The Me Too Project: Leslie's Story (blog author)
Nineteen is a beautiful, sneaky, pedantric, bright, crashing, blur of an age. Everything is fresh. Everything is thrilling. I'll admit I found it fun to be admitted to parties as a girl in a short, flowy Abercrombie floral skirt, dancing the night away to some terrible trashcan punch concoction. But I always watched my cup, had a designated driver, and checked in with friends often. Making out with strangers is fun, and it's all as much a part of the college experience as finals, papers, and learning you only thought you knew how to properly wash laundry.
The clanky dorm room I shared with my roommate was transformed with old record covers, rugs, extra furniture stolen from the lobby, and posters we'd nabbed at the local record store, punctuated by fading cut out starlights of various sizes we'd draped along the edge. We found them during October about seven or eight months earlier in a thrilling Target adventure, in which I'm sure we asked the poor cashier to split the check (much to her chagrin). The lights had a magic of their own; though technically "Christmas decor," they worked on a multitude of levels: for boyfriends snuggles, late night homework flashcards, falling asleep dreamily if you simply couldn't take the dark.
I'd had a particularly eventful spring, with the breakup with one boyfriend and immediate plunge into another relationship (which hit a snag soon after), and while I'm the eternal serial monogamist, for once in my life, I relished in having fun, tagging along, and not attempting to impress anyone. So when Megan, my roommate's best friend, asked if I wanted to tag along with her to hang with a guy she was head over Hollister flip flops for who was evidently a Ryan Cabrera lookalike she'd been hooking up with, I wasn't particularly interested, but was itching for something to do.
"You should go," urged Jessica, another dorm mate. Our dorm, Beretta (like the gun) Hall had been designed to forge friendships through designating all our classes with our dorm mates. We'd all been seeded, planted, and watered to be friends, but the friendships felt fake and pushed, like when your mother sets up playdates with people you actually can't stand when you're five.
"Will you be there?" I asked Jessica, as I didn't want to be a third wheel. Jessica radiated a coolness about her, but also some sort of bitchiness, as she'd managed to kick her (admittedly ridiculous) roommate out, and now her extra dorm bed was just a pile of "going out" clothes, all size XXS. She also had perfect hair, and was a year older.
"Nah, but Chris will. And he's cute. I know him, and he's single and verrrry..." she trailed off and double raised her eyebrows.
So with Jessica's blessing, I did a once over. My hair was in pigtails, my tan skin was close in color to the golden moose on my ribbed red tank, and my jeans I felt a bit better, heading over in Megan's car to hang out with Ryan and Chris, even though This Is The Epitome of College. They'd both been vouched for, and this wasn't even a party. So after we arrived, Megan and Ryan chugged several tequila shots, along with warm beer (the majority of our refreshments) at their off-campus apartments, and I sat next to Chris.
"Wanna see a cool trick to make the beer fizz go down? You just have to take any part of your body that has any grease - like a nose or something - and dip it in, and viola! Foam disappears." I'm not sure if it was the whole production of it all that caused the foam to disappear or if this is a legit trick; I've never bothered to check online because it still gives me the creeps.
Most freshman girls (sorry to make a generalization, as I'm sure dudes don't either) don't like the taste of beer, particularly cheap warm beer, until it's acquired. So he used the "You're in a desert, you're all alone, and there's nothing at all to drink until you come across an oasis. All it is is water. And you're so, so thirsty, you just have to drink it. It's just water, after all." He manipulated my stupid 19 year-old self into drinking three beers after I'd had two shots of tequila, and while my tolerance was high from attending a "party" school (prior to transferring the hell out), I still didn't feel unsafe, just a bit annoyed.
