I’ll never forget. A guy walked up behind me, then moved right next to me. Excuse me, he said. Do you know where there is a bathroom nearby? I knew the campus. I pointed. Inside that building, I said, at the bottom of the stairs. He was big. He looked me up and down, he nodded and said, Do you think that would be a good place for a blowjob?
This had never happened to me before. You don’t forget.
It was a Sunday afternoon, late spring, in 1975. It was Cross Street in Ypsilanti, between Boone Hall and Sherzer Observatory. He was wearing tan pants, brown shoes, a blue jacket. He was in his late 20’s or early 30’s. He had short brown hair parted on the side. You don’t forget.
Years later, when we talked about sexual assault in classes I taught, a guy in the back row (it was always a smiling guy, a guy who liked a good joke) would raise his hand and say, Why don’t you just try to enjoy it? He meant rape.
A guy twice your size holds you down, pulls off your clothes, forces his fingers or his dick inside you. Inside YOU, buddy, inside YOUR body. Would you enjoy that?
What’s to enjoy? The shock, the fear, the violation; the violence (and always the potential for additional, terrible, unfathomable hurt).
That day I kept I walking. A little faster. At the end of the block I turned away from Cross Street, in toward the campus. It was then that I allowed myself to look. No, he was gone.
I have not experienced what women feel, but I have an intimation. I know that you do not forget.
Very powerful, Rick.