I was sexually assaulted by four different men before I knew it was wrong

Content Warning: This Letter to the Editor contains details of sexual assault. If you or someone you know is suffering from trauma due to sexual assault, please consult this list of resources: William Jewell Student Health Center, MOCSA, William Jewell Office of Counseling Services or William Jewell Student Life. Please note that Student Life is a mandated reporter of assault, whereas the other resources listed are confidential. If you need immediate counseling, contact the MOCSA hotline at (816) 531-0233 or (913) 642-0233, or chat online with a trained staff member. 

Growing up, I was taught about consent. I knew “no means no” and that if people touched my body without a “yes” it was wrong. But as I grew up, I started to view my body and sexuality differently. 

I was a late bloomer. I didn’t get my first boyfriend until I was just about 18 years old. We talked about sex, and I knew it was important to him. I was excited to experience what I’d heard my friends talking about. After I lost my virginity (a phrase I am not particularly fond of), I began to think that sex was to be expected. I was there for enjoyment, and even on days when I wasn’t up to it, I let him use me for sex. There were many days where I did not consent and came out of the experience feeling worse than before he started. However, I thought that was how relationships were supposed to be and that as long as he said he cared about me it was fine. 

The next relationship I had was primarily focused on sex. I did not like that, so I told him we needed to stop having sex. I hoped that it would allow us to grow closer emotionally, but every night I would go to see him, he would coerce me into sex. Rarely did I want to, but I believed that my relationship depended on making him happy and entertaining him. 

There was a night I said “no” explicitly, but we still continued, and I allowed it. Afterward, he apologized and said he felt terrible, so I assumed it would be fine. After two relationships where consent was never at the forefront, I was beginning to think it was the same with every relationship. I was very wrong. 

A month before I came to college, I went on a date with a man seven years older than me. He kept asking for me to come over, and I was very uncomfortable at the thought of being alone with him. I decided that we could meet at a SONIC Drive-In. I did not want to go, but I felt the need to appease him. Immediately after entering his car, he was forcing me to kiss him and proceeded to put his hand down my pants. We were in public, in daylight, and his two-year-old kid was in the back seat. I attempted to talk to and play with his kid to try and get him to stop. After a few minutes I made an excuse and left. I did not tell anyone, and I went home feeling empty. 

I thought that he was just an anomaly or that I was somehow to blame. Like, maybe I said something to him that made him think that was what I wanted or that it was just expected out of me. My mom never talked about sex very much and my dad only made jokes about it. How was I supposed to know anything about sexual assault when all I knew were the extreme cases I watched in “Criminal Minds”? I was convinced it wasn’t really sexual assault because I didn’t end up bloody or with bruises or left in the middle of nowhere. 

When I came to college, I thought I would be safe. I knew campus was small and hoped it would be easy to assess which guys to avoid and which ones were keepers. I went to see an upperclassman boy. It was the third time we had spent time together. He wanted me to spend the night, and I did not. He wanted to have sex, and I did not. He continually tried to take my clothes off, and I said “nuh-uh” every time. He continued regardless. I did not want to ruin his fun or be a downer. After a while of repeating “nuh-uh,” I just stopped saying anything. After, he apologized, and I told him it was no big deal. I left feeling empty and swore I wouldn’t tell anyone.

I’m happy to say that I did tell someone. 

That someone is the reason I understand now that I am not something for men to use. My body is mine and is not for someone else’s entertainment. I finally understand that rape is not just the brutal and rough action depicted in crime shows. Rape is every time someone says “no” or “nuh-uh” or “not tonight” or “maybe later,” and the other person proceeds anyway. It took me 20 years to finally understand what rape really is, and it’s heartbreaking that it took that long.

I don’t know if anything could’ve stopped my rape, but I think I could’ve recognized sexual assault a lot sooner if I had been educated on more common forms of assault. I like to think that our generation will be the one to stop rape and sexual assault, but if we refuse to talk about it or don’t educate ourselves in the first place, it’ll never get better.

Everyone needs something different when it comes to trauma, so it’s important to respect boundaries. However, the only way to make the world a better place is to open up about our experiences and hope that someone will be there to listen and understand and help you through it all. It’s our job to be the understanding ones. The ones who want to help. The ones who will teach their friends, family and children about different forms of sexual assault and that their voices matter. No matter your story, no matter how much you think someone won’t listen or that you’re alone, there will always be someone who cares. Speak up, and act now.

If you or someone you know is suffering from trauma due to sexual assault, please consult this list of resources: William Jewell Student Health Center, MOCSA, William Jewell Office of Counseling Services or William Jewell Student Life. Please note that Student Life is a mandated reporter of assault, whereas the other resources listed are confidential. If you need immediate counseling, contact the MOCSA hotline at (816) 531-0233 or (913) 642-0233, or chat online with a trained staff member.

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, please email monitor@william.jewell.edu.

Racism is a system that places white people at an advantage above racial minorities. For the purposes of this editorial, I’ll be specifically focusing on black men and women. These ideals are engrained in our society in a number of ways, from systematic segregation to the portrayal of black people in the media. Why is it, then, that so many people choose to see racism as small, individual acts when the evidence against that idea is so obvious? Believing that racism is a singular act removes the blame and makes it easy to overlook, thus making it an issue with “them” rather than with “us.” When racism is one thing that one person or a group happens to do one time, it can be seen as a mistake and a lack of judgment. All the blame can be placed on that individual or group. When racism is seen as it really is, as a continuing system against non-white people that is perpetuated everyday by all white people, guilt tends to follow, making white people uncomfortable. White people choose to not see these events as they truly are and experience these emotions so the system continues, and they can remain disconnected from the issue, while still reaping the benefits.

