I understand where you are going with the “i was almost raped, but …” discussions, but I want to put those in a different perspective for you.

Your example is perfect. You were almost killed in Vietnam many times, but you weren’t actually killed. Because you were one of the fortunate ones who did not get killed, does that mean you have no trauma or anger associated with the fact that someone tried to kill you many times? What that amounts to is numerous counts of attempted murder..still a crime. Just like someone who intends to rape but for whatever reason isn’t able to. Maybe because someone intervened or because he was fought off or maybe because she caught on early enough and was able to get out of the situation.

The point of the “almost” stories is to illustrate the severity of the problem. Not that it should need to be pointed out, but sadly, beyond the statistics of rapes actually reported, there are also rapes unreported. Then there are the cases of sexual assault, reported and unreported. All of those could fall under the “almost” category.

This is a little long but I just want to share something personal with you. I have told friends and family but never written about it. I had what i thought was a really good friend in high school. He was part of my “group” of friends that always hung out. He wasn’t an acquaintance, we were all together every day. We went to each other’s houses and i had been to his house several times and hung out alone with him, watching tv or listening to music. Nothing ever happened. I knew he had a crush on me but still nothing ever happened.

After high school, i got my first job answering phones for a courier service. One day, this same guy from high school gets a job at my work as a driver. Seemed cool at first since most of us had gone our separate ways after school. Until..i went to a local deli for lunch one day and he happened to come in and ask if he could sit with me. Of course he could. After all, he was a good friend of mine. We chatted about trivial things and then suddenly he tells me how he’s finally “over” me and that he used to like me so much that many times when we were alone at his house he thought if he raped me there would be nothing i could do about it.

I cannot begin to describe the chill that went down my spine that day but i can still feel it when i talk about it 24 years later. Was he a rapist? No. Was i raped? No. Is it scary as hell to know that someone actually thought it out regardless of his reasons for not going through with it? Hell yes it is. And it really fucked with my head and instilled a pervasive mistrust for men that has affected my life ever since, simply from one guy basically telling me, “you COULD’VE been raped, but you weren’t.”