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

by Jeannie Vanasco

So, I want a monosyllabic word that works as a name and contains a k. Mark, maybe? Its main definition: a boundary. And that’s what this is about: boundaries. Perfect. Mark, then.

Every time I think about him, I feel pissed off and sad. I understand now why nostalgia, for hundreds of years, was considered a chronic mental illness. I want to hate him, but I can’t.

If he says no, here’s what I’ll tell him: You are supposed to say that you’re sorry, that you will do this for me. That’s how this works. Though that wouldn’t be a genuine apology. And he already apologized. And anyway, I don’t want another apology. I want his consent.

If he says yes, I won’t thank him. I won’t tell him that everything is okay between us. I won’t comfort him. I am assuming he’ll need comforting. Politeness isn’t needed. You ruined everything, I’ll tell him. You realize that, right? I can say everything.

Already, I feel the need to stop. If I botch some detail (Was it a blackboard or a whiteboard? Did our physics teacher use a projector?), I risk discrediting myself—and then nothing I say will be believed. If I construct memories through narrative, I risk making too many mistakes. I might unintentionally invent details in order to build a well-drawn scene, and then another, and another, accumulating scenes until they fit a clear plot structure. But I also don’t want this to be an impressionistic series of images or abstract meditations on feelings. I want this to be artful, but the artistry can’t interfere with the honesty. I’m not sure how to do this, but I know I want to do this. Let’s just assume it was a blackboard.

A line that can sound cruel or complimentary: She tries really hard.

I tried not to smile when they said, You’re not like the other girls.

I’d never tell a student that her personal essay about sexual assault would be more interesting with the perpetrator’s perspective. Until now, I hadn’t considered that point of view. And every semester I read at least five student essays about rape. These students are always women, and these women often ask some variation of: What counts as sexual assault? Sometimes they ask me if they’ve been raped. Sometimes, knowing the answer, they make excuses for the man: he was drunk, he was sad, he had low confidence. Their rapists are never strangers in the bushes or alleys. Their rapists are their friends, their boyfriends, their boyfriends’ friends, their bosses, their relatives, their teachers. Their excuses frustrate me, but I understand. Here I am, trying to render the Mark I knew before that night.

I’m writing this because I want to interview Mark, interrogate Mark, confirm that Mark feels terrible—because if he does feel terrible, then our friendship mattered to him. Also, I want him to call the assault significant—because if he does, I might stop feeling ashamed about the occasional flashbacks and nightmares. Sometimes I question whether my feelings are too big for the crime. I often remind myself, He only used his fingers. Sure, I could censor my antiquated, patriarchal logic (sexual assault only matters if the man says it matters), but I want to be honest here—because I doubt I’m the only woman sexually assaulted by a friend and confused about her feelings.

Her feedback focuses on the Let’s just assume it was a blackboard line. That actually feels huge to me, she writes. It’s intensely resonant and important. Seems too easily won for such a major point—and one that really seems to be the underlying question of the project: Who gets to tell which story by what authority and with what significance and effect? Sarah is right. Interviewing Mark, I risk giving him too much authority, allowing him, inviting him to shape the narrative. But by interviewing him, I also can invert the power dynamic. By attempting to answer why he assaulted me, he’ll probably come across as too defensive. And maybe I want that. Maybe I want to hurt him, just a little. When I told him that I forgave him, or implied I forgave him, maybe I was attempting to feel superior. I worry that’s motivating me now.

Mark assaulted me in 2003. Back then, according to the FBI’s definition of rape (the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will), Mark hadn’t raped me. As of January 1, 2013, however, according to the FBI, Mark had raped me. The new definition: Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. The definition has changed, but the action remains the same. I still feel uncomfortable calling it rape.

Suddenly I realize: all along I judged the assault’s severity based on Mark’s body—which part he used. I never judged the severity based on my body—which part he violated. I rarely believe the Suddenly I realize line in stories. But it’s true: until Adam’s question, my vagina seemed almost irrelevant.

That doesn’t sound like him, she said. Yeah, I said. And the conversation ended there. She knew that I’d been in and out of psych wards. I asked myself, Why should she believe me? He can be a really nice guy. They’re still friends, and I don’t know how I really feel about that. If a rape victim’s friends don’t believe her, then why would she bother with authorities?

Kant argued that retributive harshness was a good thing—because it expresses respect for the perpetrator by holding him responsible for his act. If we hold criminals responsible and then offer ways to make reparations and reenter society, we strengthen our commitment to human dignity. This, then, can be Mark’s community service.

