TRIGGER WARNING: The following article is a first-hand account from a survivor of sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
My name is Jennifer Johnson. I’m the paralegal for the NCOSE Law Center. Every day, I have the privilege of serving survivors of sexual exploitation in their struggle to hold their abusers accountable.
But my own abuser was never held accountable. In fact, I never took him to a court of law. I never reported him. I never told most of the people in my life. Even most of my NCOSE colleagues don’t know what happened to me at the time of my writing this.
For decades, I held the grief and trauma of my rape close to my chest. But today, I am speaking out. Why? Because I have seen other survivors dragged through the mud for not acting the way people think they should act before, during, or after being assaulted.
For the past few weeks, my news feed has been overrun with the sexual assault allegations coming out of Cornell University. While many have responded to this case with outrage and compassion, many others have debated whether the young woman involved could truly be a victim.
“If she was really raped, she wouldn’t talk to the guy after,” people say. Or, “She wouldn’t wait weeks to go to the police and years to file a lawsuit.” Or, “She was interested in the guys and had agreed to meet them, so it was consensual.” Or, “It was consensual because she voluntarily got drunk.” Or, “It was consensual because she wasn’t drunk enough.”
For me, watching all of these arguments circulate has been like dragging nails across an old wound.
I don’t pretend to know what happened at Cornell University; I wasn’t there. But I do know that we cannot discount someone’s claims of being assaulted based on objections like these. I know because of lived experience. So, let me tell my own story.
I was 21 years old and in my senior year of college when I was raped by someone I trusted. He had been a good friend for over a year. He’d been pursuing me romantically for a while and I’d turned him down several times, because I wanted to remain focused on my education. Eventually, after several months of him asking me, I finally agreed to a date.
We went out and had a few drinks. Afterwards, he came back over to my apartment. I was just expecting we’d talk and unwind, but that’s when he assaulted me.
I remember him holding me down with his arm braced over my chest. He was double my size and strong. I kept saying “No,” over and over again, but he proceeded. He raped me without protection. And when he was done, he just fell asleep.
I remember lying there, with his arm draped over my chest, desperately wanting to get away from him, but being too scared to leave. So, I lay there in my terror and my grief the whole night.
In the morning, I pretended I was asleep, so he left without saying anything to me. He didn’t even acknowledge what he’d done. I spent the whole day in bed, crying and ashamed.
A few days later, I confronted him at his apartment. He was with a couple friends but I asked to speak with him in private. Then, I asked him why he did that to me. He replied, “Well, sex would’ve happened eventually, so why does it matter?”
That’s all I ever got from him. No apology. No remorse. No reparations.
To this day, I suffer from lasting medical conditions due to what he did to me. And he walked away without so much as a “I’m sorry.”
Now, at this point you would think I’d call the police, press charges, file a lawsuit—do whatever it took to hold him accountable. I was a pre-law student and had just been accepted to law school; I knew what to do. But I didn’t do it.
I was too scared that the fallout from reporting my rapist would ruin my career that I’d been working so hard on. He and I ran in the exact same circles; how could I know whose side people would take? I didn’t want everyone we knew to look at me differently. I didn’t want to be denied opportunities if people decided I was lying, or overreacting, or that because I had a few drinks with him on a date it was my fault.
Further, even though what happened was in no way my fault, I kept asking myself whether it was. Did I lead him on? I’d said “no” and “stop” many times—but was I somehow not clear enough? He’d been my friend and he was a good person … surely, he couldn’t do something so horrible unless there had been some misunderstanding.
Those were the confused and overwhelmed thoughts running through my head at the time. It took several years of processing for me to accept that 100% of the shame and responsibility for what happened lies with my abuser. And it took decades of healing for me to finally be willing to tell my story publicly—now, for the first time.
As I reflect on all of this, there are a few things I want people to learn from my experience.
Firstly: we can’t expect someone who has just endured the worst trauma of their life to conduct themself flawlessly in the immediate aftermath—or even to understand what happened to them. I wasn’t thinking clearly after being sexually assaulted. I was confused, scared, overwhelmed, hurt, angry, and ashamed all at once. If I, an informed pre-law student, couldn’t bring myself to report the assault and pursue justice, I can only imagine how it is for other survivors, who know nothing of these matters.
The second thing I want people to understand is the strong need to preserve anonymity and privacy for survivors coming forward. As I mentioned, my fears of repercussions in my career and personal life were what kept me from speaking out. And as I look around me at how often survivors are shamed, smeared, or scorned after coming forward, I can only conclude that my fear was founded.
I am reminded of one of the NCOSE Law Center’s survivor clients, Jane Doe, who was initially denied the right to sue her alleged sex traffickers under the privacy of a pseudonym. In other words, the judge said that Jane Doe must disclose her identity and the details of what happened to her to the entire public—if she didn’t, her case would be dismissed.
Thankfully, the NCOSE Law Center recently succeeded in getting this ruling overturned. I shudder at what the consequences would have been if our appeal had failed.
How can we expect survivors of sexual abuse to come forward if we won’t offer them basic privacy and protection when they do so?
Too many perpetrators rely on survivors’ fear and shame to escape accountability. And if we deny survivors’ privacy—or if we respond with scorn and skepticism when they share their experience—then we are fueling that already entrenched fear and shame. We are propping up the system that allows these abuses to continue.
So, as I share my story today, after decades of being silent, my hope is that it will help people understand survivors better. I hope it will prompt people to think twice before they judge and make assumptions about a trauma they have never experienced.
Survivors deserve compassion, a listening ear, and a path to justice. Let’s build a world where they can have that.
ACTION: Donate to the NCOSE Law Center
Please consider donating to the NCOSE Law Center so we can continue our work offering pro-bono, trauma-informed legal representation to survivors. We strongly believe that no survivor should be barred from justice due to financial need. Your donation makes that possible!
