women’s behavior, or whether I got what I asked for or who was at “fault.” There’s no reason to feel sorry for me—I’m many years sober, have an amazing life, I live in the present, in a life that is filled with such daily awe and wonder and breathless anticipation for the future that—now—what happened to me then was simply what happened to me then. I have guys who are dear friends, guys I can talk about this stuff with. And all the guys who work with me now—you know who you are—we have great, professional relationships, filled with warmth and intelligence. I still have an easy laugh.
♦◊♦
The reason I’m writing all this is because I wanted to have a conversation about rape. Because I, for one, don’t know how to talk about it. And because my personal confusion around the subject is so deep, I can only guess about the confusion men might also have. And I wanted nothing more than to end my story with a blithe “oh well, all’s well that ends well.”
Which doesn’t really get at the fact that rape, and childhood sexual abuse, and sexual violence is still a problem—if no longer for me, then for countless men and women. And, so, when I asked for comments, to try to get clearer in my thinking, Lili had a very passionate point of view:
“We are socially educated and conditioned to think of rape as a violent act, a knife to the throat, a hand clamped over a woman’s mouth–not something that happens between two kids who picked each other up at a keg party, now laying together in the quiet afterhours of a frat dorm room. Yet, what is this if it isn’t rape? “Just” non-consensual sex? Do we like the sound of that term better because it relieves us of feeling bad as men that we’ve allowed some predatory instinct to take over? Are we hiding behind a patent refusal to even look at these issues, because dammit, we didn’t rape her; at best we had non-consensual sex with her? But if we aren’t getting a clear YES from a girl, should we maybe interpret that as a clear NO and then take ourselves right out of there? How do we navigate those uncertainties when our hormones are firing, goaded on by alcohol running through our veins. And, as women, the shame, self-loathing, we’ll carry all our lives, as young women engaging in thoughtless, or drunken sex, all that…young men need to know that young women experience it like that before we can ask them to grow a conscience around that.
And I read those words, and thought “yes,” “YES.” All of that is important.
But that’s not what I came here to say.
What I really want to say is: “We can’t solve the problem if we can’t talk about it.”
So for me, personally, what I’d really like to do is call a truce—to stop placing blame just for a minute and figure this out together, ok? Let me repeat that. Just for a moment, not talk about who’s to blame, but let us as men, let us as women, actually get together and figure it out. This is not a call for inexcusable behavior. This is not to say we shouldn’t hold people accountable for their actions. You can hold me up and judge me if you think for a moment that might actually help. But just for once I would like to sit down and talk about this topic without the fiery inferno of shame and guilt that seems to burn through every conversation about rape. Guilt and shame that’s felt by men—and women—as equals in a sexual partnership. Guilt and shame that prevents the honest, deep, back-and-forth dialogue that could actually lead to understanding and change. I’d like to figure out together how to stop our sons or daughters from being in a position where they don’t know what a clear, conscious “yes” is. How to get teenagers to talk about sex—with us, with each other, honestly, intelligently, before it happens. To understand at what age it makes sense and when it doesn’t and why. To stop underage drinking, not just for it’s own sake, but so it doesn’t lead to they types of horrific consequences it can have. Because the truth is, although my life is amazing now, I almost didn’t make it.
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The most important thing is that I want this to be to be a platform to have a dialogue – a public, meaningful dialogue, of what the consequences are if we screw this up. To think of ourselves as a partnership, a social force, a team of men and women and women and men who are just trying to figure it out together, so that sex is as it should be—a safe way for a pair of people to experience mutual affection and enjoyment with each other.
About Lisa Hickey
After reading through all the comments so far I’ve struck by a couple of things: Everyone seem to assume that a drunk woman always is passive when it comes to sex. In my experience it is far from so. Active drunk woman and passive drunk man – is that really an unheard of situation for most people here? Have no-one considered that and what that would make the woman in those situations, what responsibilities she then has?
Secondly, there are talk about how men should be better at reading when yes don’t actually mean yes, but no mention at all about how women should be better at reading when men’s yes don’t actually mean yes – which is more likely than people esp. women like to consider. It comes from the trope that men always want sex, a trope that many women believe and many men have internalised.
Not to say that one shouldn’t take care in the stereotypical situations with active man, passive woman – but I find the almost total silence about the other way around disconcerting – particularily so because a drunk woman which I only met the same day decided to fuck me while I was asleep after a party.
Lisa Hickey said in the article:
“And as odd as it sounds, being promiscuous was my guard against being raped. If I was the aggressor, if I was in charge, then things were not happening to me against my will.”
Which makes me wonder if all the women who thinks this at some points puts any effort into not becoming a rapist themselves. Lisa seem to only consider that the men were hurt because they were tricked into having sex with someone who actually didn’t want to have sex with them. The concept of any of the men not really wanting to have sex with her haven’t crossed her mind as far as I can tell from the article.
