Illustration by Pepper Pieroni

Sure, I’ll come over, I text him. Chill, nonchalant—I couldn’t care less. But my heart is racing; I’ve wanted this for a long time. What should I wear? Should I shower beforehand? I can’t forget to brush my teeth and shave my legs. I’m walking to his dorm. I can see his face in the window next to the doorway. Do I make eye contact? I’ll pretend I’m on the phone so he doesn’t think I’m too excited. He opens the door and ushers me inside; we don’t think that anybody sees us. I say, “Hello” and giggle nervously. Should I walk up the stairs first? I don’t know where his room is. He leads me to the fourth floor. grey walls, grey sheets, linoleum flooring. He asks, Do you want to watch a show? Sure. Or do you want to listen to music? Sure. Or we could just make out. Sure. But you can’t tell anyone, okay? Sure. I want him to stop talking, so I kiss him. He does everything right. He moves quickly, but he doesn’t disrespect me. Do you want to go all the way? I pause for a moment. Sure.

I get self-conscious as he puts on a condom. With an intense inhale, he crawls on top of me and pins my hands by my head. Suddenly, I’m not too sure. Respect has vanished. He enters me rapidly and forcefully. I yelp as I lurch backwards, hitting my head on the grey wall behind me in an attempt to get away. I get a headache; I want to vomit. Tears start pouring down my body and onto the sheets beneath me. But he doesn’t stop. 97 seconds. I came, he says. But what about me? The condom broke, he says. What does that mean? I’m going to go shower, he says. Should I just stay here? I dry my eyes. The grey sheets are damp, covered in a blotchy mix of blood and tears. The bruise on the back of my head throbs along with the unfamiliar soreness between my legs. I pull on my dress. Should I leave now? Will he ask me if I’m okay? He comes back into the grey room. You should go now, he says. I don’t say anything as he leads me down the stairs.

~

I was fifteen. Too young to understand why I bled for hours afterward. Too young to get scared when he told me the condom broke. Too young to know whether to be proud or ashamed. Too young to give consent. I didn’t tell anyone, for a couple days at least. But then my big mouth got the best of me. I told my sister. I told my friends. A boy in my Spanish class told me that he heard a rumor that I had asked for a hookup and been rejected, so I told him the truth too. But I wasn’t the only one who talked. Soon enough, I heard the rumors about me. The freshman is pregnant, I heard one day. I am? She was begging for it, said another person. Was I? He has a girlfriend, so she’s basically a home-wrecker. Since when? He never told me that.

Pretty soon my dorm faculty called me in for a meeting. She told me the things she had heard about me, all of which I had heard too many times. I felt cornered, trapped, overwhelmed…so I told half of the truth. I should’ve denied everything. But instead, I told her that I hooked up with him, but didn’t have sex. We only got to third base, I assured her. That’s still penetration, she informed me. Technically, you both committed statutory rape since you’re both too young to give consent. She promised me confidentiality, and I trusted her.I should have known not to trust the adults at this school.

The town police called my parents a few nights later. It was only a small hookup, I told my mom. Please don’t make me press charges. She made me swear I was telling the truth. Luckily, he didn’t press charges against me either. According to the school, I was as much a rapist as he was since he was underage as well. I ran into him one day in the health center. Deny everything, I told him. There’s nothing to deny, he said. This is your problem, not mine.

I was angry but also afraid. Why was everyone placing the blame on me? Was it my fault? After all, I did walk into his grey room voluntarily. I did kiss him first. I did consent, at first. But since when did resistance signify consent? Since when did a terrified yelp mean that everything was okay? Since when did tears and blood become a green light telling him to keep going? It couldn’t have been my fault. He hurt me, not the other way around. But I couldn’t tell the police that. I couldn’t tell my mom that. Nobody could know the truth, at least for now.

~

It was freshman spring and the days seemed to stretch and merge into each other, creating an eternity of madness around me. My sister and friends started avoiding me because they believed the rumors. I felt betrayed by my dorm faculty, betrayed by the people closest to me, and I began to feel like I had betrayed myself until I discovered a new friend in the grey scissors from my desk drawer. At first I couldn’t hurt myself because I was afraid of the pain, but then my own guilt from the incident built up so much that I believed I deserved punishment. One night, I wrote a letter to him. I poured emotions onto paper, trying desperately to describe, despite the pain, the unbreakable connection that I felt to the boy who hurt me because he had taken something that was mine—something I can never get back. I signed my name in my own blood, drawn from the quick, relieving swipe of grey scissors against my flesh. I never sent him the letter; it sat on my desk next to my scissors, both of them a constant reminder of pain.

As time passed I began to feel a little bit better, distancing myself from the incident. I built up the courage to tear apart the letter and put the scissors back in the desk drawer when I began packing up my dorm room for the summer. The biggest relief came when I left campus and realized that I could finally tell my mother the truth. Don’t call the police; I don’t want to press charges, I insisted. And don’t tell Daddy. He would place the blame on me, just like everyone else. She understood. She cried, knowing that I had suffered something worse than everything she had worked her whole life to protect me from. I thought I was over it, and I struggled to understand why she was so upset. Because this experience will never leave you, she warned me. And she was right.

