Vanderbilt Hustler
3.31.16 | Anonymous

I arrived at Vanderbilt just two months after our extremely public rape incident, in the midst of an emerging national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. Even within my first few weeks on campus, I was inundated with online modules, Green Dot stickers and posters in my dorm denouncing “sex without consent.” As a survivor of sexual abuse in middle and high school, I really did appreciate this positive messaging.

However, in every documentary I watched, awareness training I took part in and PR campaign I witnessed, not once did I see my story represented. With all of the conversation about campus sexual assault, there was not one mention of students who were assaulted before they got to college.

The increased attention paid to sexual assault is a promising sign of a larger culture shift on our campus, but we must recognize that all survivors’ stories have equal importance in order to truly make this change. The recent Campus Climate Survey was the first time I had seen any acknowledgment that a significant number of students experience sexual assault before they come to Vanderbilt (17.5 percent of all survey respondents, and 20.3 percent of undergraduate females — the category I fall into). Administrators and fellow students alike seemed shocked by this statistic. Their reaction compelled me to share my story, in order to ensure that my perspective is no longer silenced.

I was twelve years old when I met my assailant; he was two years older. As an innocent, self-conscious, bullied girl who had never so much as held hands with a boy, his initial attention flattered me and made me feel special. Over the course of the next few months, his attention grew less doting and more obsessive. I became his “Lolita.” He would send me his vulgar, erotic fantasies when I was too naive to even know what he was describing.

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