When Jewell took a moment of silence last semester for the issues at the University of Missouri, we were partaking in this very phenomenon. We were acting like Mizzou has issues and we do not. We felt sorry for them. We created a spectacle indicating that our community was immune from this racial distress. However, we neglected to take the chance to reflect on our own community. We boxed up the “situation at the University of Missouri” as a single event that will eventually sort itself out, rather than admitting the systemic manifestations of racism in our own space. In the fall of 2014, similar actions were taken when the black students at Jewell reported violent threats on YikYak. As events at Mizzou have brought other YikYak threats to light, one year ago, Jewell demonstrated our ability to culturally side-step the issue. We should remember that similarly threatening YikYak posts also originated from our space, and the perpetrator was never found or punished. Culturally, we missed the opportunity to ask fundamental questions about our community that made a person feel secure in making anonymous, vague threats of lynching. This person could be sitting right next to you in class. We remember this event as an individual act by an individual person that does not apply to us. However, if you talk to any of the black students on campus about these issues, you will soon learn that it is not an individual act. It is a continuing occurrence that happens not only among the students, but among the administration and professors as well.

Why is it that all black male students are assumed to be athletes? Why are black students asked about the “black” opinion in their classes? Why is it that Greek life is over 90 percent white? Why is it that a man feels safe enough in the community of Liberty to drive around waving a Confederate flag? The list goes on and on. White communities develop strategies to individualize these issues. However, it is quite clear that these acts alone are not individual people portraying racism and that something more is at play. Racism is not just an issue at Mizzou; it is an issue everywhere. Racism is among us. It is more than the many singular events that happen everyday. Racism is the fact that society, including William Jewell College, promotes this way of life and breeds an area where these beliefs are held without reprimand, formally or socially.

William Jewell College prides itself in being an institution that represents courage, liberty, respect, community, honor, justice, excellence and faith. We recognize that there is not a perfect institution that exist, but we also realize that William Jewell is not foreign to the culture that promotes the types of events that occurred at Mizzou. There are several explicit instances that have occurred on Jewell’s campus that combat with the current harassment policies in place and are the types of things that should be reported immediately to administration.

However, there are also less blatantly obvious incidents that better reveal the need for a culture change, which include, but are not limited to, asking a black student to translate after someone from an African country speaks in their native tongue, asking a black student an opinion on African-Americans in the welfare program, assuming that all black students on campus know one another, assuming that all black students are members of BSA or that when they’re all together they are holding a BSA meeting.

We believe that it should be the goal of the administration at Jewell to help the Jewell community develop a multicultural framework because it is needed to create an inclusive campus and help us thrive in a global, multicultural and interdependent world. This goal set forth will be achieved by not only providing an enriching and cultivating experience to the multicultural students of Jewell but also by submerging those who don’t identify as multicultural into this experience.

All of students, staff, faculty and administration need to be interactive and receptive in the act of reshaping diversity and inclusion at William Jewell College. We have seen and do appreciate the recent strides that have been made toward a more inclusive and diverse campus, but it is only the beginning of what we hope for William Jewell to achieve. In order to foster the kind of campus that lives out the values that it admires, there first has to be recognition of the need for a cultural change, followed by initiatives that promote awareness about diversity and social justice.

Student organizations allow for students to have a safe place to gather, learn, collaborate, lead and achieve something outside of the classroom setting. BSA holds the same purpose. What makes BSA unique is the fact that it is an organization that caters to the need of the campus that is not met in the classroom or anywhere else. The mission of BSA is to enlighten the campus and community through educational and engaging events that bring awareness of black history, culture and current issues, while uniting and supporting the black students of William Jewell College. BSA brings about the recognition of another culture and a celebration of the black culture, the organization provides an understanding of what exactly that means.

BSA is important not just because it provides a safe place for students of color, not just because it fulfills the expectation of having a speckle of diversity on our campus, but it is important because it is only within this organization that all students are given the opportunity to become educated on black culture and history in such an engaging way they may not otherwise have been. BSA is important because it’s an organization that serves a purpose to challenge the majority and the shared perspectives of our campus. Because of this, it is the only organization that could assist in propelling our institution to be better and better as time progresses.

Among William Jewell’s core values of courage, liberty, respect, community, honor, justice, excellence and faith exist the common horrid qualities of ignorance, misunderstanding and miscommunication. We as a community fail to become knowledgeable about our history and so as a result we continue to repeat our mistakes. Students aren’t aware of how or when issues with racism occur between students and student organizations. Then students will not understand why the yik-yak posts were so offensive, for example.

Misunderstanding happens because we as a community fail to take the time or make the effort to listen to the concerns of others. Too many times students of color on this campus have been ignored, and because of this, there is a no opportunity for communication. We don’t listen to each other and that leaves room for assumptions about administration, faculty, staff and students, white and black, to be made. Unless we educate ourselves on our history with dealing with race relations, unless we take the time to listen to each other, unless we work hard to communicate more effectively, we will fail as a community and become subject to similar situations like Mizzou.

-The Cabinet and Members of the Black Student Association

BSA meetings are Wednesdays at 8pm in YGU 210