A Story from My Past Unfortunately Still Relevant Today

            The brave women who have spoken publicly about the sexual misconduct of people like Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and Bill Cosby are helping bring those men to accountability for their actions. Their stories have also opened a path for women to tell about similar misconduct from lesser known men, stories that indicate that a certain permissibility of treatment towards women I had hoped was a part of the past apparently is not. To recognize its existence is the first step towards eradicating it. For that reason, I offer my own story, which takes place at Cambridge University in the late sixties.

            Because students at Cambridge take only one set of exams, at the end of their years at university, the weeks before exams are full of tension and anxiety. After exams, release explodes in the May balls, exotic all-night affairs at each of the colleges, accompanied by a week of other social gatherings, such as the sherry party I attended in the beautiful gardens of Queens College. Flattered to have been invited, I was dressed to English-society perfection. The gardens were beautiful, the grass thick and perfectly cut, as always at Cambridge, and the flowers in full bloom. Butlers passed glasses of sherry on trays through the crowd.

            At some point during the party a dashing young man brought me a glass of sherry and introduced himself as Ian somebody, a student at Trinity College. He was handsome and smart and debonair. He flattered me by his attentions, and he saw to it that my sherry glass was kept full. My head was spinning, but I was so inflamed by the occasion and by Ian's attentions that I didn't realize how drunk I was. Because in 1967 no one ever talked about the dangerous connection between sex and alcohol, I didn't know to be cautious. When Ian suggested I follow him to his digs at Trinity College, I had no objection.

            Nor did I object when he took me to bed. I was not fully aware of what I was doing, though Ian was. He never hesitated. My virginity was no deterrent. "Isn't it beautiful?" he kept saying, and I kept thinking, "No. It hurts. It hurts."

            When I woke up the next morning and saw the blood on the sheets and realized what I had done – what I had allowed to be done to me – I was horrified and in shock. My impulse was to run away. I had to go home. "You should wait until people are coming in and out of the gate," Ian said, reasonably. "Then you can leave without being noticed."

            But I was terrified. I had to go home. I had to flee, to get away from this man. I walked through the gates of Trinity College in the early hours of the morning, having obviously spent the night in a man's room, but the porter, who must have seen me, didn't say a word. (This was part of the culture of the day that allowed a Cambridge University student of good breeding and in good standing to rape a woman without repercussion.) I don't think I was stumbling, but I felt all tight within myself, my vision no bigger than one step in front of me. I made my way home and went straight to my room, where I stayed for days. I didn't speak to anyone and hardly emerged to get food from the kitchen. I lost myself in fantasies that Ian was in love with me and was going to marry me. I was not applying myself to my studies. I was isolated and in shock.

            Classic rape victim symptoms.

            My housemates were worried. Polly, another American student, came into my room to visit with me. Talking about the sherry party or Ian, whom she had seen at the party, or anything she thought might get me to talk about what had happened, she said, in the vernacular of the day, "I'm glad you didn't let him go all the way with you."

            I crumpled. Tears that had been shored up ever since that night poured out. I confessed what had happened. I cried at last, but I was still numb and depressed.

            One day, when the doorbell rang, someone called up the stairs, "Diana. There's someone here to see you."

            I went to the door. Ian was on the doorstep with two of his buddies. My housemates crowded behind me, watching protectively. Ian chatted with me for a few minutes, debonair and impersonal. He didn't come in, and he didn't say anything in particular. He left with an airy wave of the hand, turning to the street, followed by his cronies, who hadn't said a word.

            I have always thought that my housemates had called Ian and told him he needed to see me. And they were right. That's exactly what I needed to bring me out of my numbness. It didn't take me long after that to resume my studies and return to myself.

            No one called it rape. There were no counselors to go to with my story. There were no repercussions on Ian, who, as far as I know, might have deflowered a dozen more young women by deliberately getting them drunk and taking them home with him. I like to think he has learned better by now, that he has come to realize the harm he did to me, the invasion of my body, the trauma he put me through, the villainy of his behavior. I like to think that young men parallel in education, parentage, and social status today would not think of doing as he did. But recent events would have me believe, instead, that a culture of rape as tacitly acceptable in the eyes of some men still exists.

            It was many years before I could call this incident a rape, though it was certainly what we today call date rape. I am lucky that I recovered quickly and that the traumatic effect lasted only a few years. I was lucky in having friends who knew how to take care of me. But it has taken many, many years for me to admit that I was raped – "admit," as though the shame is mine. I do feel shame in admitting what was done to me, and I wonder – did Ian ever feel shame in having done it? Or did he boast to his friends about his exploits – "deflowered a virgin last night" – drinking beer in the pub the next day, before attending to his studies as usual?