Being an agressor for self-preservation reasons does not absolve one from the responsibility of making sure that you’re not hurting anyone and women (and men) just don’t seem to talk or acknowledge this. seemingly because of a belief women can’t really by sexual agressors/active and/or because men can’t get hurt by sex. Both beliefs which are patently wrong.
If we’re talking about non-violent sexual relations between mutually intoxicated individuals then I’m inclined to believe that neither consent nor Rape can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
I would advocate for Mediation and counseling instead of incarnation.
Btw… isn’t it time that we push for the legalization of prostitution So that the simplistic, utilitarian & Honest nature of Male Sexuality could stop being used as a tool of our exploitation and incarceration?
I mean what exactly is the end game to all this prosecution?
And, Budmin, what if the man assumes the woman is intoxicated, and she isn’t. Is it okay for him to force her to have sex with him just because he is drunk? I think that man deserves to go to prison.
You’re missing the point, intoxication in this instance doesn’t change anything, “forced” sex is rape.
Thank you for writing this. I didn’t have an abusive father, but my virginity was taken in a similar way, and I attempted to cope with it in the same way that you did. Thank you for this article. Although it’s sad that this happens quite often, it’s good to know that I’m not alone in this and that these thoughts ran through someone else’s mind as well.
Budman,
Is this a serious comment? Well I doubt that you have any real interest in this topic so I doubt that you will be back to read my comment but I’ll leave it in case any other readers are equally ignorant/thoughtless about prostutition.
Prostutition is not good for the prostitute. So, no, we should not try to make prostitution legal. Just like we should not make crack legal. This is very simplified, but maybe that is the best way to reach someone who would actually not be able to formulate this thought by him/herself.
My body my choice. Unless it is to accept money for sex. Then it’s my body *not* my choice.
Sounds convoluted, illogical and … religious? Hypocritical.
Professional prostitutes organizations have a different point of view. Making it illegal makes it much more dangerous than it should be.
I agree. Keeping prostitution illegal immediately ostracizes and marginalises consenting women (and men) who want to sell sex. It does the same for men (and women) who want to pay for sex. It also puches the whole thing underground, making it seedier and more open to exploitation (children, forced prostitution, trafficking). There is no way you can say “prostitution is bad for the woman”. Perhaps getting beaten by a pimp and raped in motels is bad for the woman. In which case – legalise prostitution.
Adults. Consenting. Not your business.
Lisa — a very thought-provoking piece. I particularly respected both the honesty of your self-reflection and your willingness to acknowledge the ambiguity of (some of) these situations. I admire, also, what you have survived. I think that the “yes means yes!” school has a legitimate point in that we should be looking for enthusiastic consent as an ethical guide. I think asking permission before touching someone is sort of creepy and highly likely to be off-putting, but looking for enthusiastic participation should be our goal. I think that willing participation is really more the ethical standard between rape and consensual sex. I might not always be enthusiastic about sex but if I’m participating then I’m consenting (barring threats and the like). There are many reasons why a person might be willing to consent but not enthusiastic about consenting, and a lack of enthusiasm does not mean rape is occurring. That said, the more enthusiastic partner should be sensitive and should seek to ensure that both partners are able to speak up if they are uncomfortable, and should seek to understand the lack of enthusiasm.
Rick, if the man shoves the woman down and gets on top of her, and she is too shocked to say “no,” is that “participation?” A great many rape victims react initially with shock.
Lisa, another courageous ‘home run’ article from you. This is so powerful that I had to read it once, then come back a few days later to feel ready to comment. The whole “Good Girl/Bad Girl” stereotype has lead countless young girls like yourself into promiscuous activity they do not enjoy very much.
As girls/women we are often considered worthless if men do not want to have sex with us, and worthless if we actually allow them to do it. We need more ways to enjoy and celebrate our sexuality with the men (and/or women) who are kind and cherish us. This article is a huge step in the right direction! –Margo Rose
This is beautiful! I really love the different article. What a great decoration! I think I should try one. If only I had more time.
Lisa…great piece. Thank you for writing such an intelligent heart-felt essay about the rape discussion. Few people understand what males must consider when venturing into the sexual realm. More importantly, thank you for casting the light of discovery on what really influences our sexual decisions and our need for intimacy.
Sexual interaction is too complex to be ruled by “yes means yes!” even though I think that’s a great ideal, and a good guideline. A big part of the problem with this conversation is that often “non consensual” (and also “non-rape”?) sex happens under really ambiguous circumstances, like those you describe and others–and often those situations may be “consensual.” Who gets the blame seems like a dumb question, but it does come up. Does it really matter who gets the blame? What matters is why the situation happened.