That Jake would include Mark—given Jake knew what had happened, had even offered to beat up Mark after it happened—surprised and hurt me. But I was already back on Northwestern’s campus. Jake knew I couldn’t attend the party. I decided he was just being nice by including me. But now I think, How was that nice? To invite me and the guy who sexually assaulted me to the same party?

Does that change how you feel about what happened? I ask. I don’t know. I realize that if I were to run into him, he and I would approach the conversation from very different sides. How so? He’d probably try to apologize. But I wouldn’t want to comfort him. I don’t want him to feel better.

There are even more Trump signs here now, she says. I keep looking for job openings for you in Baltimore, I tell her. Baltimore would be amazing. She tells me about the latest hate crimes on campus: racial slurs and swastikas written on the walls of dorm hallways. A blonde white girl wore blackface to a sorority party, and now some students and faculty are defending her, alleging that she didn’t know she was being racist. Leigh-Anne explains their thinking: the student dressed up as a friend (also white) whose nickname is Blackie because she blacks out so much from drinking—hence the blackface and the nametag that said Blackie. Plus, she used glitter. And blackface isn’t blackface if it involves glitter. Oh, and someone spelled out the N-word, she says, with rocks in the nature park. So it’d be nice to move where there are more black people. Some of the racist white people in town really glare at me now. Trump has made it okay for them to be openly racist. What’s new with you?

Then I find a clip of Trump shouting: And now they’re making Ghostbusters with only women! What’s going on? I remember crying during the closing credits for the Ghostbusters remake. Chris asked, What’s wrong? And I said, I wish this had existed when I was a girl.

How do you feel now? I join him and Bishop on the couch. A little frustrated, I tell Chris. I was so happy to hear his voice that I couldn’t feel angry. That’s okay, he says. But I’m supposed to be angry. Feel how you feel, Chris says. It’s okay.

I remember thinking, He could hurt me. I remember thinking, He is hurting me.

I got scared. I didn’t stop him. I’ll beat the shit out of him, Jake said. No, I said. That’s still rape, Amber said. No, it’s not, I said.

You’re wrestling with a really important question, which is, How can someone who seems so harmless or acts so well or is so intelligent be capable of committing what is understandably kind of an evil act and how can it happen? I’m going into the whole banality of evil thing—but not in an Arendtian sense, more in like a how can that act occur in such a commonplace setting—and now you’re going back and talking to the guy and the guy is still himself.

Mark said the assault changed the story he could tell about himself. It changed my personal narrative too—or it confirmed what I’d suspected but was afraid to admit: I cared too much about pleasing men. I didn’t stop Mark partly because I didn’t want to embarrass him. What sort of feminist acts like that? I asked myself—instead of asking, What sort of friend does what Mark did? And now, listening to myself reassure him, I’m again asking myself, What sort of feminist acts like that?

Men are making this narrative complicated and unwieldy, I explain. In my first book, I didn’t even mention the friend who raped me in New York. Why don’t you just say that? she says. What? That men complicate all of this.

And I wonder which of my memories are wrong. I’m afraid of making mistakes, as if one slipup will discredit my story entirely—which is why I’m asking Mark to confirm the details of the assault. This, then, gives him power. I’m asking him to explain his assault of me to me. But at least he admitted what he did. My newspaper advisor never admitted to touching me. Which is probably why I crave confirmation from Mark. And now Mark has given it. It’s not your fault, Mark said. Is that why my anger feels hard to summon?

I’m tired of white, educated, middle-class guys, like Mark, not being held accountable. Does my silence make me complicit? I think it does. Or maybe I’m finding another way to blame myself.

On the phone Mark said he regrets not confronting the assault afterward: And I don’t know, maybe that was for the best. What could you say? And I basically replied, Don’t worry about it. But maybe there’s not much the perpetrator can say. That’s why jail time exists.

So, I believed in boundaries—could even set boundaries. The problem: in the moment, I found it hard to articulate what those boundaries were—because doing so might embarrass a man. I treated men how I treated literature: I feared misinterpreting their intentions.

But rape was not the main point of her essay. The rape was an aside. Rape as an aside. What stories do the men tell themselves? Is rape an aside for most of them?

I feel like every time I talk about this project, she says, with a girlfriend or even an acquaintance, they tell me they’ve been assaulted or raped. 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?

I ask Chris, Have I ever expressed anger about Mark? Just pain, Chris says. Hurt.

My newspaper advisor still teaches high school students. He’s married and has two daughters now. Does he worry about a teacher treating his daughters how he treated me? I hope so. I hope he worries about it every day.

Is rape not the consequence of an uneven distribution of power?

I wake up at 5:00 AM, and I realize what must be so obvious: by never allowing myself to feel angry at Mark, I forgave him easily—but even to say I forgave him insults the very concept of forgiveness. I forgave him when I had no anger, loathing, hatred, resentment, or contempt to overcome.