Somehow he knew my weakness. I don't know (though highly doubt) someone told him about the records on the walls, the Neutral Milk Hotel insert, the pictures with Eisley my roommate and I had taken right after I'd gotten one of those choppy early aughts haircuts that fell to my shoulders from Toni and Guy, or whether he just happened to love some of the obscure indie music I did, but we were soon embroiled in a conversation about Arcade Fire, Ben Kweller, and Spoon (we both had tickets to an upcoming show). The serial monogamist in my mind kept thinking, "This could be something! We could go to Spoon, hand in hand." After all, my first college relationship sparked over a mixtape on the way to a Minus the Bear show.
He led me to his bedroom to show me some rarities from some artist or band. I couldn't tell you which, not because I was a drunk, because as soon as he closed and locked the door in one swift motion, my heart dropped to my stomach. And suddenly, I was sober.
Instead of listening to anything in the same genre or vein of what we had been discussing, he threw on house music as loudly as possible, and held my hand. It was clammy. I knew I needed to run.
"Hey, my purse is out there and I need to grab my phone really quick," I stalled.
"Did you want me to but my number in it?" he asks. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. He snags my waist in one motion and pulls me towards him, and we land on his bed. "I can think of other things I'd like to put in you..."
Out. Out out out out out out out. Fight or flight Leslie. Fly. Run. Soar on paper wings and unlock the door. Do it even if he rips them in two.
He gingerly tucked part of my hair beyond my ear, which would be endearing on anyone else, but made me feel ill.
I swiftly mentioned needing to find Megan. His eyes narrowed and he grinned wildly, sinisterly replying, "Oh, she and Ryan are locked in the other bedroom, and i don't see them leaving anytime soon," his smile sickeningly sweet as he grabbed my waist and forced me down onto his bed. "Where were we?"
He began kissing me - not soft and sweet, but forcibly and monstrous - all over, and tears ran sideways down my cheeks because I knew what was coming. It was inevitable. Fight or flight, fight or flight. I didn't know which, and I lost track of time.
Find the weakness my dizzy head told me. It was certainly not strength; this was the type of guy who bench pressed for fun. I was thrown on a bed half naked against my will, and no matter how much I'd fought, pleaded, told him "I wasn't really the type of person who does this," he just kept conquering every piece of me, and I was practically waving a white flag.
When he got to my jeans - my red Abercrombie and Fitch tank, Victoria's Secret bra (of course it was a lacey one, as if I'd planned - oh sorry, begged - for this), flip flops were already strewn across the room - I froze. This was the make or break moment. The rest of this had been hell, but I knew that in crossing the denim line, there was no return. I knew it would break me.
I fought like hell. I pushed him off, and he was such a cliche. He insisted I wanted it. I looked straight ahead, just past his face at this hideous fake candle he had flickering next to his desk that he probably lit for all the girls he tried to rape. I wondered his success rate as I raged, trying to scream but hearing only silence, kicking at anything - his legs, his arms, his erection with my feet, pushing him off with my arms. This was a game to him. He was cackling. Just a tickle fight gone "sexier." Why else would I wear a tank top? How dare I have boobs?
As he was unbuttoning the top button of my jeans, grabbing my hand to touch him as everything spun in slow horror as he worked the zipper down. I blinked away the tears as the adrenaline rushed. I realized I was exhausted when I started to give in. And then I had a thought.
I'm still conflicted by this thought, because it's so unfeminist, so utterly verbose and putrid, but it saved me, no matter how much it made me squirm.
I looked at his face, red from the drinking. What does every rapist want, crave, desire, or claim after? Consensuality from their victims. And so I formed a plan. The worst plan that probably wouldn't work, but it was all I had, because fighting him wasn't working, and the last of the beer (and jello shots he'd taken, left over from last week's river trip) didn't help.
I thought back to high school theatre last year, which felt like years ago. This was what I'd been preparing for, the ultimate performance.
I looked him straight in his sweaty face and said the most vulgar thing you can say to a wannabe rapist: "You realize this was all a game, right? I do want you." I even managed to hold one of his cheeks in mine.
