THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240061
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY AMY KELLEHER, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
SHE WAS FORCED to have sex against her will. Her virginity was gone. She was told it was her fault because she flirted with her rapist. She is not alone. She is a victim of date rape.
She is a senior at a Virginia Beach high school. Her identity is being withheld not because she's ashamed or scared, but because she wants to get on with her life. She finally has learned to cope with her rape.
When she first met him, he scared her. ``I . . . put my instincts aside,'' she said. ``I called them silly. I wish I would have listened to them now.''
Like this teenager, most rape victims know their attackers. A 1994 report by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, said that of all rape victims under 17 where there was a conviction, 91 percent knew their attacker.
The rapist was her friend's cousin. ``I was . . . attracted to him. He had a certain look and appeal.
``We had gone roller skating. He drove my friend and I because we were only 15.'' They left early to go back to her friend's house. He suggested they watch movies. She agreed to that, but not to what else would happen.
``He drug me down a hall and locked me in my friend's bedroom,'' she recalled. ``It was dark. I couldn't see anything. I wouldn't have minded kissing and I did approve that, but I had very strict Christian morals. I made my morals very clear to him.''
Before the rape, she only remembers seeing his face pressed right up to hers, staring.
``I've always been strong for a girl,'' she said. ``I never thought I'd be put into that situation. I always thought I would be able to find a way to get away.''
She struggled, but he was heavier, and he overpowered her. She screamed, but her friend, who was in the next room, had the television on so loud she couldn't hear. The screaming made him stop.
``When he was finished, he got up and left the room,'' she said. ``Finally, I got up. It was so painful that I couldn't walk too well. I staggered downstairs.
``When he took me home, I was still in shock. I just wanted to get home. I went to my room and sat on my bed, crying.''
``I heard myself telling people how I had said `no' to him. I didn't believe I had been raped. It was only when I was telling people what happened to me, I realized I was raped.''
Only 27 percent of rape victims identify themselves as rape victims, according to Robin Warsaw, author of ``I Never Called it Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving.'' Many do not want to call what has happened to them ``rape.''
``It's a psychological defense that makes it easier to deal with because you don't associate it as rape,'' said Nancy Brock, executive director of RESPONSE, a sexual assault crisis center in Norfolk that provides support for victims. ``Many victims don't want to believe someone that they trusted could do something like this to them.''
That's exactly how the Virginia Beach senior felt.
``I didn't want to believe it at first, but finally I listened to myself and realized they were right,'' she said.
She remembers feeling cheated. She thought sex was something to be saved for marriage as a ``gift'' to her future husband. ``I was cheated out of something I had always wanted to share with my husband,'' she said, ``or at least someone I love.''
When her best friend found out, the friend wanted nothing to do with it.
``She told me that she'd warned me that he was a jerk and that I shouldn't have flirted with him at all.'' Her friend said, ``get over it.''
Though some people blame the victim, rape is never the victim's fault. Virginia law says there has to be force, penetration and a lack of consent. Wearing revealing clothes, for example, does not give the rapist an excuse.
``A person, male or female, has the right to say `no' at any point along the line,'' Brock said. ``It is the other person's legal and moral responsibility to stop.''
Every person involved in a dating situation has the responsibility to talk openly and honestly about sexual limits and to reject sexual stereotypes such as the one that says women are supposed to be submissive or that males always want sex.
Males should also know that they have the same protection under law as females. Before the law was changed in the early 1980s, victims could only be female. The aftermath
After this rape, the girl initially avoided her attacker. ``About a week later, I called him. I just wanted to know why he did this to me.''
He blamed her, just like her friend blamed her. ``He told me that I needed to learn a lesson and that because I flirted with him, I had gotten what I deserved. He told me that next time would be worse.''
She stayed away from him, but the haunting memories never left.
She told her closest friends what happened. Later she told her sister. She read them what she had written in her diary about it. ``They were shocked. They were so mad that they wanted to kill him.''
Five months after the attack, her sister made her tell her parents. ``My mom cried, and my dad went into a little rage. I told them there was no way that I would press charges.''
According to Brock, this is all too common: ``Many women do not prosecute because they know the odds are against them. There are two basic legal defenses associated with rape: `They have the wrong person,' or `It was consensual sex.' Basically it's her word against his. She tells the court her side and his is almost always different.''
The Virginia Beach teen felt that filing charges would complicate everything. She just wants to get on with her life.
``It's not too bad now,'' she said. ``For a while, I was really uncomfortable around men.''
Experts say that a fear of men is a common effect of rape, along with a loss of trust, low self-esteem, depression, guilt and sexual problems.
Though this has been a terrible part of this teenager's life, she is trying to learn from the experience. ``It gives me an understanding of something,'' she said. ``I learned to trust my first instincts.'' MEMO: Amy Kelleher is a senior at Kempsville High. Staff writer Denise Watson
contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color drawing by Adtiana Libreros, Staff
KEYWORDS: RAPE SEX CRIME by CNB