There are times when I tire of speaking out, but after Lindsay Huggin's irresponsible article earlier this month giving the University a free pass on burying felony crime, I was appalled to read Christa Byker's hurtful opinion on sexual assault victims and how they are to blame ("Doing more to take back the night," Apr. 17). Never in my life have I been so pained by an opinion column.
I was unconscious in a fraternity house when I was serially raped in 1984. We do not know what was put in my drink, but I certainly did not ask for it. And even if I had, Byker insults all college men when she intimates they have no self-control. Rapists are an aberration, not the norm. They are criminals.
No one ever asks for rape. A girl having cocktails and wearing low-rider jeans or a short skirt at a fraternity party does not ask for rape. Byker seems to think this was my and other survivors' fault. She owes every survivor an apology for her callous, uneducated opinion that any man, woman or child deserves to be sexually assaulted due to alcohol or what they are wearing.
By putting forth (and publishing) such opinions, you do indeed become what I call a "perpetrator perpetuator" -- someone who outwardly thinks rape is a crime but then goes on to excuse the rapists' action by somehow applying blame to the victim. It's subtle and insidious, but it aids in the silencing of rape survivors, who have nothing to be ashamed of.
When I sat in the courtroom last March at William Beebe's preliminary hearing, Defense Attorney Rhonda Quagliana asked me deplorable questions. She asked me: "How short was your skirt that night?" All this, while standing eight feet from my rapist. That's called blaming the victim. "Why did you go to the party?" Because that's what you do when you're in college. It is never a sound idea to insinuate that it was the victim's fault. I cannot believe this is 2007.
I am a proud survivor and I am the keynote speaker at Yale University's "Take Back the Night" rally later this month. My alma mater didn't invite me to do so, but as a member of the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network speaker's bureau, it is my obligation to serve others and shield them from such ignorance. But I will show those Yalies that you can survive without taking blame. I hope to God they don't have a student there like Byker writing similar hurtful falsehoods. It's not an "opinion" when it's false and damaging.
Liz Seccuro
CLAS 1988
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