‘wasted’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Was it my fault?

6.11.10 | 3 Comments »

500_being fully conscious

It was my 30th birthday. I was/am a single mom who never parties. I made sure I had cab fare, I didn’t drive. I asked three friends to make sure I got home safely. And then, I got obliterated. When they piled me into the cab I was half-conscious. The first stop was a friend’s apartment. We had dated briefly the previous winter. We’d had sex, but it had been more than 6 months. He convinced my other friends to let me get out with him and stay at his place. He’d “take care of me”.

I remember stumbling up the stairs. I remember walking in his apartment and flopping fully clothed on top of his bed and then, I passed out.

When I woke up, he was having sex with me. It took me a minute or two to even know what was happening. In my mind, all I remember is the way the corner of the walls met the ceiling and I didn’t even know where I was. Then I realized what was happening. I said NO. He stopped. He said “I was dreaming we were having sex and when I woke up, we were”.

But, I was STILL asleep. In fact, I was intoxicated and unconscious. I never consented to even going to his home never mind the sex.

I got myself dressed, in a cab and home. The next day I felt awful but didn’t remember anything about the rape. I didn’t even think about it until weeks later when I got my period and a condom…HIS used condom, fell out of me! Then, it all came flooding back.
I told my therapist, and she said maybe it was a misunderstanding, I should talk to him.
NO I thought, this is rape. There was no misunderstanding.

I never spoke to him again, I never went back to therapy–to that therapist. The few people who know what happened ask me why I got so drunk. I guess, it was my “fault”.

Or, was it?

A Letter to Dave

4.1.10 | 9 Comments »

One year ago today, I lied to my parents and told them I was sleeping over a friend’s house when really I was going to see you. The lying really wasn’t a big deal; I had lied to them many times before whenever I wanted to see you. I was damn good at it too; they never even suspected that I wasn’t where I said I was. They had no idea that I had even kissed anyone, let alone that I was having sex with someone nine years older than me almost every weekend for a period of nearly four months. You can imagine how shocked they were when they found out.

I had always returned home safely and on time and everything always went according to plan. So why would I think that this time would be any different? Unfortunately, the evening of March 28, 2009 ended very, very badly for me. I was left wandering up and down a dark street at 2am crying in the rain in utter disbelief that I was in the situation that I was in.  Being raped and left in the middle of a bad neighborhood after midnight was something that only happens in the movies and to girls on the evening news…right?

Yes, Dave, I want to make clear to you that what happened that night was rape. Yes, I did go to see you specifically for the purpose to have sex with you. Yes, I know you were incredibly fucked up that night. Yes, it was somewhat consensual at the beginning, but what ended up happening is that you forced me to have painful sex (I would rather not call it sex, but I will for lack of a better word) with you that I did not want to have. You raped me. You told me that you do not remember what happened and that you do not want to remember what happened. However, I think that it is incredibly selfish of you since I have to live with the horror of what you did to me each and every day. You’re the one who should be in pain because of what happened, not me.’

You had me pinned against that dumpster in a position where I could not move. The back of my head, my neck and my spine were smashing into the corner of the dumpster so hard that I was covered in bruises the next morning. It was impossible to scream for you to stop because the air was pushed out of my lungs as my body was pressed against the steel. I was able to say “Stop” and “you’re hurting me” a good dozen times, but you ignored me. Once, you did respond to me by saying “Shut up, I don’t want to hear that.” You tried to convince me to have sex with your friends. You tried to get me to call you master. You told me that you loved me. You told me I couldn’t fall in love with you. You told me not to be “a fucking prude”.  You fucked me in the ass without permission and yelled at me to get up when I fell to the ground in pain. You came inside me without permission. You left me there. A part of me knew you weren’t coming back as I watched you walk away, but at the same time I couldn’t believe that you would leave me there, in a neighborhood filled with drug addicts and dealers and gang members. I tried calling you multiple times. I kept thinking this can’t be happening…this can’t be happening. One of the times I called, your phone answered by accident and I heard you telling your friends what happened.

…And then she was like no! (Laughter) I have to put my phone somewhere where I can’t hear it.

You try to tell me it wasn’t rape after a statement like that? I was so angry and confused that I decided that I was going to try to find your house. I found the address you had given me in my purse. I walked in the direction you walked in and I found the right street, I went up and down that street trying to determine which house was yours. I’m not sure what I planned on doing once I found you, but I know I wanted to hurt you. I never found the house and I thank God every day that I didn’t. As I looked for your house I also began to call my friends in hopes that they could pick me up. It was 2 in the morning; they weren’t awake and didn’t pick up their phones.

