Hindsight is 20/20

Why is it that rape victims are offered unsolicited, useless advice after an attack? As if the suggestions offered to them wouldn't have been carried out while they were being assaulted if that was even a remote possibility. Do they think they are helping? Better yet those who take it upon themselves to judge a rape victims circumstances as to the amount of time it took to report her attack or her actions following the assault. 

Rape victims experience complex physical and emotional feelings during and after an assault. If they were drugged and rendered completely unconscious for the entire sexual assault as I was but knew sex had occurred and I didn't consent it's very hard to verbalize the attack to anyone. The victims I know floated in and out of consciousness while Jeffrey Marsalis raped them, some describing it as having been in a dream like and confused state. 

Reporting is also a complicated decision. Rape victims are ashamed, confused and question what they did to provoke being attacked. All you want to do is forget about it not relive what happened to strangers (i.e. police, doctors, advocates). Because I was drugged I wasn't even sure of all the details because my memory was fragmented only remembering prior to being drugged or after I woke up 8 hours later. How do you explain to someone what happened when you can't explain it to yourself? Why subject yourself to questions that you don't have the answers to?

We are seeing a lot of delayed reporting in the news lately with the Bill Cosby accusers. Their accounts of having been drugged and raped (some failed attempted sexual assaults by him) are decades old therefore being scrutinized by the public only reinforcing what the women thought immediately following their attacks. "He's a powerful celebrity, who is going to believe me?" Fans of the actor/comedian and skeptics immediately turn to the claim that a victim is in it for the money. Trust me when I say it's never for the money or the attention. If it were so easy to come forward and solicit monetary compensation or seek media attention then why wait 10, 20, 30 and almost 40 years? The victims are accused of reporting now for the same reasons the victims didn't come forward to report their sexual assaults originally. The skeptics can't have it both ways.

The public and media have the benefit of assessing accusers and their stories after the fact but the victim doesn't have that luxury because she is living in it. Let's give victims the benefit of the doubt because it's easy to go back but impossible to look forward.

Questioning Legitimacy

With the continuing reports of sexual assault accusations against Bill Cosby made by those victims brave enough to coming forward and the repeated denials and questioning of their legitimacy made by his attorney I wanted to provide my insight as a victim/survivor of a serial date rapist with similar circumstances.

These women/accusers have come under fire by some (public, media, etc) for the delay not only in their reporting of being drugged and sexually assaulted but as the number of victims grows whether or not some are coming forward to capitalize monetarily. I can't tell you how angry this makes me every time I see another statement reported online or on TV or a comment posted on twitter. 

Reporting a sexual assault under what you might call normal circumstances is already extremely difficult. 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Let's then add in the element of not only having been drugged but your rapist is a very popular, very powerful celebrity. I can speak to what it's like when you wake up in a man's bed naked, sick and confused. Your mind is foggy, you don't remember anything but you know sex had occurred, something that even if you had the opportunity to consent you weren't planning on doing so in the first place. I was extremely ashamed and wanted to get out of his bed and his apartment as soon as possible but had to fight against the extreme pain I was feeling all over my body from the drugs he mixed up and slipped into my drink. I couldn't make sense of anything that had happened and because of that I wanted to forget about it ever happened. I did not tell anyone.

Once I was contacted by the authorities in Philadelphia and made aware of the violent sexual act against me made by Jeffrey Marsalis and so many other women did I gain the courage to speak up and speak out. I knew what initially didn't make sense to me finally did now. As the investigation into my attacker grew larger and was reported in the news many more victims came forward to tell almost identical stories of their sexual assaults. 

This is what's happening with the victims in the Bill Cosby case. The women are coming forward to say he drugged and raped them too. They can't stand back silent any longer. He had a pattern. They don't want to be afraid of his fame and just as the victims in my case felt they want to legitimize the others that came forward ahead of them.

Now I can't speak to the feeling of intimidation that comes along with having been raped by a man with the public stature of Bill Cosby but I can speak to how scary it is to have your private life now so public. To have the picture of your rapist on the news reporting your story and being open up to all sorts of criticism especially when you have never processed what happened to you properly. I listen to these women being interviewed and their words and feelings mirror so many of mine. I have repeated the same words and thoughts over and over to myself. When I hear any sexual assault victim speak I know immediately whether they are truthful. So it infuriates me to hear anyone question a rape victims motives when I know right away they are not lying.

Thankfully you don't have to be a victim/survivor of sexual assault to show trust and compassion towards any sexual assault victims. You just have to be a good human being. That's easy!

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