~

As I’m writing this we are quickly approaching the second anniversary of that day. It’s marked on my calendar. Why do I care so much? I have always wondered why my brain keeps spinning about the same incident over and over again. Why do I look up at his window every time I walk past the dorm where it happened? Why do I remember the color of his sheets, his carpet, and the t-shirt he was wearing? Why can’t I use my grey scissors without the emotions coming rushing back? I should be over it by now. He’s not even at the school anymore; he got kicked out for something other than sexual assault.

But a part of me wishes he had gotten caught for the right reasons. I know there are other victims. My spit-sisters; the girls with whom I share a rapist. Part of me has always hoped that one day, I will find his name in a headline of a grey newspaper, that some other girl will have had the courage to report him like I never could. I hope that girl will find closure in knowing she could bring him down, unlike me. Why didn’t I have the courage to ruin him? I know why. Because at my school, ruining him would have ruined me. I would have been blamed, interrogated, and arrested along with him, because technically I raped him as well. There’s no such thing as a victim here when the victim is also guilty. There’s no such thing as closure. For me there’s only the constant cycle of questions running through my brain. Vivid memories triggered by sheets that look a little too grey or beds that feel a little too similar. I know that I will never forget, whether I like it or not. My anger toward him will live on. Maybe one day I’ll have the courage to come forward, but for now, I’m just stuck thinking in circles, constantly considering and reliving the day he hurt me.

by Margot Becker

Toxic masculinity: one of the most complex and vague terms of the modern day gender equality movement. According to Teaching Tolerance, an online resource for educators,

“Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It is the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness, where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as ‘man’ can be taken away.”

Broken down, this defines toxic masculinity not as a neurological concept but as a pervasive societal pressure. Men are taught that they need to be dominant, aggressive and sexually accomplished in order to be “true men.” According to Don McPherson, former NFL quarterback turned activist, “We don’t raise boys to be men. We raise boys to not be women or gay men. We don’t affirm what a loving man is. We’re not supposed to be effeminate or care or love or be sensitive, and it’s all utter BS because we are all these things.” In an effort to fit in and prove oneself, this misconception of masculinity is often fostered in schools, locker rooms and even in the privacy of the home.

Similar traits are demonstrated by many male animals, and Psychology Today even makes the argument that male brains are actually are more aggressive and dominant than female brains. However, Science Magazine counters with studies conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel, where testing the difference between male and female brains showed that most people’s brains contain both of these male and female structures. In fact, it is almost impossible to tell the sex of an individual solely by looking at their brain alone. This suggests that the root of toxic masculinity stems from cultural pressures, without biological underpinnings.

One of the most harmful things about a toxic culture is its impact on women. Catcalling, for instance, is a common manifestation of this culture; in a study by Stop the Street Harassment, over 99 percent of women surveyed had experienced some form of street harassment, ranging from leering to whistling to physical assault. Dominant behavior, when constantly reinforced, leads to more than just catcalling; it manifests as domestic abuse, rape and, according to a Harper’s Bazaar article, even mass shootings. This behavior can easily, and subversively, be reinforced by authority figures or popular culture, ranging from rap music, which has been pointed out because of lyrics that praise the “conquest” of women (The Marshall Mathers album by Eminem, for instance), to James Bond, whose partiality to “Bond girls” is world-famous. A USA Today article about the price of toxic masculinity argues that Trump’s presidency proved that toxic masculinity can be rewarded by society, which sets a dangerous example for future generations.

Toxic masculinity also explains much of the emotional repression that is so common among men. Boys are often told in little ways while they are young to withhold emotion. “Be strong” and “Don’t cry” are common indicators of a broader issue. This culture not only endangers women by making men desensitized to their effects on others, but it also endangers men by making them much more likely to have emotional health issues. Toxic masculinity has a proven effect on mental health; according to Healthline, mental health issues make up 90 percent of suicide deaths in the United States. In fact, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention states that men die by suicide 3.53 times more often than women, and suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in America.

However, all individuals, regardless of their gender, can help combat toxic masculinity. For men, the first thing that you can do is accept that toxic masculinity is a problem and try to look for it in your life. Whether or not you are able to recognize these harmful influences in your own life, you can try to create a more understanding culture that does not encourage male superiority or objectification of women. It’s a tall order, but the change doesn’t have to be immediate or massive—it can be as simple as educating your friends about toxic masculinity so they become more aware of the issue. When more men begin to understand the dangers of toxic masculinity, they can work to defy gender stereotypes within their own lives. Perhaps most importantly, by addressing the problem in ourselves, we can pass new knowledge on to the teenagers and children at risk of being raised in the same hypermasculine cycle.

You can support men who may want to open up and shake off the layers of toxic societal pressures that have built up throughout their whole lives. Other men should no longer force themselves or their friends into predetermined masculine roles. If you have taken the time to understand gender and sexuality issues, you can expose men to the fact that there are gender non-binary and agender identifiers and that they should embrace that they can have non-binary and gender-less aspects without being any less themselves.

