8 Ways the Legal System Screws Rape Victims (Like Me)
When I was 19, I got so drunk at a party that I passed out. I woke up in the middle of being raped. When I started to scream, he covered my mouth. I was confused, scared, a virgin, and thanks to TV and movies, I was pretty sure that he would murder me after he was done. All I could think of was how I wanted to see my little brother again, so I just lay there, with tears streaming down my face, waiting for it to end. When he finally left to get a cigarette, I snuck out to get help, hid in the bathroom with my friends, and cried. I'll call him "R" for the rest of this article. It stands for rapist and kind of reminds of a pirate, and pirates are funny.
Look, this is a rough topic. I'm gonna take the levity where I can find it, okay?
Like from this pirate Pomeranian.
Long story short: rape blows, dudes. I totally do not recommend it. But after I pressed charges and took my experience to court, it became painfully obvious why
the vast majority of women don't. Bringing this criminal to justice was, in a lot of ways, worse than the actual crime. Because it turns out ...
#8. Rape Kits Feel Like the Worst Thing After a Rape
After my attack, all I wanted was to go home and pretend that this awful thing hadn't happened -- but my friends forced me to go to the cops, threatening to tell my parents if I didn't. To make the case viable, I had to go through a rape kit, which meant letting a
brand new
stranger touch me in uncomfortably similar ways to the last creepy stranger.
I cried, had hair ripped out by the roots from all over my body, and went through a "vaginal wash" (I described it as a "vaginal scraping" in the deposition, which is probably
plenty
descriptive for comedy article purposes).
If you're ever baffled as to why a rape victim is hesitant to go to the cops right away,
this is why. That experience would be horrible for
anyone, let alone someone who was just the victim of incredibly intimate violence. And even then, you have to deal with a whole load of skepticism, largely because ...
#7. You May Be Biologically Incapable of Acting "Like a Victim"
I've read through the voluntary statement I gave when I turned in the assault to the police, and it genuinely surprises me. I'm recounting all of these awful things, and it reads in this detached and matter-of-fact manner, like Spock recounting a trip through Dante's
Inferno: "I was at a gathering of friends," "I consumed alcohol," "R was on top of me having sexual intercourse," "I showed [friends x,y, and z] the blood from my ripped hymen."
"Can't you at least use a sad emoji?"
If it were my job to assess its credibility, I'd be pretty skeptical. According to pop culture, I should have been a blubbering mess, screaming "that motherfucker raped me!" and sobbing hysterically like Sally Field in a Lifetime movie -- but in reality, the way I reacted was much more accurate.
There's a scientific reason most people don't believe rape victims. Certain traumas can be so severe that they actually
change the way that your brain processes and stores information. The chunks of your brain responsible for decision-making and memory shut themselves down, for the same reason your computer shuts itself down when the hard drive gets too hot -- you don't want to do any permanent damage. Unfortunately, this means the victim sometimes behaves like they're lying: Police say that rape victims often exhibit the classic behavioral cues of a liar, which makes them instinctively doubt their story, no matter what the evidence says.
This also explains why the last time I ever shed a tear over what R did to me was December of 2009, on the witness stand during the trial. A single tear, the last part of me lost to that bastard. But what feels like strength now almost worked against me then, because I did not seem as sympathetic to the jury as I could have. Yes, the jury's job is to look over the facts, but sympathy is a big part of rape cases. And when I looked out at them from the stand, I saw only cold judgment from women who could have been my mom, and men who wouldn't look me in the eyes.
#6. You Might Have to Hang Out With Your Rapist and His Family for Months
I don't know if you've ever spent time in the waiting area of a pretrial hearing with the family and girlfriend of the man who raped you, but man, let me tell you, that's the kind of awkward even British sitcoms can't compete with. Our lawyers hashed out the details of things like when the next hearing would be, bail, and what was and was not admissible in court, while I sat mere feet from the guy responsible for the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I remember once, after a long day, I was walking past R's dad outside of the courthouse. He paused between drags from his O2 machine / cigarette long enough to push his electric wheelchair right up to me, lean in close, and menacingly whisper "whore." No one else heard.
"It took me three hours to build up enough oxygen to say that."
What could I do? The guy was a senior citizen whose body was falling apart. My reflexive hate of him would only mirror his reflexive defense of his son. I had to absorb the abuse as simply another shitty part of the justice process.
I also received tons of phone calls on my cell at all hours: scary laughing, jumbled threatening voices, heavy breathing -- the ol' Gary Busey Hat Trick. I never learned who those people were, but apparently there are countless folks who harass rape victims as a hobby or something. Seems like model building is a more productive and less horrific way to pass the time, but then again, that glue does get pretty sticky.
And these guys probably didn't need to get any more lightheaded.
#5. Your Case Must Be Bulletproof to Even Get a Shot
My case was as open-and-shut as it could possibly be: I was a virgin before the rape, I was blackout drunk, I was at a party with a lot of people I knew, multiple witnesses said it happened, and they had DNA evidence. If this was
CSI, the episode would be four minutes long, and three of those minutes would be David Caruso making puns over shredding guitar riffs.
"Looks like this cas-- What? Oh, you already solved it? I'll be in the car."
But throughout the process, everybody repeatedly told me that I was lucky to go as far as I had. They believed my case and all -- but they didn't think I had a shot. My therapist even offered me sessions completely devoted to preparing for a "not guilty" verdict. Because, as they knew,
only two percent of rapists will ever spend a day in prison.
Anything short of high-definition video evidence, a timely confession, or the ghost of George Washington as a witness, and your rape case will probably be dismissed. Studies have shown that evidence, whether it's lacking or in abundance, has
little to do with the verdict
-- what's more important are the jurors' own personalities and experiences.
"Damn the DNA!" The jury member says. "That young man is wearing a striped shirt. I wear striped shirts, and I'm no rapist!"
"To fight bias, we move to replace juror eight with one who wears striped shirts and is a rapist."