Listen, idiots – “non-consensual” sex IS rape. The comments here that excuse rape are really scary. It appears that rape is expected and condoned by most of you. Who suffers? Women.
e,
Sexual interaction is not too complex to always be ruled by “yes means yes”. It’s sad that you think it is. Sex should not happen under really ambiguous circumstances, such as those described. You being accustomed to this type of situation is a perfect example of how entrenched this mentality is in our culture. The focus should be both on who is to blame, and why the situation happened. It would not make sense to separate the two. This article points out that multiple factors can be to blame. But that does not excuse any one factor from blame.
Lisa,
Thank you. This was very brave and moving. I’ve usually been interested in a relationship with the women I’ve been with, but I’ve had at least one of those sorts of encounters, which the woman made very easy for me by being nice after. Oh yes, another, where she wasn’t particularly nice (my one bar pick-up leading to sex in my life.) I had an FWB relationship also, which felt very hollow, since we weren’t in love at all.
Both of my parents were molested by their fathers. Fortunately, they kept their hands off of us in that way. My father was very distant from me. He was bi, and I think it was his fear of this type of thing kept him a remote figure in my childhood. Like many from this type of family, I’ve had a high number of sexual partners.
You get drunk and sleep with someone that makes you a WHORE not a rape victim.
Grow up.
Puckles, you get drunk and force yourself on a woman, drunk or otherwise, that makes you a RAPIST, not a man.
As a victim of all kinds of abuse I know about guilt, shame, and blame. Although this isn’t the first time I’ve felt it, while reading this article I couldn’t help but feel pain for some of the male species. We need to teach our girls that verbalizing “yes” and “no” strongly. Of course not all, but so much sexual abuse is due to fear of voicing ourselves. It won’t protect you from everything, ladies, but use that voice strongly!
Mike Domitrz= The Date Safe Project= spreading the word, traveling the country to educate kids to ask first!
I loved your article, Lisa, and it definitely rang true for a lot of the experiences I have had. I never experienced abuse as a child but my father did leave in my early teenager-hood in circumstances which seemed world-changing at the time. I felt that I had been brought up to believe that my identity was my parents’ opinion of me, so losing my father’s interest led to a big crisis of my own identity. For a while I felt that only in the company of my mother was I at my ‘point neutral’, truly being myself. This coincided with the growing realisation of my potential as a teenage girl to attract male attention. In a very similar way to you, I became extremely promiscuous, always hoping that the next man would be the one to fall in love with me, and somehow take the unbearable aspects of my personality off my hands. While I am now in a caring and long-term relationship, it has been very difficult to accept a healthy but not-fairytale love and work hard at protecting and strengthing it. If my boyfriend ever found out about my occasional lapses of fidelity, I think he would be devastated. But for me, fidelity is something which I have to work on, and which is part of me accepting my identity as a good person who does good things.
The issue of consent in sex is still one I am unsure about, because even in the best relationship there are likely to be occasions of unenthusiastic consent, especially if there is a (temporary or permanent) discrepancy between the sex drives of the partners. I also realise that my reluctance often becomes enthusiasm as I become more turned on, but I fear this is a very dangerous thing to say because it indirectly encourages people to try and persuade others into having sex. In my personal experience, I have been in situations where I wished the next day that I hadn’t played the seductress and lured someone into bed, and also situations where I have had sex only to protect myself against someone’s negative judgement. Both of these kinds of situations are ones I wish I could have avoided, and I think that part of that is about not believing my own judgement to be right and feeling that intimicy with other people could take away the pain of being me. Attempting to accept that my (considered, reflective, informed) judgement is the only one I will pay heed to doesn’t come easily, but I hope to get there eventually.
I think one of the most power points you have made in this post is that the old and blame-laded ways in which we have talked about this in the past have simply not been very effective. So trying to approach this from a new perspective is well worth the effort.
I don’t have the experience, as an adolescent, of being drunk. I was promiscuous because I was extremely curious. And I liked sex. And I had a great deal of it. I came from a reasonably stable family background. But even so, I did end up in situations where the ‘yes’ was questionable. I can’t honestly say it was rape. I can honestly say that I was giving out a lot of mixed messages. And I gave out those mixed messages because there were social pressures and expectations at work that overrode my choices.
If I grew up in a time when it was socially preferable for women to say ‘no’, then I think there is a similar strong but opposite pressure on women today to say ‘yes’. Either state is unacceptable because neither is an answer born of individual free choice.
What I do think is very important is to educate young women that whether they ‘give it up’ or not is no measure of their value as women. Conversely, it’s important to educate young men that a rejection of the offer of physical intimacy is no measure of their virility or masculinity.
