If It Really Happened She Would Have Told Someone
by DANNIELLE LARKIN
In the mid 1980s, I was at a party with a bunch of kids my age. I was invited by a girlfriend from my neighborhood. The kids throwing the party were from her school, and I attended a different high school, so I didn’t know them until that night. Now, I will never forget them.
Here are the parts I remember like it was yesterday. There were no adults present. There was loud music playing when we walked in the front door. The young men outnumbered the young women present by at least two to one. There was a pornographic film playing on the television. I had never seen anything like this before, and I remember feeling repulsed at the sight of it. There was abundant alcohol available on every level surface in the living room/kitchen area. The pressure to drink and join in the “fun” was immediate and intense. I was uneasy. I had never been to a party like this before. I knew we were coming to a party, but my immediate reaction was one of not feeling safe.
At this point, I’d only consumed alcohol once before in my young life. I told my friend I would like to leave. She said “no,” we came to have fun and she wasn’t planning on leaving for a while. She said if I would just have a few drinks and be cool about the whole thing, we would have a fun night. I decided she was right. I decided to drink. Enough that I remember feeling really dizzy and really sick, But, not so much that I don’t remember being sexually assaulted.
The details of that assault are still something, nearly 30 years later, that I have never fully uttered out loud. Whenever I think of it, my throat feels like it’s closing off and my emotions run high. To this day, I have never been able to speak to another human being about exactly what happened to me that night.
Watching the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford this past week was extremely emotional for me. I happened to be running on my treadmill watching her on the television. When she began to tell of her assault, my throat closed off, I became emotional, and had to stop running in order to gain composure. I was so viscerally affected by her testimony that even thinking of it today brings tears to my eyes. Her willingness to move past the moment when her throat closes off. To move past the moment when her emotions run high. To let her voice be heard, telling her story, makes her an American hero in my eyes.
Why didn’t she tell anyone the night this happened? Why can’t she remember every precise detail of where she was and who was present? How can the assault be remembered so vividly by her, but not by anyone else present?
I can’t answer for her, but I know exactly why, and I can answer for me.
I was ashamed. I had chosen to drink. I had chosen to attend the party.
I had been taught that boys weren’t expected to control themselves. Boys would be boys. We laughed about it as a culture. The teenage life, as presented in movies like “Sixteen Candles,” was the norm. Boys could not be blamed for their bad behavior when girls were present. And girls were objects, plain and simple.
I didn’t want my parents or anyone else I respected to know I had been drinking.
I knew I wouldn’t be believed. I knew he would deny it ever happened to those in authority and brag to others of his power over me. I knew his voice was more commanding than mine, simply because of his gender. I knew I was in a no-win situation.
I felt that I was to blame. That was the teaching of the day… and I believed it.
I don’t believe the parable of the chewed gum anymore. I don’t believe the long told narrative that women are responsible for the bad behavior of men. But, what I do believe is the account of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford. And I honor her bravery. 100%.