"Oh, I know it, babyyy," he slurred. The candle fluttered its hideous hue. I still can't to this day understand how someone - anyone - wouldn't at least come ask him to turn the music down. House music turned up to 80 on his speakers must have rattled the entire complex. But I'm sure they were used to it.
Once he slurred those words, the plan was in place. This time, I took charge, which he found "so hot." It took every ounce of strength I had to kiss him a few times (once with tonuge, and I thought I'd puke) as we lay there next to each other, my pants still intact, but my clothes and dignity still strewn across the floor. He continued to kiss me and reached for my jeans again, but I whispered, in the most sugar-sweet voice possible, "Can we cuddle before we get started?"
He groaned.
"Please? I just really want to snuggle with you," I said in my most convinving act yet, kissing him on the cheek and laying down next to his grotesque figure. I felt disgusted with myself for finding him mildly attractive earlier.
But complied, and I had hope. He was so trashed that I knew if I could get him to crash out for a while, I had a feeling he would eventually pass out. I don't know how many hours I spent with his stupid arms wrapped around me, his sweaty body pressed so close I felt physically ill, with one hand touching my breast. It was so vile and horrific that I felt frozen, and only when his snoring reached maximum level did I collect my clothes and sneak out the door to find Megan.
I relayed my ordeal through the closed door, banging loudly as I told her I needed to leave pronto, but when she finally opened the door in Ryan's Fall Out Boy t-shirt with bedhead, Ryan said, "Oh he'd never do that." Megan chimed in, her crush on Ryan clouding her judgment (what happened before that stupid saying "chicks before dicks? hos before bros? uteruses before duderuses?") and I was stuck, car-less, in these stupid flip flops that rubbed a blister on my heel, miles away from campus.
This was long before iphones or anything with internet directions, and naturally, no one I called at 6 AM answered. So I trudged along anything that looked like a main street until a campus bus found me and gave me a ride. I tried to explain something awful had happened, but burst into tears. He drove me back to my dorm; the only real stranger in the story is the one that showed me nothing but kindness.
My dorm room felt oddly comforting; my star lights were still glowing, their fake night sky fading in and out as I tucked the covers of my Hawaiian print comforter under my chin morning, long after the stars - real or fake - should have retreated into the warm spring sky. I watched old episodes of the OC, skipping every class, forcing it into the back of my mind at everyone's urgence after finally discussing it after dinner.
"He's not actually a bad guy."
"So I actually talked to him, and he doesn't remember a thing. Are you sure anything really happened?"
"You didn't get like, real raped, so aren't you making a big deal out of nothing?"
None of this is acceptable. I was indeed lucky that I didn't get "real raped," but had I not pretended to snuggle with that creepy asshole, I sure would have. This is not okay. I'm okay now, but we still live in a society that fosters rape culture. This was evident when I had some sort of Mass Comm class with Chris (you notice I refrain from saying his name when possible) and we were sorted into smaller groups. He actually shook my hand and introduced myself. When I talked to the TA (and later professor) about switching groups since this dude had attempted to rape me, they didn't allow it. It was complete bullshit, and the last spring I spent at that particular university prior to transferring.
Beyond that, it's even the little things every single day that I laugh about now because they're so ingrained in our society; as a 16 year-old on a trip with 3 other girls my age in Galveston, some dudes in a convertible hit on us at a stop light, asking "How YOU ladies doin'," revving their engine and generally trying to act impressive. When we giggled and responded "HORRIBLE!" as a joke and they nodded, not even listening, and said, "that's nice, that's nice...." and then they rammed into the person in front of them and caused a fender bender. I didn't think about it the time, as I self-consciously adjusted my bikini top, but no matter how you've been implicated, it's vital to share. I invite you to share your stories. They don't have to be paragraphs long. You can write a mere two sentences regarding how you felt, what was done, the way you coped after. This will have a lasting impact than a hashtag we'll soon forget.