Do you have any idea how alone I felt that night? I ended up being forced to call my parents whom I had lied to. I asked them to pick me up at the 7-11 which was miles away from where I told them I was going that night. I walked there and sat on the ground and smoked a cigarette as I waited for my dad to arrive. The cashier from 7-11 came outside to have a cigarette. I probably looked like shit and my eyes were probably red from crying.

Are you okay?

That was the first time that night that anyone showed me any kindness. It touched me so much and I wish I could go back and thank him for letting me know that there were still good people in the world at such a horrible moment like that. I think I managed to choke out a yeah to him. He stood next to me until my dad got there.

I had to tell my parents everything. Do you know how painful it was for me to tell my parents not only about what you did to me but also to admit that I had been lying to them for months? My parents were just happy I was okay. After I got done telling them I went into the bathroom to take a shower. I undressed and looked at myself in the mirror. My flesh looked pale, cold and gross. I wished I could tear off my skin. I got into the shower and washed the shit from the inside of my thighs. I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.  You, David, made me feel so violated, so disgusting, so worthless and so defeated that I could not look at myself in the mirror again for weeks.  In fact, it was so painful to think about that I blocked the memory from my mind for months.

You called me the next day when I was at work crying. You were the one crying? You told me that due to your negligent indulgence in absinthe and who knows what else, you ended up in the hospital. You told me that you woke up on your porch without your wallet or the ring that tore into the opening of my vagina the night before. Good! I should have just hung up the phone, but I wanted the opportunity to scream at you. I went outside to the parking lot and yelled into the phone as customers walked by staring at me. I told you that I had trusted you and that you hurt me and that you left me there by myself and that I never wanted to see you again. I think that the main reason I stayed on the phone with you is because I was in denial about what actually happened; that it was rape. I think I felt that if we could work out what happened that night that it would just go away. You told me that you were sorry about what happened and that we could get together to talk about it. You never kept any of the promises you made and you thought I still wanted to have sex with you. You were never sorry. You were just covering your ass because you knew I could get you arrested.

I’m not a monster, but I acted like a monster last night

…you said. I believed you back then but now I know that a monster has always been a monster and will always be a monster. Drugs and alcohol had nothing to do with it, they did not give you the ability to rape me without hesitation; you were always capable of it. Now, I am able to pick out a monster from a crowd. I can see it in the way they walk, talk and move because I know how you walk, talk and move.

I used to blame myself for what happened. I used to think, Why didn’t I realize that he was a monster? Why did I let myself be put into that situation? I blamed myself for having such low self worth that I would ever sleep with you in the first place. The truth is that it is not my fault for having low self-worth; it is something that I have been taught by others throughout my life, including you. You took advantage of my vulnerability at a young age. You were 26 years old; you should have known better than to mess with the feelings of a (barely) 17-year-old virgin.  You knew that I could be easily manipulated and that is why you sought after me in the first place. I gave up my virginity and sexual dignity so that you could have sex with me, someone who you could easily take advantage of.

Since this past October, I have been experiencing nightmares and panic attacks that stem from my memory of that night on a regular basis. I get nauseous and scared whenever I see someone who looks like you. Everyday has been a struggle, but with the help of a therapist and friends I have made progress. However, I know that the memory of that night will always be with me and I will always be scarred. Although, now I’m realizing that I can transform the anguish and fear that I feel because of what you did to me into strength and a passionate, thriving and carnal fervor for life. I survived what you did to me. I’m still here. I appreciate every drop of sunshine and warmth, every hug, every listening ear, every smile and every act of kindness so much more because you brought me into a world where none of those things existed. I will never allow anyone to treat me how you treated me ever again. I don’t deserve it. I deserve a man so much stronger than you.

Skyla

Make sure I'm awake!

2.24.10 | No Comments »

500_Im awake

How can I possibly enjoy myself when I’m not even conscious? Please don’t be selfish. Make sure I’m awake. (via @HappyFeminist)

Ever so slightly…

2.17.10 | 2 Comments »

500_eversoslightlysouth

Had a blast on Valentine’s Day at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame with the feminist twitter crew: @JerinAlam, @ClinicEscort, @sassbutt, @trixiefilms, @melissagira, @K_Bridgeman, @AdjoaSankofia, and @HappyFeminist. And yes, even as I read this, I’m still saying the “at” -  whatevs.