One of the best men I ever dated somehow, despite all my best efforts, never had sex with me. He slept with me, held me, hugged and kissed me, but gently and firmly didn’t go any further. He taught me so much, that took me years after we split to figure it out. If you’re abused as a child, you genuinely don’t have a ‘no’ button in your head. You take for granted that you will have sex with any man that shows even passing interest, and don’t even question whether you want to or not. Sex is currency exchanged for love, intimacy, and an abatement of the dreadful loneliness abuse victims take for granted. This doesn’t excuse rape or abuse, but it does make things difficult for men who aren’t aware of what’s going on. It takes a very strong and aware man to know the difference when the girl he is with has no idea that sex can be consensual, and whether she is consenting or not. Of course, women who don’t know the difference are a gift to abusive men, and I consider myself very lucky to have known this man who taught me that relationship and physical intimacy doesn’t mean I automatically have to screw the man. I now have a standard, and an awareness of how a good man treats women. Thanks for your article, so much resonated with me and helped me understand some of the ‘whys’ that I still struggle with.
Thank you so much for this fantastic article. It’s such a fresh departure from the knee-jerk “let’s blame everything on men” attitude that so many people who wish to talk about rape have.
Thanks. I just don’t find the “let’s blame everything on men” mentality to be productive in the least.
Wow! Just Wow! I don’t think I have ever read a more honest, raw and complex post written about a woman’s sexual past. Even in the midst of friendly company, women rarely admit that they use sex, but here you are confessing on the internet to using it as a form of power and therapy.
Like yourself, there are plenty of folks who would like a more productive discussion about sexuality that doesn’t assign blame and point fingers, but the mere mention of the “R” word does just that! You can’t have a truce while using the word rape.
Thank you for writing this….so brave…and so full of all the ambiguities and, ultimately, the violence that pervades relationships between men and women…or really girls…you were a child then….and the horror that comes with that realization…
I’m not good at avoiding the blame thing. I thing blame is a good thing. I guess that makes me the weirdo but I honestly see criticism as a great force for good. However I’ll try to play by the rules (looks like the party’s over anyway).
What’s the deal with all the rape talk? Why do people go on about it so much like it is so important? Getting kicked in the balls is also a form of sexual assault but people don’t endlessly go on and on about it. I don’t get it. I have maybe some ideas but …. I don’t think I am on the same page as some of the weird remarks here at all. Especially on date rape so-called.
On the consent thing, what the heck is up with that? Why is it such a huge deal to figure out? I never had sex with anyone and had even the tiniest doubt about their participation. But even if I did… well why is it any different from any other human activity? Want to go to lunch? Maybe you are ambivalent. So I start off that way. if you don’t want to go, won’t you tell me? Why can’t communication over sex work just the exact same way that any other form of communication over anything else works?
Why do people think having sex with someone who is asleep is automatic rape? I don’t mean legally, I know the law is all fucked up. I mean morally. Do you really want to say that a wife who wakes up her husband with a blow job is a rapist? Because I don’t see it.
Lisa,
I’m sorry I could not even get through the entire piece. I know too much of this story. But I am so sorry you went through such early years. Sometimes I just hate humanity.
It’s best if we raise young men to simply operate on the assumption that a clear, reasonably sober “yes” is not a “yes” at all. Does that mean they’ll miss opportunities to score when a “veiled” yes might have been legit? Maybe, but at least we’ll also spare them the burden of having hurt a woman in a very dark and irreversible way. A minor setback for a guy who can always schedule a date with Rosy Palm to relieve the frustration, and the benefit is it prevents something that’s not only tragic for the woman, but the doubt that will plague the man.
Because yes, men have consciences. And the fact that they didn’t “mean” to take advantage while they were drunk doesn’t mitigate the hurt they caused, but the fact still stands that they’ve become monsters against their better judgment, just as the woman has become a victim against hers.
So, as Men, let’s settle for nothing less than a clear, concise “Yes.” And if she says “No” or anything that might *be* a “No* at the last minute, then we stop right there, pack it up, take our ball(s) and go home. Just like women, we deserve for sex to be fun, and to engage in it with a clear conscience. Heaven knows there are enough obstacles to that as it is without us adding to the problem.
Again, if that means you miss out because a woman who said no “really” meant yes? Again, the consequences of being wrong about that are too grave. Have some self-respect, guys. It’s not our job to figure out what someone “really” means. Don’t let that cloud your judgment.
And if that means that communications between the sexes become clearer and leaves less room for foggy interpretation as a result of such a fundamental change, consider that a bonus. Because that needs to happen as a whole, and this is a great place to start.
Sorry, I meant “It’s best if we raise young men to simply operate on the assumption that IF A YES is not a clear, reasonably sober “yes” IT is not a “yes” at all.”
Sorry to comment on my own, but I felt the misreading would have proved terribly far from what I was conveying!