Words of Love, Courtney's or otherwise, should have little place in any article about sexual assault. Contrary to widespread uninformed protestation, love – and even lust – have little to do with any kind of sex crime, and it's time more people accepted this. But hearing the song again today, I could not help but be struck by its pertinence. With the IPCC girding its loins to investigate just what percentage of over 150 rapes perpetrated in the capital by the now-notorious John Worboys and Kirk Reid could have been prevented by more competent Police work, a pressing issue is once more a current issue. And thank goodness for that, however brief a flash in the popular pan it may prove.
But for millions of people, it always was. We are all, of course, both sum and part of our experience; the pickpocketed pat down their coats that much more firmly on the bus, the bereaved start at twinges of familiarity in a stranger's face, the redundant turn from the latest bail-out bulletin on the news. We have all loved and lost and been reminded. But there is something sometimes crashingly, sometimes indefinably, worse now. The lie that any rape victim was "asking for it" is as old and sick as the crime itself; its death throes are vicious, yet still we hope (for what else is there?) it must one day die off. But what of its unspoken echo; who is asking twice?
Much is rightly made of the trauma of trial. However sensitively conducted – and that is by no means the norm – any revisitation of any sex attack is a reviolation at its hands, all the more brutal if endured under cross-examination and the spectre of a potential not-guilty verdict. It is easy to see why so many sex crimes go unreported. But how much does the legally anonymous victim really escape, on even the most mundane level?
At this point, just like the real journalists, I am damned if I do and damned if I don't; data is derided and anecdote attacked as bias in any article like this. Ms Hobson must choose, however hopelessly, which Platonic shadows will best illustrate the form; today I opt for anecdote. Society seems to deem it necessary, particularly for a woman, to disclaim any subjectivity as expediently as possible. And so I must confess another's sin; I was recently sexually assaulted, to use my GP's term. It did not change my views of the issue, and I did not report it. I count myself lucky not to have been raped and life is slowly returning to normal. I remember it most days, but no longer every day; I still have trouble sleeping, but he no longer haunts my dreams. Psychologically, the worst is over – but practically, it is yet to come.
Like most victims of sex crime, my attacker was known to me. Or, more accurately, to my flatmate – a longstanding friend from school, she had been moved in less than a fortnight when she suggested I join her on a night out with some university friends. With our third flatmate away and other friends otherwise engaged, I readily accepted. We were a large group, and I spent most of the evening chatting to the one guy I’d met before. Around half-eleven, last orders tolling, we walked to a local nightspot – whereupon all but three of us decided they were tired and had really better get the last tube home.
I hadn’t even been introduced, much less spoken, to Carlos until this point – Ali still wanted to go dancing, so we exchanged brief pleasantries and proceeded to a clubnight. My initial impression was mildly unimpressive, but decent music precluded conversation inside, and Ali seemed to be having a good time so I just danced and nodded as etiquette required. I wasn’t having an amazing time, but I wasn’t having an awful one either. We left and debated where to go next; Ali offered him our sofa to crash on and the three of us set off home. We were all decidedly past tipsy into drunkenness, but by no means paralytic. I remember thinking I’d been right, and that he was a bit of an idiot – more smarm than charm and painful listening – but I felt more bored than threatened. In any case, he was talking mainly to Ali.
Which made what happened when we actually got home, particularly after Ali went abruptly to bed, as unexpected as it was vile. Three things in particular still stand out; grabbing me around the neck, repeating “you have to”, and his utter incomprehension of the word, “no”. I have known that get men embarrassed, persuasive, upset or angry – I had never before seen it register absolutely no effect at all; to him, I may just as well have had my mouth taped shut. I slept with a chair and a suitcase against my door that night, and caught Ali the next morning before she left for work to say I wanted him out of the flat straight away. She seemed surprised, but did it – she even rang me to assure me he had gone.
It was then that the shock set in. I found it hard to adequately articulate what had happened (a friend later said that she had at first been able to make out only fragments beyond the fact that I was “obviously really traumatised”). I fared better second time around telling Leila, our other flatmate; she listened very intently, then pronounced, “Well, he can’t ever come back here, can he? He cannot set foot in this flat again. That’s the first thing to make sure of.” Because that is what every “date”, or “acquaintance”, or whatever other minimising euphemism you want to use, sex attack victim has to do – not cry, not adjust, not heal, not wallow, but worry about the next time.
It’s not surprising that sex offenders prey on those they have easiest access to; it’s even less surprising that it is precisely this group who are least likely to report it, or indeed be believed by the Police if they do. More than love, “easy” is another word that should have little place in any article about sexual assault, but which rapist is easier to report – the one who dragged you down an alley at cliché-point, or the one your friends can’t praise highly enough? The one against whom all your friends will side, or the one of whom your friends can scarcely believe such an act? Because, just so you know, Carlos is “such a lovely guy” when he’s not grabbing some girl he’s just met round the neck, trying to kiss and bite her face. He’s so nice and funny, such good company, the life and soul of the party but such a supportive friend too. He was so good when Ali’s sister was ill, “always ringing to check I was OK, taking me out for coffee, that sort of thing”.
And just so you also know, that’s how Ali described him just after I told her what he did. Maybe that makes her sound like a bitch – I feel that too sometimes, but I also know it’s not that simple, because Ali is otherwise just as lovely as Carlos apparently is when he’s not busy trying to rape someone. We’ve been friends for ten years; I know she’s not a feckless cow. If a stranger had grabbed me like that in the club earlier that night, she probably would have hit them. But because she’d also been friends with Carlos for a couple of years, all normal bets were off. She avoided the topic altogether for three days, even when I tried to bring it up. When I finally sat her down and forced the conversation, she avoided eye-contact instead. “Well yeah, fine, of course, I won’t see him in the flat, but he’s still one of my best friends, I’m not getting involved”, was as lyrical as she would wax.
Maybe that makes her sound like a bitch too – except that she came to my room later that night and said it hadn’t really sunk in before and she was really, really, really sorry. She understood that he had behaved “like an animal” and “like a rapist” (her words, not mine) and said that if she’d realised at the time she would have kicked him straight out. Of course he could never come to the flat again, and of course she would damn well tell him why. But of course she would still stay friends with him, too. He was, after all, “hammered”, “probably wouldn’t even remember doing it”, would no doubt be “mortified” when she told him, which of course she definitely would. (This, supposedly, despite the absence of slurred speech, sleepiness, falling over, vomiting, or drinking any more than I did). And therein lies the rub. God knows we inhabit a patriarchal maze of double-standards anyway, perhaps most of all when it comes to sex, but there is something even further wrong when alcohol consumption can not only impugn a woman for her own violation, but also excuse her attacker.
No-one wants to question their judgement, much less admit they might have missed a sexual predator in their inner circle, and that is precisely why they get away with it – why, in this case, Carlos could only be “like an animal” or “like a rapist” to Ali. Why, in fact, nearly two months on, she has still not taken him to task about the small matter of assaulting her flatmate in our own flat. Why she has invited none of her friends to our party this weekend, rather than inviting everyone else and explaining why he can’t come. Why Leila must do her daily best not to notice that relations around her have silently broken down. Why I am so withdrawn these days. Why Ali is losing a friend.
In fact, about the only person not having to deal with the fall-out of my assault is the man who did it. I wasn’t asking for it the first time, and I’m certainly not asking twice now. And you know what? Neither are Leila or Ali.
* Names have been changed.