@MelissaGira sums it up:
Feminist brunch. Mimosas. Every conversation you think it would be (gender nonconformity, fetuses, grits, sex work).

We missed those that couldn’t make it!

Calling Bullshit on “The New Math”

2.11.10 | 6 Comments »

I was snowed in, stuck in a blizzard here in Washington, DC, when I got “the news.”  The New York Times? Talking to me about hookup culture? I was excited, but notably crushed by the article, a hopeless observation of a new “problem with no name.”

The New York Times has given up on hookup culture. They declared that we, as women, were desperate and lonely. We were stuck with other women (the horror!) and we were stuck searching for partners who treated us right. We were being cheated on, and treated like dirt. And the reason for all of this, they say, is not the men we’re dating, the culture we’re living in, or the assumption that we want to get married in the first place.

The problem the The New York Times identified was college admissions numbers.

The article, relying on gender stereotypes, said that the longer colleges admitted so many women, the longer men would have the power to shape the dating landscapes on campuses. Why? Well, because women need these men. Women need their approval, need to love them, to marry them; therefore, women have to choose between being The New York Times prude orThe New York Times slut. When men are in the majority, they control the culture. When men aren’t, they still do. And the problem?

The New York Times really thinks the problem is admissions numbers.

I wrote a letter to solve this problem, and submitted it via email from my couch. My goal wasn’t to be angry or upset, or to go on and on about all the boys that never call and the hookups that become heartaches. My goal was just to let them know that I have suffered at the hands of hookup culture, too, and that I didn’t do it because I went to college to get married or find anyone else’s approval. I am fulfilled just as I am, and that is why this culture hasn’t taken away anything more from me than some of my pride.

My goal was to make them think about how little admissions numbers have to do with hookup culture and partners who don’t respect us.

To whom it may concern,

Last semester, I found myself grief-stricken by college hookup culture. No longer a myth and instead an institution of most contemporary collegiate lives, it has taken its strongest sexually empowered soldiers through the dirt. When I read “The New Math on Campus,” I was struck by your observation that women were being treated badly by hookup culture, and people of all genders were frustrated with it. But I was even more struck by what the article chose to highlight: that these women were lonely and seemingly desperate to be a part of this.

I would like for your staff to do a piece on a hookup culture that does not accept it, but challenges the root causes and assumptions. The problem with hookup culture isn’t marriage, or sex, but the belief that single women are being hurt by their success and not their colleagues. These women are going places! And your staff has no idea.

Hopefully yours,

Carmen Rios.

"I wasn't raped" – what?

2.9.10 | 13 Comments »

500_BANDITQUEEN

I lost my virginity junior year of High School, and compared to my friend’s first times, I was pretty late. When I would ask them about their first times, they would smile and proceed to tell me all the juicy details. I’ve always been a curious girl; I used to lie in bed when I was younger and touch myself, becoming acquainted with my pussy. Around fifth grade I discovered romance novels, via Danielle Steel, and reread steamy sex scenes and let them play out in my head. So naturally, I was very anxious to have sex. I ‘lost’ it to a guy five years older than my sixteen year-old self, but it was consensual and I was more than ready to get it over with. ‘Lost’ is a funny word to use since I didn’t lose it. I know where it went.

Fast-forward two years and a couple of months, and I’m lying on my bed in my dorm that I share with my roommate Vanessa (whose name I changed to protect her identity). Vanessa and I instantly became friends; we both have boyfriends, we’re both Latina, and we both love to eat. I don’t know if it was my array of women’s studies books or my reproductive system bandana hanging from my wall, but she felt comfortable talking to me about sex. Our conversation evolved from which positions we like best to what our first times were like. But instead of laughing it up, I started getting really pissed throughout her first time story. Vanessa couldn’t tell if her first time was consensual or if it was rape. She justified it, since at the time, he was her boyfriend.

