Dear Rape Survivor...

DEAR -------,

I am writing this to you because I have sat with you in classrooms, waited in lines behind you at The Coop, passed you in the Yard 100 times--but I have never had a chance to talk to you. I am writing because you are a survivor of rape and your rapist was never punished.

You always thought it might have been your fault; you always felt guilty. And even when you knew it shouldn't have happened, you weren't sure other people would believe you.

When I picked up The Crimson and read the way that two of Harvard's deans described what had happened to you, I wondered whether you were reading their comments, too. I knew it was yet another reaffirmation of your guilt and shame.

And I wished I could give you a name, so that I could call you and tell you that it was not your fault. No matter what, it was not your fault.

One out of four women will be sexually assaulted during college, according to national statistics. Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 himself--in spite of his comments--has asserted that there is absolutely no reason to believe Harvard's statistics are any different. That means that something like 187 Harvard students are raped--most by acquaintances--each year. But only 2 percent of those cases ever go to the Ad Board.

What happens to those other cases? What happened to you? Are you one of the ones who went to the administration and was convinced not to bring formal charges? Did your friends tell you to forget about it? Have you simply never told anyone?

Maybe you were one of the "complicated" situations. You had been drinking. Your "friend" had been drinking. Maybe you didn't mind kissing a little, holding on to each other. You didn't want it to go further than that. But he did.

I CAN think of 100 different ways you might have said "no," and 100 different ways he might have "misunderstood." But I'm sure he didn't ask you, "Do you want to have sex?"

You may tell me that was not his responsibility. Nobody asks permission every step of the way in sex--that would be ridiculous. And so, you think, it wasn't his fault.

You may think you should have said "no" more clearly, or screamed more loudly, or not been alone in the room with him, or not had anything to drink or not gone out that night at all. I am sure that you have thought of all the reasons it was your fault and all the other reasons it was not his fault. You have been well-trained to do that.

But there was a logical flaw in your training, a logical flaw in the reasoning of Harvard deans who say that acquaintance rape can be blamed on a woman's failure to say a "forceful" and "articulate" "no."

When you go on a date, your date doesn't assume that you will go see a movie. He asks you if you want to go see a movie. If you say you want to see a movie, he doesn't assume it will be Batman. He asks you what you want to see. And he doesn't assume you want to go to a party after the movie. He asks you whether you want to go to a party.

In each of these situations, he takes responsibility for being sure that you actually do want to do the things that he thinks you want to do. Because he asks, you have the opportunity not just to say "no" if you choose, but to actually say "yes"--to affirm your interest in seeing the movie or going to the party.

So why does he simply assume you want to have sex? If he doesn't ask you whether you want to have sex, he is creating a situation where you have to convey a "no." And if he has already assumed "yes," your "no" is going to have to go a lot more than just answer a question--it will have to cut through his assumptions--a substantially more difficult task.

As long as sex is the assumption, these "complicated" situations will continue to happen. Nothing as personal as sex should ever be assumed. it should not be your responsibility to say "no." It should be his responsibility to ask, to be sure that you have said "yes."

You are not to blame for what happened to you. It was your culture, your University and your date/friend/acquaintance. I will never get to tell you face to face how wrong it is that you have hurt so much. But I want you to know that Deans Jewett and Wolcowitz were wrong.

That he--whoever he is--was wrong.

Melissa R. Hart '91 is executive editor of The Crimson and a member of Reponse, a peer counseling group that deals with issues of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.