Dismissed Vanderbilt football players indicted for rape

[abbeyco]

6. I am outing my history with this post...

It starts in high school, at least it did with me. A party, alcohol involved, and when nearly all guests go home and you stay overnight with your 'best' friend you find out in the night that not all of the guys have left. After you vomit and clean yourself up after drinking way too much than your young body can handle, a 'good' guy helps you to bed and in the course of that help, he forces him upon you to give him oral sex. When he's done, you vomit again, not from alcohol, but from having semen in your mouth and throat for the first time and you tell no one and are embarrassed and full of shame. No charges filed - too much shame and as a State Champion swimmer, he begged and then threatened to not be outed for his behavior.

A few years later, you go to a former Big 8 school for the big Spring Football game, expected attendance is 70K people. You're there with a family friend who plays on the team and he's your 'guardian' for the weekend. You attend a post-game party/BBQ and for the first two hours, it's fun - eating, drinking and reliving how well everyone played and how well the season should go, come Fall. When the drinks have been enough and there's a need to lie down and take some time to recover from all of the drinks, the quiet room you've been led to suddenly has 3-4 guys in it wanting to be serviced or have sex, regardless of your condition. When the 3rd guy hits you for not being responsive enough, you fight to get out and away and eventually the police respond after getting out of the house and screaming for help. However, because of the 'guests' at the party and the nature of their positions on the team, not to mention that your father is a past football alum, the police are not terribly concerned about what happened to you and they believe that will never know what really happened because you were too drunk, saying "No" couldn't be proved, and none of the players admitted to being at the party...although they were there when the police responded. No charges filed - again, too much shame.

A year after the football event, raped at gunpoint during a random robbery and attack, in my neighborhood and from a, later determined, serial rapist. Police called, rape kit done and eventually the rapist is caught and ID'd by DNA; he's in prison for about 20 more years.

I'm now an advocate for sexual assault victims - because I didn't speak up the first two times because they were 'social' events and were considered date rape before the phrase was coined, I need to speak up now.

Rape happens and it happens frequently on college campuses - regardless of their size and stature of the school. I'm happy these Vandy players are going to be held to account and will go through the legal process to determine their guilt or innocence. If the are found not guilty, then let them go on their way, but if found guilty then they need to do be held to account. The should NOT be able to play and/or should be dismissed from the school while the investigation goes on.

Sorry to dump my life crap - but this whole thing strikes a chord, a bad one. While there a lot of good college campuses who are proactive and work to prevent sexual assaults, there are still the high profile, big dollar schools who don't acknowledge the issues on their campuses.