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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?
Who did this? Why isn’t he in prison?
Here is the lesson. The hard, cruel, true lesson that I learned at age 21. This lesson is one of the hardest that survivors have learned, and one that is apparently impossible for those who haven’t shared our experiences — the ones who refuse to acknowledge facts, never learn — because they don’t want to. Although they may not personally commit rapes, the rape helpers and rape supporters make it possible for these crimes to continue with justice served only a tiny number of times compared to the vast number of crimes committed.
I can’t remember myself accurately because I am the Chameleon. But there is certainly a “before Amy” and an “after Amy.” The “before Amy” survived her encounter with killer CHP officer Craig Peyer. The “after-Amy” is the one who wrote stories, did all her jobs, had her babies, lost…
