I was wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt the day Leroy Johnson broke down my front door and ended a journey that began some 23 years before. One that my parents sacrificed for, one that we crafted together, built with love and laughter and tears and hard work. I was wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt and watching Beverly Hills, 90210 when he came into my world and took away its innocence, when he came into my world and took my life for his own.
I remember hearing my muffled name (Was Marnie laughing?), and when I stumbled curiously to the front of the apartment, I found my tiny roommate in the choke hold of a giant stranger, her feet barely skimming the floor; terror filling her eyes. He had a knife. He said he had a gun. I was holding a remote control and pressed the off button in an attempt to make it go away. He was wearing my friend Mike’s knitted cap like a face mask. Mike was going to be a rock star. We were all going to be stars then, really. And then my sky went black.
Just like that, we were raped… I was raped.
Rape is still a four-letter word in this culture. You can silence a room with it faster than you can by dropping an F bomb in the middle of St. Patrick’s. People close their eyes, look away, cringe. Society doesn’t have the language to deal with rape, so we become afraid of talking about it. We don’t understand it, so we avoid it. We assume, because sexual organs are involved, that it is about sex, when it is actually about power. We think it is an intimate act, when in fact it is nothing but violence and rage. And when we think it is about sex, we feel it is too personal to ask about, so we avert our eyes, we react with discomfort, we turn away. And when others react with embarrassment, survivors feel shame. And the shame breeds silence, and the silence fosters guilt.
But it is precisely the telling of our stories that is necessary to change attitudes about rape. Talking about our experience is healing. It’s therapeutic. It’s how we relate to one another and to this world. To think about how many times I’ve shared and heard individual stories about 9/11, for example. What I witnessed, my experience… we all continue to tell these stories over and over again precisely because it eases our pain and comforts us. Now imagine having no one to tell because, by and large, people not only don’t want to hear about it, they don’t know how to hear about it… essentially asking the survivor to…”keep it to yourself, because it makes the rest of us too uncomfortable.”
Organizations like RAINN are so important for this very reason. They give survivors a platform to be heard, a place to speak freely and repeatedly. RAINN says, your story IS important, your voice is worthy, your experience does matter. In essence, you do exist.
As activists, we argue for laws and policies to reflect not only the gravity of these crimes, but also work to change cultural ideas of rape. When only 6% of rapists ever spend a single day in jail, what does that suggest about our view of (largely) women in this society and their importance? Rapists hate women. All of the tools we have to protect and support women (and the LGBT community, who is also disproportionately targeted), all of our policies and resources must scream out that we do not- we do not hate women, nor will we tolerate those who do.
We must be anything BUT silent. By telling our stories, we reclaim our selves. A shattered life begins to once again take shape. We can change attitudes about rape. We can ease the shame and end the silence.
For all the years before our attacker was brought to justice, I largely stayed quiet. Nearly ten years later, on the day he was sentenced, I stood before a crowded courtroom, the judge, jury, and Leroy Johnson himself and really, spoke for the first time. “I will go the whole of my life never knowing who I was going to be.” Survivors of rape pay a life sentence. Every day. Every regenerated, reworked, reconstructed day for the rest of our lives and against our will…
And as the words fell from my lips, a shift began. My voice was finally being heard. Not just by the people in the courtroom, but also by the one person its absence had most profoundly affected. Me.
I used my voice and I was acknowledged powerfully when Judge White sentenced Leroy Johnson to 50 years. Instantly, I was present again. I mattered.
True, there are no superheroes. I guess I would have learned that sooner or later, despite what happened on November 18, 1996. But what I know now is that there are real life survivors among us, fighting so that our voices are never silenced again.
I wish it didn’t happen to us; I’d take it all back in an instant if I could. Instead, I will fight along side my heroes to make sure that we are heard. I will stand next to Marnie, one of the most courageous and generous survivors I know, and we will tell our story again and again and again, because we need to be able to talk about rape in order to change. It is so healing and powerful to look into the eyes of another and recognize yourself; to have the chance to meet someone and finally see ‘you’ reflected back again. I hope to be that mirror, so that survivors see that they do exist, that their story does matter, and that they are never, ever alone.
Today, I am a hugely pregnant, fiercely funny mom with a 22 month-old gem of a son, a rockin’ hot husband and a life never before so full of love, happiness and gratitude. It certainly does get better. Stay tuned…