Let's raise our children, our significant others, our friends, and ourselves to be more accountable.
Please send any submissions you feel like sharing to MeTooSubmissions@gmail.com. Your submissions are anonymous, and I'll never share even if you just want to vent about something awful that happened without necessarily posting it
The clanky dorm room I shared with my roommate was transformed with old record covers, rugs, extra furniture stolen from the lobby, and posters we'd nabbed at the local record store, punctuated by fading cut out starlights of various sizes we'd draped along the edge. We found them during October about seven or eight months earlier in a thrilling Target adventure, in which I'm sure we asked the poor cashier to split the check (much to her chagrin). The lights had a magic of their own; though technically "Christmas decor," they worked on a multitude of levels: for boyfriends snuggles, late night homework flashcards, falling asleep dreamily if you simply couldn't take the dark.
I'd had a particularly eventful spring, with the breakup with one boyfriend and immediate plunge into another relationship (which hit a snag soon after), and while I'm the eternal serial monogamist, for once in my life, I relished in having fun, tagging along, and not attempting to impress anyone. So when Megan, my roommate's best friend, asked if I wanted to tag along with her to hang with a guy she was head over Hollister flip flops for who was evidently a Ryan Cabrera lookalike she'd been hooking up with, I wasn't particularly interested, but was itching for something to do.
"You should go," urged Jessica, another dorm mate. Our dorm, Beretta (like the gun) Hall had been designed to forge friendships through designating all our classes with our dorm mates. We'd all been seeded, planted, and watered to be friends, but the friendships felt fake and pushed, like when your mother sets up playdates with people you actually can't stand when you're five.
"Will you be there?" I asked Jessica, as I didn't want to be a third wheel. Jessica radiated a coolness about her, but also some sort of bitchiness, as she'd managed to kick her (admittedly ridiculous) roommate out, and now her extra dorm bed was just a pile of "going out" clothes, all size XXS. She also had perfect hair, and was a year older.
"Nah, but Chris will. And he's cute. I know him, and he's single and verrrry..." she trailed off and double raised her eyebrows.
So with Jessica's blessing, I did a once over. My hair was in pigtails, my tan skin was close in color to the golden moose on my ribbed red tank, and my jeans I felt a bit better, heading over in Megan's car to hang out with Ryan and Chris, even though This Is The Epitome of College. They'd both been vouched for, and this wasn't even a party. So after we arrived, Megan and Ryan chugged several tequila shots, along with warm beer (the majority of our refreshments) at their off-campus apartments, and I sat next to Chris.
"Wanna see a cool trick to make the beer fizz go down? You just have to take any part of your body that has any grease - like a nose or something - and dip it in, and viola! Foam disappears." I'm not sure if it was the whole production of it all that caused the foam to disappear or if this is a legit trick; I've never bothered to check online because it still gives me the creeps.
Most freshman girls (sorry to make a generalization, as I'm sure dudes don't either) don't like the taste of beer, particularly cheap warm beer, until it's acquired. So he used the "You're in a desert, you're all alone, and there's nothing at all to drink until you come across an oasis. All it is is water. And you're so, so thirsty, you just have to drink it. It's just water, after all." He manipulated my stupid 19 year-old self into drinking three beers after I'd had two shots of tequila, and while my tolerance was high from attending a "party" school (prior to transferring the hell out), I still didn't feel unsafe, just a bit annoyed.
Somehow he knew my weakness. I don't know (though highly doubt) someone told him about the records on the walls, the Neutral Milk Hotel insert, the pictures with Eisley my roommate and I had taken right after I'd gotten one of those choppy early aughts haircuts that fell to my shoulders from Toni and Guy, or whether he just happened to love some of the obscure indie music I did, but we were soon embroiled in a conversation about Arcade Fire, Ben Kweller, and Spoon (we both had tickets to an upcoming show). The serial monogamist in my mind kept thinking, "This could be something! We could go to Spoon, hand in hand." After all, my first college relationship sparked over a mixtape on the way to a Minus the Bear show.
