He Was Going to Strangle Me and Dump My Body in the Desert
I’ve recovered from being raped 10 days after my 21st birthday.
I was an independent student on full four-year scholarships during my undergraduate years at Scripps College, an “elite” liberal arts college for women in Claremont, CA. This college is one of the five Claremont Colleges, a high-priced group of schools theoretically based on Oxford’s college system. Scripps is often noted as one of the most physically beautiful campuses in the U.S.
I was sexually preyed upon by a Scripps faculty member (now deceased) and I was raped by one of his friends, who at the time, was the chair of Pomona College’s literature department. This man, too, is now deceased.
I’m lucky that I don’t remember all the things that evidence showed he had done to me — I was unconscious for the majority of the crime. I can’t say how it felt to be burned with multiple cigarettes (just one), have my clothes torn from my body, or feel my breasts being bitten, body hit and slapped, and genitals torn, bruised and battered. Afterward? Yes, I know the physical pain and the unbelievable shock.
Why would he hurt me? What did I do wrong?
