NYT Opinion piece: Padma Lakshmi: I Was Raped at 16 and I Kept Silent

[catbyte]

Very powerful writing.
-------------------------------------------
Padma Lakshmi: I Was Raped at 16 and I Kept Silent

I understand why a woman would wait years to disclose a sexual assault.

....snip (background of the circumstances surrounding her rape)

I have been turning that incident over in my head throughout the past week, as two women have come forward to detail accusations against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Christine Blasey Ford said he climbed on her and covered her mouth during an attempted rape when they were both in high school, and Deborah Ramirez said he exposed himself to her when they were in college.

On Friday, President Trump tweeted that if what Dr. Blasey said was true, she would have filed a police report years ago. But I understand why both women would keep this information to themselves for so many years, without involving the police. For years, I did the same thing. On Friday, I tweeted about what had happened to me so many years ago.

You may want to know if I had been drinking on the night of my rape. It doesn’t matter, but I was not drunk. Maybe you will want to know what I was wearing or if I had been ambiguous about my desires. It still doesn’t matter, but I was wearing a long-sleeved, black Betsey Johnson maxi dress that revealed only my shoulders.

..........snip (details of the rape)

I didn’t report it. Not to my mother, not to my friends and certainly not to the police. At first I was in shock. That evening, I let my mother know when I was home, then went to sleep, hoping to forget that night.
----------------------------------
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/opinion/padma-lakshmi-sexual-assault-rape.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

I'm sorry I can only copy four paragraphs. It's a compelling piece and definite worth the read.

[MotorCityMan]

1. Oh, this male can understand her keeping silent

I am a gay male. My first sexual experience was at 16 with a relative. It wasn't rape, it wasn't assault, but it should not have happened. He was 50 and basically seduced me and took advantage of my youth and naivete. The guilt and shame after the incident was overpowering (being raised Catholic didn't help). It didn't help that when I saw the relative again, he kept making passes and inappropriate comments to me. I could barely deal with the guilt and shame. I even spent a year denying to myself I was gay as I was so disgusted by what happened. Almost killed myself over it, to the point of having a razor in my hand over my wrist. When I hit that point, I basically laughed and thought to myself, "This is a really stupid thing to do and for such a stupid reason..."

Years and years later, after I finally spilled the story to a psychologist, she told me what for so long I desperately wanted to hear.... "It wasn't your fault. You were young and had no sexual experience and he took advantage of that..."

Anyways, it would have helped me tremendously, to this day, if I could have talked to my parents (or someone) about what happened, around the time it happened. I knew damn well, though, that I would never have been believed and he would have denied it and it would have been my word against his.

So yes... I completely understand the keeping silent.

[Bluepinky]

2. I'm glad you have gotten the support you need.

Yes, your relative was/is a sexual predator who took advantage of a child.