He led me to his bedroom to show me some rarities from some artist or band. I couldn't tell you which, not because I was a drunk, because as soon as he closed and locked the door in one swift motion, my heart dropped to my stomach. And suddenly, I was sober.
Instead of listening to anything in the same genre or vein of what we had been discussing, he threw on house music as loudly as possible, and held my hand. It was clammy. I knew I needed to run.
"Hey, my purse is out there and I need to grab my phone really quick," I stalled.
"Did you want me to but my number in it?" he asks. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. He snags my waist in one motion and pulls me towards him, and we land on his bed. "I can think of other things I'd like to put in you..."
Out. Out out out out out out out. Fight or flight Leslie. Fly. Run. Soar on paper wings and unlock the door. Do it even if he rips them in two.
He gingerly tucked part of my hair beyond my ear, which would be endearing on anyone else, but made me feel ill.
I swiftly mentioned needing to find Megan. His eyes narrowed and he grinned wildly, sinisterly replying, "Oh, she and Ryan are locked in the other bedroom, and i don't see them leaving anytime soon," his smile sickeningly sweet as he grabbed my waist and forced me down onto his bed. "Where were we?"
He began kissing me - not soft and sweet, but forcibly and monstrous - all over, and tears ran sideways down my cheeks because I knew what was coming. It was inevitable. Fight or flight, fight or flight. I didn't know which, and I lost track of time.
Find the weakness my dizzy head told me. It was certainly not strength; this was the type of guy who bench pressed for fun. I was thrown on a bed half naked against my will, and no matter how much I'd fought, pleaded, told him "I wasn't really the type of person who does this," he just kept conquering every piece of me, and I was practically waving a white flag.
When he got to my jeans - my red Abercrombie and Fitch tank, Victoria's Secret bra (of course it was a lacey one, as if I'd planned - oh sorry, begged - for this), flip flops were already strewn across the room - I froze. This was the make or break moment. The rest of this had been hell, but I knew that in crossing the denim line, there was no return. I knew it would break me.
I fought like hell. I pushed him off, and he was such a cliche. He insisted I wanted it. I looked straight ahead, just past his face at this hideous fake candle he had flickering next to his desk that he probably lit for all the girls he tried to rape. I wondered his success rate as I raged, trying to scream but hearing only silence, kicking at anything - his legs, his arms, his erection with my feet, pushing him off with my arms. This was a game to him. He was cackling. Just a tickle fight gone "sexier." Why else would I wear a tank top? How dare I have boobs?
As he was unbuttoning the top button of my jeans, grabbing my hand to touch him as everything spun in slow horror as he worked the zipper down. I blinked away the tears as the adrenaline rushed. I realized I was exhausted when I started to give in. And then I had a thought.
I'm still conflicted by this thought, because it's so unfeminist, so utterly verbose and putrid, but it saved me, no matter how much it made me squirm.
I looked at his face, red from the drinking. What does every rapist want, crave, desire, or claim after? Consensuality from their victims. And so I formed a plan. The worst plan that probably wouldn't work, but it was all I had, because fighting him wasn't working, and the last of the beer (and jello shots he'd taken, left over from last week's river trip) didn't help.
I thought back to high school theatre last year, which felt like years ago. This was what I'd been preparing for, the ultimate performance.
I looked him straight in his sweaty face and said the most vulgar thing you can say to a wannabe rapist: "You realize this was all a game, right? I do want you." I even managed to hold one of his cheeks in mine.
"Oh, I know it, babyyy," he slurred. The candle fluttered its hideous hue. I still can't to this day understand how someone - anyone - wouldn't at least come ask him to turn the music down. House music turned up to 80 on his speakers must have rattled the entire complex. But I'm sure they were used to it.