Do you notice how he’s always finding equivalences for the two of you? she asks me. It reads like a really underhanded way of minimizing his actions.

At the risk of sounding sentimental, here’s what I’m learning: This book isn’t just about my friendship with Mark. It’s about my friendships with other women.

You’re incorrigible, Adam says. You always find a way to lash yourself.

Why would Jake have suggested Mark’s basement room? I can almost hear Mark suggesting it. But I can’t offer proof, and I feel so much pressure to provide proof, which is why I’m interviewing Mark. Yet why should the proof be up to Mark? Why should he get to decide what happened? I think of the detectives saying, Is it possible that his hand slipped? My newspaper advisor never admitted to rubbing his hand up my thigh and between my legs. But Mark admitted to assaulting me, to sexually assaulting me. Mark admitted to raping me.

But I was thinking about this new definition and I realized that the reason I had trouble even thinking of it as rape, or even serious, was, Well, he used his fingers, and it wasn’t violent. We’re so used to movie portrayals of violent rape, usually followed by murder, and we barely learn who the woman was. Then I realized I was so focused on thinking about your body, your hands, whatever was being used, that I wasn’t thinking about my body. I was only thinking about what it meant for the perpetrator, and what the perpetrator used, instead of thinking about it from the other point of view.

When Mark ranked his pain, I instantly thought, No, I was in a worse place. I was depressed. My dad died. But maybe Mark did feel just as sad or sadder. Depression isn’t necessarily caused by an event. Still, I’m mad at him for saying that. Sarah’s right: he kept equalizing our experiences.

ME: One of the big questions I’ve had over the years is why did you stop when you did? Why— HIM: You know, I’ve asked myself that question a lot, and honestly I think I just chickened out. And I’m glad I did, but— ME: Why do you think that is? Because you hadn’t been with a girl prior? HIM: No, I mean—I think it was the kind of thing where I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. ME: And so there was a line— HIM: That was apparently as far as I was willing to transgress on that particular night.

That’s what I want, she says, as a reader, for the character. I want her off of the circle of is he a good person, is he not a good person. I want him to become beside the point. I want him in the past. I want the narrator to reappropriate her own narrative. I want her to stop listening to him and recognize that in giving him so much voice, it’s a reenactment, in a way, of the rape. Where he talks more than she does. I want that too.

I wonder if Mark used me like a mood ring. Suddenly, he could see how angry he was. Angry about his virginity. So angry that he’d hurt one of his closest friends. It’d be easier to say that Mark wasn’t thinking about my feelings that night. But I had been crying about my dad’s death, crying about what my newspaper advisor had done to me. Mark, I’m sure, was thinking about my feelings. He selfishly used them to his advantage. I don’t care if I don’t have proof of his emotions that night. I take off the ring. I’m mad.

Jung eyes my eyes. I think of Aristotle’s belief that friends provide us with self-knowledge that might otherwise be hard to grasp. We deceive ourselves of our motives, even when we don’t mean to.

Until now, I forgot the third memory. And I feel such relief: he possesses a memory that I can’t reconstruct. This seems like proof that he valued our friendship. But if he valued it, then why did he ruin it?

And this, I realize, is why using the word rape matters. Because Emily Doe used the word rape, I now feel comfortable using it too. And if I can use the word rape to describe Mark’s actions, maybe some readers of this book—who also have been raped in the same way—won’t diminish what happened to them. Mark raped me.

Across the aisle, a man and a woman, both in suits, share a laptop. She tells him that she feels guilty for not doing more. He tells her how useful she’s been to the team. I just don’t want the others to think I’m not pulling my weight, she says. This fear, so many women have it: I’m not doing enough. I should be doing more.

I review my manuscript, consider the holes. I really need to reflect on how the rape altered my perception of myself. I doubt it did. If anything, it cemented my sense of self. I already knew I cared too much about a man’s comfort. About a man’s approval. How many times did I tell men, in my twenties, after they rolled over in bed, That was amazing—a complete lie.

Oh, and he said that he thought his parents would be happy to hear from me. But why would I contact his parents? He doesn’t want them to find out. Does he think I can compartmentalize like that? Him suggesting that, Chris says, that you talk to his family as if everything is okay, it confirms something. What’s that? That it’s easier for the guilty person to move on, or at least to pretend it didn’t happen. It’s harder for the innocent person.

What is the message, Adam asks me, that you want these young women to walk away with? If it had to be synthesized. Don’t worry about protecting the guy who assaulted you. Don’t worry about the feelings of the guy’s family or friends. Your job is not to protect them. He screwed up. He messed up those relationships, not you.