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

by Jeannie Vanasco

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.