My assaulter is just one ‘click’ away
OPINION | Should I contact him?
Essay by Elaine Rose Glickman. Views expressed are the opinions of the author.
I’ve Googled most of my exes — I mean, it’s so easy, how can you not? — but until one afternoon recently, I’d never Googled the classmate who sexually assaulted me when I was a freshman in college.
He wasn’t tough to find. I entered his name, and boom! Up came a website devoted to his professional endeavor, his accomplishments and many, many photos. Grinning at me was the face I remembered well — the hair was grayer, sure, but nearly three decades have passed since I awoke to find him on top of me, and a lot can change in three decades.
A lot has changed for me. The morning it happened, I reacted with panic, and anguish, and overwhelming shame. I showered, I scrubbed, I cried — and then, like the good girl I was, I got dressed, went to class and took an American studies exam. Aced it, by the way.
Three decades later, I don’t feel panic. I don’t feel anguish. And I certainly don’t feel shame.
What I feel is anger that my younger, infinitely sweeter and more naive self was made to weep in the shower.
I feel disgust for a person who would assault a sleeping 18-year-old girl. And I feel grossed out. I don’t even like shaking people’s hands unless I have Purell stashed in my purse — but that day a guy I barely knew thrust his penis against me and ejaculated all over my thighs.
I saw the man who sexually assaulted me many times during my college years. We had friends, activities and interests in common. But neither of us mentioned, or even acknowledged, what he had done to me. That was fine with 18-year-old me; I was eager to put the morning behind me, to push away the experience, to get on with what I’d always been told would be the best years of my life. But now, three decades later, I wondered why he did it. I wondered how he felt when he yanked down his pants and climbed on top of me, how he felt when I opened my eyes. I wondered whether he even remembers.
But I had a meeting that was certain to run late, I had to get to the grocery store, and my son’s ride home from school had fallen through. So it was once again time to shut off the memories and move on. Except, as I scrolled through his website one last time, I saw a tab that said: “Contact.”
The word was highlighted on the navigation bar, an invitation: “Contact.” It would be in my hands. Making contact would be my choice, not his; his consent would not be required for me to enter the world he had created, to touch the life he had made for himself, to remind him that I still exist, and still remember.
I closed the website and made it to my meeting on time. But that invitation — “Contact” — has stayed with me. What if I do?
What if I don’t?
I haven’t decided whether to make contact — although I like knowing that I can. I like that the prospect makes the 18-year-old girl still living deep within me feel a little less vulnerable, a little more powerful. I like that I might be able to upend his existence, the way he once upended mine. I like the sense that I can reach across the decades and — figuratively, at least — smack his grinning face.
The morning it happened, he trapped me under his body until he had finished. Part of me has been lying there for 30 years. Maybe it’s time to stand up.