The issue of toxic masculinity is fraught, complex and messy, but the only thing we as a society can do is push through its complexities and challenges in order to help ourselves and the people around us change this culture that has caused so much challenge and pain for everyone, regardless of gender identity or lack thereof. We need to help each other and help ourselves to become a more healthy, safe and equal people; the only way we can do it is together.

I do not understand why we talk about rape in the passive voice. It shifts the focus from the perpetrator onto the victim and subconsciously places the blame onto the victim. To say, “I got raped,” implies that I did something to get myself into that situation. It implies that I could have prevented it.

In reality, I did not get raped. Someone raped me. I don’t think I will ever get past believing that it was my fault, that I am somehow damaged. And technically I am. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which will shape the rest of my life. I have frequent flashbacks, panic attacks and generalized anxiety, along with an attachment disorder that manifests in falsified emotional connections with people who are undeserving or unwilling to reciprocate. I am painfully aware of the effect this has on my life. I fall for any person that shows any modicum of kindness towards me. If I hear a loud noise, my heart races. If anyone mentions sexual assault around me, I break down. I cannot walk alone at night. I cannot be alone with my own thoughts, so I chase distractions.

Despite prescription medication, I cannot sleep because every time I close my eyes, a scenario plays in my head, and it goes like this: I spent my summer in Jordan, studying Arabic, where I became friends with a volunteer working with the program. He was practically an adult, five years older than me. One night, he tricked me into going to his apartment, saying that everyone from my program would be there. I showed up. He was alone. I had no cell service, and I did not proficiently speak Arabic. I asked to borrow his phone, and he refused. Then he came onto me.

I tried to push him away, tried to say no, and I will always wonder if I didn’t try hard enough. But he easily had over a foot and a hundred pounds on me. He took off my clothes and forced me to perform oral sex. He pulled my hair so hard I could have cried. But I didn’t. I froze. And then he raped me. On a dirty couch in a basement apartment in a foreign country with Friends playing in the background. Afterwards, he handed me my clothes and lit a cigarette. I sat in silence and took a drag as his hands remained all over my body. Then, he stood up and offered to get me a cab. After that night, I saw him every day for a month.

I denied it for months afterwards. I even had sex with my boyfriend for the first time. It somehow all became real when I returned to school. I started having flashbacks, panic attacks, and I realized that I needed help. I broke up with my boyfriend and met with a counselor, who comforted me, then informed me that my parents would have to be notified. Learning that my parents had to know was perhaps equally as traumatic, as they are strongly conservative and Islamophobic. Before I left for the summer, they told me that something like this would likely happen if I went. And it did.

After learning that they would be told, as the school had to report the incident to the Department of Children and Families, I cried for the first time since it happened. I tried to look on the bright side, thinking that at least I would have support now. But after my parents found out, they didn’t text or call or even bring it up when I saw them in person. They sent me a note. A note that said barely more than, “We talked to the school. We are so sorry this happened.”

Months later, the subject finally came up when I told my parents I did not want to come home and they couldn’t imagine why. When I finally spoke with them about the fact that someone raped me, my father made it about himself, saying that it was my fault for not telling them, that I have always been too sensitive, too distant, too secretive, too unwilling to form a relationship with him. We have never gotten along, and I don’t think I will ever truly love or trust my father, but that night crossed a line which we will never come back from. How, as a parent, can you learn such a thing about your daughter and ignore it? How can you make that moment about yourself? I did repair my relationship with my mother, who found a psychiatrist for me, leading to my diagnosis of PTSD, bipolar disorder and a PTSD-related attachment disorder.

Post-traumatic stress is something that has forever shifted my relationships, and it has created a pattern. I have been heavily involved in my school’s hook-up culture this year, believing that maybe a twisted form of exposure therapy was the way to go to get over my terror at even the thought of sex. I was wrong. I form attachments too quickly to people who do not deserve that part of me and treat me like trash. Each time, I accept it. I accept it because in my mind, I think back to this summer and say to myself, “At least it isn’t that bad,” because I guess I believe “not that bad” is all I deserve. I can’t help but feel that I deserve to be used, objectified, ignored.

So I fall for iterations of the same guy over and over again, and each time, I believe that it is different, that I can trust him. Yet, I can’t because it is irresponsible to place my burden upon someone else without dealing with it myself first. And I’m trying. But, I did meet someone that I trusted with my story, and I have never before gotten a reaction that felt so genuine, that made me feel so safe. I did truly feel safe with him. It was the first time I felt safe with a guy since the summer, the first time I trusted someone enough to share this part of me with them, the first time I could hook up with someone without having a panic attack before or after. This gives me hope. The kind of hope that one day, I will stop replaying my rape in my head. The kind of hope that I will sleep through the night and walk alone in the dark without my heart racing. The kind of hope that I’ll be able to break my patterns of letting men mistreat me. The kind of hope that I can acknowledge my worth, fall in love with myself and no longer believe that I am damaged goods.

I refuse to be passive anymore. I did not get raped. Someone raped me. I need to accept that it was not my fault, that I did not deserve it. And ten months later, I am just learning how to cope with it. I am just learning how to have the courage to speak my truth.