Vanessa’s story goes like this: She met Jose (not his name) when she was seventeen through friends, and the first time they hung out, it was her first time getting really drunk. They started making out, which led to dry-humping, which led to them moving into a bedroom. He started to finger her and she told him to stop so he stopped, and told her he wanted to respect her since he grew up with women and his dad was always in jail. After that, they started going out, and after a month he told her he loved her. A month after that, she snuck out of her house (which was becoming routine) and went to Jose’s. They were drinking, and Vanessa felt drunk off a few beers. He drank the same amount as she did, said he was drunk too. They started making out on a couch in his living room. Vanessa realized later that he was faking drunk, since it normally took him about six times the amount he drank that night. He turned the couch into a bed and without her knowing, he got up to get a condom. He got naked, got on top of her and asked, “Are you sure?” All she could do was nod her head. She told me that she felt pressured into having sex, and once they started doing it, she couldn’t wait for him to get off cause it hurt so much. Afterward, he left her there crying so he could go to sleep in his room.

Months later, she started questioning him about that night, he would angrily ask her “what are you implying?” so she dropped it. When she asked her friends about it, they told her to not worry, because it’s “just sex”. But it’s not just sex. Sex doesn’t make you replay every action in your head, finding all the ways to blame yourself.  Even if he was your boyfriend and you wanted to please him; if he really loved you then he would respect you.

This semester, I moved to a different dorm and one of my roommates told me a similar story about her first time. He wasn’t her boyfriend, but he was a guy at school that she had a crush on.  She also couldn’t tell if it was rape, or if being forced the  first time was normal. Why were my friends scared to admit that it was rape, because their friends were telling them not to worry about it?

If we call these experiences what they are – rape, would that even be helpful? I think that it would be. Let’s not forget the definition of the word. By being silent, you are being violent towards yourself. You are denying yourself the right to speak up and be heard. It’s up to you if want to Phoolan-Devi-it or whatnot, but by letting those assholes off the hook, we all let them know that they can get away with anything. And we, as listeners, need to not minimize these stories when we hear them.

Vanessa is in a great relationship right now, with a man who loves and respects her. Everyone deserves both, or at least respect, especially for their first time.

Send us Your Line!

9. Don’t Forget: You Can’t Have Sex with Someone Unless They Are Awake!

12.16.09 | 3 Comments »

500_KateHYesterday, my Mom emailed me CNN’s article “Rape Victims Offer Advice to College Women” chock full of helpful tips about how we women can avoid being raped while attending college. The article highlights the study put forward by the Center for Public Integrity about rampant sexual assault on college campuses, and how most often schools fail the victims. The study reveals a lack of transparency on campus, and a culture of secrecy combined with barriers to reporting.

So we’ve moved beyond blaming the victim to blaming the institution? Sorry, folks, that’s just not good enough. I replied to my Mom’s email with:

THEY SHOULD BE TEACHING COLLEGE MEN NOT TO RAPE!

Nowhere did this widely circulating article mention preventing violence before it happens. How’s about a little prevention education for teen boys, prevention education for freshman boys, prevention education for football stars, prevention education for film students, prevention education for fratboys, prevention education for valedictorians, prevention education for nice Jewish boys, prevention education for student body presidents, or good old prevention education directed at those who initiate sexual activity and perpetrate non-consensual sex?

My Mom hearkened back to a bygone era captured in film:

In the Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn, there is a marvelous scene:

Kate has gotten drunk the night before her wedding to husband #2 and gone swimming (with a suit on!) after midnight with a handsome reporter.  She is so drunk that he has to carry her to her room. At the time of the midnight swim Kate is being plagued by memory of being called cold and unfeeling, almost not human.

The handsome reporter tells the fiancé to simmer down, nothing happened. Kate explodes asking, “why am I so unattractive?”

Now the good part.  Handsome reporter replies, “you were drunk and there are rules about that!”

Somewhere we have forgotten the rules. Love MOM

*Sigh* Yup, but not all of us have forgotten the rules,  Men Can Stop Rape, PreventConnect, SAFER, White Ribbon, Byron Hurt and many more are working diligently to reach out and educate young men to end gender-based violence against women.

But until then, here are some handy tips GUARANTEED TO PREVENT SEXUAL ASSAULT, brought to you by the Feminist Law Professors:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

Can You Look At Yourself In The Mirror?

11.24.09 | 3 Comments »

500_Toto.jpeg
Fresh from the glossy coffee table of our amazing designer Thomas Cabus, who also moonlights as the daily photographer toto. He lives and works in Paris, taking snapshots of city life, dark bars and trashy locals. Two friends came by his groovy apartment for a private Parisian screening and came up with:

Jamais si je peux pas me regarder le lendemain dans la glace

Jamais defoncee

Want to hazard a translation?

