Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990 TAG: 9003242576
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER
SOURCE:
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
Friends, that is, until one night about a year ago when the Virginia Tech graduate student went to her boyfriend's apartment to type a term paper on his computer.
It was late. About 2 a.m. But Beth had been alone with James before and, after all, they were friends.
James tried seducing her. Beth said, "No." Then he raped her.
"I had never dated him, never kissed him, nothing," Beth said last week. "Now, I don't trust guys . . . It's very hard to figure out who you can trust."
She still sees James, sometimes on the streets of Last of the three-part series Blacksburg, where he lives only a few doors away, sometimes on campus and even at church.
"He makes believe that nothing happened. I don't think he gets it, I really don't," Beth said. Sometimes she goes into shock or has a panic attack when she sees him.
She also has nightmares.
Beth is a victim of acquaintance or date rape.
To help others understand the emotional trauma of being raped by a friend, Beth and two other victims - both Radford University students - agreed to be interviewed if their names and the names of their attackers were not published.
Sitting on sofas at the Women's Resource Center in Radford last week, Beth, Anne and Sue told a reporter they've become friends since they started meeting weekly with other rape victims in the center's rape crisis support group.
They frequently call each other and sometimes, after one of their Monday night sessions, stay up until 4 or 5 a.m. talking on the phone.
Beth, a 22-year-old from Northern Virginia who is studying liberal arts and science, said it helps to talk with others who also have been raped and who understand what they are going through.
It's been between six months and a year since the three were raped.
All of them tried dealing with it alone but realized they couldn't and began going to the rape crisis program in January or February.
Anne, also from Northern Virginia, is a 20-year-old psychology major at Radford.
She said it took her a year before she was able to talk with others about being raped.
She was attacked one night at the beginning of her sophomore year by a man she had just met at a local bar.
She thought he was cute. They both had been drinking and, after talking a few hours, he offered to take her home.
Instead, one of his friends dropped them off at his fraternity house. No one else was there.
"He didn't take `No' too kindly for an answer, he didn't listen. And he pretended like nothing had happened after," Anne said.
Afterward, Anne walked four blocks home, alone in the rain.
As months passed, she stopped trusting people. She distanced herself from her male friends.
She tried burying the incident, but finally realized she couldn't.
She began going to the weekly group sessions in January and is just now beginning to learn how to deal with the anger and the pain.
"I thought I was fine. And now dealing with it opens a whole new can of worms," Anne said.
"It's a part of my life now. And every day there's something that reminds me."
\ Sue had known her attacker for about a month before he raped her.
Both were freshmen. They were friends and "just getting to know each other," she said.
"We had kissed, but that was it. He had said we won't ever do anything you don't want to do," she said.
One night, he asked her to come over to his dormitory room to talk. "And I didn't think twice about it," she said.
After talking a while, he tried forcing himself on her but she stopped him. He got frustrated, Sue said, and raped her.
"He had the whole thing planned," Sue said. "He knew the limit. He just kept testing it and testing it and then finally he got tired of it."
Sue still won't wear the shirt she had on the night she was raped. She refuses to get rid of it because it was expensive, but she can't wear it because she had it on that night. "He couldn't get it off," she said.
Sue still sees the student who attacked her almost every day. He lives two floors above her in the dormitory.
She is angry. They all are.
"I really feel like beating something sometimes," Beth said, pounding on an armrest.
"I started kicking doors the other night," Sue said.
Although they are angry, none of the three women has brought criminal charges against the rapists. They say they prefer to avoid making their rapes public.
Counselors tell the victims that the anger they feel should be directed at the men who raped them, not at others around them.
"We try to channel it at them - at the rapist - instead of at ourself, our friends or our boyfriends," Sue said.
Beth, Anne and Sue usually refer to their attackers by name, but Sue got a small round of applause when she referred to her attacker as "the rapist."
"That's what we're supposed to do," she said.
Another thing they're "supposed" to do is learn to blame the rapist, not themselves.
Anne said she still questions whether she provoked it or if maybe it was her fault for wearing a mini-skirt.
Sue, a 19-year-old freshman education major from Maryland, said the guilt isn't always a problem, it's remembering.
"To me, I'm finding it's almost as bad now as when he raped me. I feel like I'm getting raped over and over and over," she said.
Beth said coming to grips with being raped is a slow and gradual process that comes in stages.
First, there is denial. Then there is anger. Then depression.
And finally, there is acceptance.
But acceptance doesn't mean it gets easier.
"Numbness to pain is not necessarily better," Beth said.
"But you feel good that you are working at it and accepting it. It's a reality and it's not going to go away."
by CNB