“The great nights were the ones who squirmed, ones who didn’t want to give in. I’d have to shush them down, and try to work on them slowly enough so they didn’t know what was going on until it was pretty much already happening. I’m a muscular guy, over 6′ around 200 lbs. and most of these girls may have been 125-130, really tiny and easy to pin down. To be honest, even remembering it now, the squirming always made it better, they didn’t want it to happen, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Most girls don’t say no either. They think you’re a good guy, and should pick up on the hints, they don’t want to have to say “no” and admit to themselves what’s happening.”
These are the frighteningly honest words of a “reformed” serial rapist. The writer, who posted these words anonymously on reddit.com, claims that he raped women while he was in college for a period of three years. He details how he would seek these women out and set them up to be raped – everything from purposely approaching “attractive girls that were self-conscious about their looks,” to luring them back to his place, making sure the room was cold, and prying them with alcohol.
He has now, in his words, emerged from this dark period in his life and is married, a successful member of society, and “reformed.”
As someone who was raped in college by a man who bears a striking resemblance to this anonymous writer, my blood ran cold when I read his words. I’m not alone. The comments that follow his post are filled by woman after woman raped in much the same way by much the same man. My first reaction was to post my own comment condemning him with rage-filled words that would only bounce off him – just as the furtive struggles of the women he raped did.
As his words sank in, rage suddenly gave way to relief. Even though this man showed only cursory signs of remorse – a conjured up reaction that was obviously part of his so-called, narcissistic makeover from monster to just-your-average neighbor – he did something for me that my rapist never did. He acknowledged that he raped. And it wasn’t something that just happened. He raped with purpose, planning and intent.
For so many years, I’ve gone through life wondering if what happened was something I did. If I put myself in that position, if it was my fault, if I asked for it. My rapist was my boyfriend, which means that he was entitled to my body any time and any way, right? My rapist apologized the morning after the first time he raped me, which means that he didn’t have malicious intent, right? My rapist told me he loved me, he would never have intentionally done anything to ruin my life like this, right?
Wrong. My rapist, like the man who wrote the cold calculated words above, knew exactly what he was doing. Every moment of his two-and-a-half year campaign of emotional, physical and sexual abuse was carried out with purpose, planning and intent. He wanted to control me, to own me because there is something wrong with him – not the other way around.
After relief came sadness, heaviness. I have a daughter. Someday, I will send her off to college and release her into the clutches of the monsters-in-waiting who, like the monsters-of-today, will prey on women just because they can.
Consider these words: “I’m somewhat remorseful for what I did to those girls, but I don’t think I could ever face them to apologize. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I had this certain insatiable thirst that brought me to do what I did. I didn’t know how to stop, and just when I thought maybe I could, I’d find myself back in my pattern, back on the hunt.”
These are the words of a coward. These are the words of a monster who has no idea what he has done and who doesn’t really care. There are so many out there like him out there and so many more to come. And, even today, 16 years away from my rape, I have no idea how to keep my daughter safe.
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