A few clues: Never, mirror & trashed

"Rape Culture" or "Russian Roulette"?

10.9.09 | 5 Comments »

500_Russian
This is an excerpt from my recent interview for HEEB Magazine. Defining rape culture is one of those questions that in some ways feels very tricky, but its also very simple. Kind of like my film. The context is complex, the message is simple: communicate and respect each other. I thought I did a pretty good job with the answer, and gave Judaism some props for the groovy sex-positive tenants in our marriage contract.

A rape culture is one that assumes violence will happen during sex. It says: ‘Watch your drink’ or ‘men are pigs’ or ‘what did she expect?’ It asks women to live in the narrow roles of either virgin or whore, and tells us to be fearful. Jewish girls get somewhat of a break here, thanks to Dr. Ruth and our sex-positive roots in the Judaic marriage contract, but for men, rape culture expects them to be dogs and tells them they have to trick or coerce girls into bed. If given the choice, most people want to have good sex, where both parties initiate, are into it and are begging for more. A rape culture tells us that sex is bad, so you either have to steal it, rush through it, or get punished for doing it, or—God forbid—liking it.

Today, someone piped in to disagree with me on the site. I would roll my eyes if it wasn’t such a typical and disturbing response. In addition to misreprenting recent sex crimes in the news (its a wide net, only Kobe Bryant is missing), this person’s “solution” dictates that women be the gate keepers for male behavior. In its essence, it is exactly what rape culture is all about!

I will reserve final judgment until I see the film, but it also strikes me given the number of women like Laura Garza and Natalee Holloway who meet horrible ends by getting drunk and then leaving a bar with a strange man they have just met and of whose character and history they know nothing about; we would better served with fewer cliches about society as a whole, and more small scale, common sense campaigns advising women not to play Russian Roulette with their bodies.

How do you feel about being told not to play Russian Roulette with your body? Is it better to be safe than sorry?

I Was The Grrl du Jour

10.6.09 | 13 Comments »

carmen-text-me-back

I am an unusual breed: vibrant, youthful, fun, an activist who leads a regularly crazy college life and still attends every meeting. I am seen not as a prototypical “feminist,” but as an empowered young woman who simply plays like the boys. And I always have been a crier.

“Carmen, don’t do this. When I think feminism I think of you. Don’t be upset about a guy.”

“Carmen, you’re so much better than this. This isn’t you.”

I was the strong-willed, seemingly indestructible girl in the crowd, running down the stairs, throwing her things, and demanding to leave. But I was a feminist! I was sneering about activism minutes before he sent me home in tears and woke up worried that every sign I’d ever held up at a protest or a march was invalidated. I told myself it was me I was disappointed in, for sitting on follow-up semicolons, for keeping him in my bed until morning and sending him home with “no problem, anytime,” for waiting and waiting on the weekend only to end up humiliated.

It was hard to accept a loss of control and sort out where it went wrong. All I knew were his Greek letters and the address of a house where I’d once smeared war paint on my face; I knew his basement a little better than I knew him, an empty wooden room filled with solo cups overflowing. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, about the laced fingers and waking up under that blanket, the way we didn’t know how to say goodbye. I hated “what if,” and I wouldn’t let myself think the forbidden “what if I just wasn’t good enough?”

What bothers me isn’t the dismissive tone, the regrettable conditions, the blank stares and silenced hellos. (“Not worth your time” are the most insufferable words in the English language; if he sucked so much, why didn’t I realize it?) I am disappointed not because I am insecure; not because I just needed him to like me, or call me, or even give a shit about me; but because I am too independent, too self-assured to not be angry that he disguised himself in those dorky glasses and let me think I was more than the grrl du jour, more than a convenient exit, angry that he listened to my naiveté without a nod of acknowledgment, angry that now it’s as if nothing happened.

THE LINE is about building a world where people are free to be sexual beings without being used or mistreated. Hookup culture disempowers even its bravest soldiers with “dude, I’m gettin’ some tonight;” even when women play the game, we’re expected to obey someone else’s rules. I’m disappointed because I deserve better than exploring my sexuality within a system that silences its worth, and in the future I’m not going to be stuck playing by disrespectful guidelines I didn’t author.

So yes, feminists can cry. And we can be disappointed, and upset- over anything we so care to be upset about. And the next time you see your local activista falling apart in the basement, you can be sure that it’s nothing short than a public display of the power of disempowerment.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

All Posts Tagged ‘wasted’