Once he slurred those words, the plan was in place. This time, I took charge, which he found "so hot." It took every ounce of strength I had to kiss him a few times (once with tonuge, and I thought I'd puke) as we lay there next to each other, my pants still intact, but my clothes and dignity still strewn across the floor. He continued to kiss me and reached for my jeans again, but I whispered, in the most sugar-sweet voice possible, "Can we cuddle before we get started?"
He groaned.
"Please? I just really want to snuggle with you," I said in my most convinving act yet, kissing him on the cheek and laying down next to his grotesque figure. I felt disgusted with myself for finding him mildly attractive earlier.
But complied, and I had hope. He was so trashed that I knew if I could get him to crash out for a while, I had a feeling he would eventually pass out. I don't know how many hours I spent with his stupid arms wrapped around me, his sweaty body pressed so close I felt physically ill, with one hand touching my breast. It was so vile and horrific that I felt frozen, and only when his snoring reached maximum level did I collect my clothes and sneak out the door to find Megan.
I relayed my ordeal through the closed door, banging loudly as I told her I needed to leave pronto, but when she finally opened the door in Ryan's Fall Out Boy t-shirt with bedhead, Ryan said, "Oh he'd never do that." Megan chimed in, her crush on Ryan clouding her judgment (what happened before that stupid saying "chicks before dicks? hos before bros? uteruses before duderuses?") and I was stuck, car-less, in these stupid flip flops that rubbed a blister on my heel, miles away from campus.
This was long before iphones or anything with internet directions, and naturally, no one I called at 6 AM answered. So I trudged along anything that looked like a main street until a campus bus found me and gave me a ride. I tried to explain something awful had happened, but burst into tears. He drove me back to my dorm; the only real stranger in the story is the one that showed me nothing but kindness.
My dorm room felt oddly comforting; my star lights were still glowing, their fake night sky fading in and out as I tucked the covers of my Hawaiian print comforter under my chin morning, long after the stars - real or fake - should have retreated into the warm spring sky. I watched old episodes of the OC, skipping every class, forcing it into the back of my mind at everyone's urgence after finally discussing it after dinner.
"He's not actually a bad guy."
"So I actually talked to him, and he doesn't remember a thing. Are you sure anything really happened?"
"You didn't get like, real raped, so aren't you making a big deal out of nothing?"
None of this is acceptable. I was indeed lucky that I didn't get "real raped," but had I not pretended to snuggle with that creepy asshole, I sure would have. This is not okay. I'm okay now, but we still live in a society that fosters rape culture. This was evident when I had some sort of Mass Comm class with Chris (you notice I refrain from saying his name when possible) and we were sorted into smaller groups. He actually shook my hand and introduced myself. When I talked to the TA (and later professor) about switching groups since this dude had attempted to rape me, they didn't allow it. It was complete bullshit, and the last spring I spent at that particular university prior to transferring.
Beyond that, it's even the little things every single day that I laugh about now because they're so ingrained in our society; as a 16 year-old on a trip with 3 other girls my age in Galveston, some dudes in a convertible hit on us at a stop light, asking "How YOU ladies doin'," revving their engine and generally trying to act impressive. When we giggled and responded "HORRIBLE!" as a joke and they nodded, not even listening, and said, "that's nice, that's nice...." and then they rammed into the person in front of them and caused a fender bender. I didn't think about it the time, as I self-consciously adjusted my bikini top, but no matter how you've been implicated, it's vital to share. I invite you to share your stories. They don't have to be paragraphs long. You can write a mere two sentences regarding how you felt, what was done, the way you coped after. This will have a lasting impact than a hashtag we'll soon forget.
Let's raise our children, our significant others, our friends, and ourselves to be more accountable.
Please send any submissions you feel like sharing to MeTooSubmissions@gmail.com. Your submissions are anonymous, and I'll never share even if you just want to vent about something awful that happened without necessarily posting it
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