My Open Letter To The #Stanfordrapist, His Father and Judge Aaron Persky:
Dear #BrockAllenTurner #DanTurner #JudgeAaronPersky
I’ve been raped and sexuatlly assaulted, two of those times I was unconscious. These gross acts were done by people I knew. I was sexuatlly assaulted by a family member when I was a kid on a family vacation, not even a teenager at that age and hadn’t even had my first period. I caught them in the act when I awoke to them leaving my bedside. And afterward I couldn’t sleep…for years and still till this day at soon to be 30 years old. For about 20 years now I haven’t been able to sleep. All I could think about, was when I closed my eyes, apparently my body no longer belonged to me. Someone thought it was OK to do things to it while I was unconscious. Sleep now became the enemy. I won’t take the time to point out all the effects it’s had but sleeping an average of 2 hours a night isn’t healthy or OK for anyone at any age. However I didn’t lose my trust in men, just that some people will never value you as much as you should value yourself. So I pressed on as best as could. I still see this person and have forgiven them but I’ll never be able to forget. Our relationship is based around this fact.
I’ve also been raped twice, once when I was 19 by a coworker at a party to which I was told afterward by the friend who invited me it could been worse. They’re right, I could have died. But now I get to live forever with the memory.
The second time I was raped I was around 21-22yrs old. This one I forget about sometimes because I try and regress the memory and because I was possibly roofied. I was set up with this pretty wealthy guy by my roommates at the time. As much money as he had, he was overweight with confidence issues (and would try and use his money to impress or “buy friends”.) I wasn’t really attracted to him at first but I really liked his personality so I agreed to go on a date. It was now around our 5th date three weeks in and things had been going pretty well but I was taking my time on sex cause like I said I wasn’t traditionally attracted to him but I was warming up to him for sure. We’d just gotten back to his place from dinner where we both had some drinks. The last thing I remember was exclaiming how I needed to go to bed for I was drunk and tired. He poured me one last njghtcap and tried to ensue sex but I said no, then to my recollection we went to sleep. When I awoke the next morning a different picture had been painted for me. I was in his bed completely naked barely covered by a sheet, and that’s when I saw my clothes all over the floor. I first tried to get up and remember what happened but my whole body felt weird. I wasn’t a Virgin and could tell if I had been “having sex”. My limbs felt wobbly though, I had difficulty walking, my head was killing me and all my muscles felt like I had been waking up from anaesthesia (which I had been under before for surgery that I had as child).
When I gathered my senses, I noticed he wasn’t in the room and marched right into the kitchen furious as all hell! We’d talked about how I wanted to wait, how I was glad we had been introduced and how great it was to be with a guy who didn’t mind waiting for sex. I felt like I was in a mature relationship.
I confronted him very upset and asked “did we have sex last night?”
He looked at me confused. “…uh ya…don’t you remeber?” I immediately wanted to hurt him, punch the wall and break down his house piece by piece when I heard that. I have an inherent temper from my parents. I responded with “YOU KNOW FOR A FACT I WAS UNCONSCIOUS WHEN WE HAD SEX!”
He then said “if you were how did we have sex?” And I screamed back “BECAUSE YOU RAPED MY UNCONSCIOUS BODY!”
He started saying things like “first off its not rape if we’re dating” and “Well I thought you were awake”.
I reminded him how we both knew I wanted to wait, how we had been on a few dates.. but who the hell cares I WAS ASLEEP and never consented to having sex. And to tell someone you thought they were awake? You either knew I was or wasn’t, not both. I said if I had been awake I would have said NO!
I do NOT have a history of sleep walking or talking and I knew I was in a deep sleep or something had been put into my nightcap at his place.
I felt betrayed and damaged. Someone who I thought I was getting to know seemed to only be interested in doing the same to get me into bed. I grabbed my things to leave and he stopped me. “What about the concert next week? Our plans?” I walked over to the counter where the tickets had been placed and took them (which were valued at $5000 from stubhub) and said if he ever tried to contact me again I would make sure to get him back for what he had done. I explained while though he had a lot of money, I was not, nor my body was not for sale. Then I yelled “I hope you’re happy now with what you’ve done because this is the last time you will ever see me” (tears running down, while the look of anger and disgust painted my face).
My roommates said I had made a mistake and that it probably wasn’t all that bad. I moved out, quit the job where I had met them and him and moved 45min away back Closer to the direction where I had grown up in Northern Virginia. To this day I have never looked back or regretted the discionsions I’ve made. If anything, I regret the fact that I didn’t make my case more public, I regret have not spoken out sooner about what happened to me. I regret sometimes that I live in a world where these people think something you do to someone when they are unconscious (knowing the victim or not) is OK or more ok then if they’re awake. That it’s not rape, because I might have done something to “ask for” or “deserve it.” I ask you…how can I ask for something when I’m UNCONSCIOUS. People like Brock Allen Turner.
