Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir

by Jeannie Vanasco

We were both pretty drunk, he reminded me during his (supposed) apology, implying that I shared some of the blame, as if I should have known not to get drunk at a party attended exclusively by friends.

If I’d resisted or fought back, what else would he have done? Fear can freeze us. Instead of simply fight or flight, some psychologists add freeze to the familiar term. And the FBI nixed forcibly from its definition of rape, understanding that sometimes a victim’s best option is to stay very still.

Most women know someone who has been raped—usually many someones. It makes me wonder: Do most guys know a guy who has raped someone? If not, who is doing the raping? We know it’s not just strangers and guys who end up in jail. It really bothers me that we’re at the same parties. Many of us have the same group of friends,

yet the women are the only ones walking away, knowing about the rapes that occur. How’s that possible?

ME: And then the way they talked about women: It could have been my daughter or my wife or my mother or my sister. It’s like, you don’t have to connect this to women in relation to you. A woman can be a woman. HIM: Right, but I feel like that’s how a lot of guys process—that’s the only way they’re able to relate to women’s issues. By the context of paternalism. Not super productive.

Reminiscing about our friendship suddenly seems like the sun casting a fake specialness on a pile of trash.