In Pursuit of Power

I can’t speak to what happened, I wasn’t there.

I can’t speak about her, I don’t want to put words to a story I know she has a hard time telling herself.

But I can speak about my experience as a friend.

I measure myself by how good a friend I am but… in this case, I just felt so useless. I would call my mom on the phone and just cry and cry because what do you do when you see someone you love so much completely destroyed...

It affected everything. 

It affected her idea of men. It affected her grades because... how can you possibly focus on a stupid paper when you’ve been through something like that?

It affected every facet of daily life.

It’s weird you just meet someone, you’ve known them for a couple of months, and all of a sudden you have to help them get through... rape.

(pause)

My personal theory is that a lot of men don’t know what it’s like to be vulnerable. To know there’s someone bigger and stronger out there who doesn’t care what you’re saying to them. To come to the realization that what you want has no effect on what’s going to happen. To have absolutely no power.

Cuz rape isn’t about sex; it’s about power!

I would talk to anyone about this. I want to warn freshman girls about it. We live in a culture of denial and complicity. 

Sexual harassment should not be a part of the college experience; and yet, how is it that every woman I know has been sexually harassed on this campus to some degree? That’s a scary thing to say.

What I saw happen to her is something that I NEVER want to see happen to anyone. No one should ever have to go through that.

No one.

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Written by unknown, edited by Parna Shakouri '23