When I was twelve, I went to the bathroom one morning to brush my teeth and found a book lying on the counter: "Ann Landers Talks to Teenagers About Sex." "Ahhhh, I thought. I think this is Mom's version of a sex chat." I shoved the book in the bathroom drawer for future reference, hiding it beneath my curling iron and my electric-blue Debbie Gibson mascara. Mom was too embarrassed to ever have a real sex chat with me. She never showed me that it was okay to actually talk about sex. I learned the pertinent details in silence. From Ann Landers, no less.
At Dartmouth I started volunteering for the WISE crisis hotline. The first thing we learned during training was how to listen effectively. But when I was on call, I was struck by the fact that there I was, trying to get women to feel comfortable communicating with me about disturbing events in their lives, when I myself was hardly able even to talk about sex. I haven't worn blue mascara for nine years, but I can still barely say the word "intercourse."
The point of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, of the Clothesline Project, the discussions and the Take Back the Night march, is to make rape and sexual abuse something we can speak about, to allow women to break their silence and speak about what's happened to their lives. The power of that silence struck me when I started thinking about how, in my own life, it's been a lot easier just to keep my mouth shut.
Eleventh-grade chemistry class was a nightmare. I didn't mind balancing chemical reactions, but I did mind spending nine months sitting in front of Heith Moles, who would lean over his desk during pop quizzes and whisper sexual comments in my ear. I never said anything back to him. I just kept drawing molecular diagrams and concentrating on getting my books together so I'd be able to beat him out the door when the bell rang. The harassment would get worse if he caught up to me in the hallway. I never told any of my teachers why I hid in the girls' restroom until the coast was clear to my locker -- I don't suppose they could have done anything about it. Besides, people told me Heith just did it because he liked me, so I handled it with silence.
I'm not trying to titillate you with these little stories about my adolescent sexual history or to trivialize the painful experiences of others. I clearly haven't gone through what countless women (and men), some of whom I know, have suffered behind the numbers I can throw out in a steady statistical stream. (More than half of all home-less women are fleeing domestic violence ... Every eighteen seconds a woman is battered ... Ninety percent of domestic violence is never reported to the police...)
Behind these statistics are people struggling silently to make it through each day. Thank God I don't have to deal with that. But we do have something in common -- our silence. My high school experience wasn't unique. I read somewhere that 75 percent of high school girls have been harassed in the hallway. I also read that one in three women will be raped in her lifetime. I think there is a connection there. Few of those girls and few of those women will find a voice to explain what they've gone through.
Forty sexual assaults were reported at Dartmouth last year, and reporting them was difficult. Preparing for a Committee On Standards hearing takes hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and mostly tears. Reporting is especially difficult because women's silence about sex is part of the culture we've created, which includes both rape and sexual abuse as well as the everyday state of relationships at Dartmouth. We refer to sex all the time, but rarely do we really talk about it or examine the nature of our sexual relationships. When we're feeling pain or frustration, we keep it to ourselves.
When I was sixteen, I slept with my high school boyfriend (geez, I feel like some statistic on teenage sex). Problem was, my high school boyfriend was my minister's son, who promptly decided that we'd committed one of the seven deadly sins. He claimed some sort of Christian amnesty from the little incident, cleansed his conscience and his soul, and I got to be the sinner for both of us. We never talked about it after that. I wasn't about to bring it up. I kept my confusion inside, silent.
I'm not saying that if you stand in front of the mirror and say "intercourse" to yourself 50 times each morning you'll help put an end to sexual assault. I think your roommate might put herself on the singles list. But I am saying that we need to start being honest with ourselves, to examine the quality of our relationships. If we start talking about sex, maybe we can bring some order to the silent confusion inside of us. And maybe we'll make it that much easier for other women and men to speak, too.
