My first rapist took my virginity: I was 14, and he was 24, so it was statutory rape. He was playing the villain and I was the ingénue in an old fashioned melodrama at a community theatre. I was very attracted to him and I wanted to date him. He resisted, saying I was too young, but I was relentless. We did date, but most nights we ended up at his house near the college campus, talking about literature and philosophy, and he would drink an entire bottle of red wine from a wicker-wrapped jug and pass out before anything happened. My mother thought we were already sleeping together, so she put me on the pill, and I thought, well, what the hell, I might as well get it over with. So, I convinced him that I would never go to the police and that we should just do it, you know, wink-wink, if he wanted to. He did, and it wasn’t really very comfortable for me. We tried once or twice again, then he went back to drinking so much every night that he passed out before we got to sex. I took a still burning cigarette out of his sleeping hand one night, twisted it out in a great big dirty ashtray near his easy chair, and never went back. I saw him once more a few years later at the end of a bar, drinking alone. I didn’t speak to him, and don’t even know if he noticed or recognized me. Most times, I can’t even remember his real name: he will always be “Craven Sinclair.”
My second rapist was sweeter and more complicated. Again, an actor, but this time, we were cast together in a serious classical American drama. I was 15 when it started, and he was 32. He was very excited when my 16th birthday came, as it was, according to him, no longer illegal for him to be dating me. He was a diabetic and didn’t drink, but he chewed gum all the time and smelled like sugar. We had enjoyable sex. I skipped school to meet with him on more than one occasion. Then, one afternoon, I got a call from his ex-wife asking me if I knew he was behind on his child support. I knew nothing about an ex-wife nor a child. I broke it off with him, but he called me a month or two later to pick him up from jail when he had been stopped for a routine traffic incident and they held him on bail because of spousal non-payment. As I drove him home, all dingy and unshaven from jail and shaking without his insulin, and he apologized profusely. He tried to kiss me goodbye and invite me inside: I turned my cheek. When I saw him again, several years later, he was with another woman (an actress) and was basically rude to me. Was that a rape? I don’t know. I think of it more as a really stupid relationship.
The third rape was the worst: This is one that I really think of as rape, a date rape, you know. Acquaintance rape. Another actor. We never were in a show together, but we hung around the same professional companies always looking for work. He was more accomplished, NYC credits, full union (I was just a candidate at this point, not the real thing), I was impressed; he seemed important, yadda yadda. I was living with someone else at the time, but it wasn’t great. My boyfriend and I spent long periods of not speaking to each other or touching at all. So one night, there was a party, too much drinking, the big shot actor asked for a ride home, asked me upstairs, there was more drinking, and then, well, I lost control of the situation. But I said no. No, no, no. Not just once, but many, many times. But I was just too shocked and drunk to resist. My clothes were ripped, I was penetrated, and I gave up. I cried the whole time and took a six-hour shower till the morning came. My boyfriend and my women friends did not believe that I didn’t want it. But I didn’t. I really, really didn’t. I confronted him and told him that he had taken advantage of me. He said I wanted it. I told him he was lying to himself. He had a modestly successful career and dated a girl for a while that I respected. I found out recently he developed a heroin addiction and committed suicide. I find myself feeling sorry for him now.
Is it even worth talking about the many actors and donors who cornered me at parties or backstage and in the upstairs of rich people’s houses during fundraisers for moments of ravishment that could have gotten much, much worse? Probably not, because by that time, I had started to deal with my drinking and learned to get out of those situations with brevity and grace. Eventually, getting fat helped keep unwanted sexual attention at bay, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s really hard to get un-fat and it doesn’t help if you’re trying to be an actress.
But then, there was the man who attacked me in a rest stop at 1:00 am when I was trying to drive to Chicago in time to make an audition. By the time I faced this fourth rapist, I had taken enough stage combat that when his unknown, pasty, sweating face came into the women’s restroom saying, “I want you!” I knew enough to slap and punch and kick and elbow and get him off guard enough to yell “You stay the fuck away from me. Stay the FUCK away from me!!!” as if I would kill him with my bear hands if he didn’t, and I felt like I could, too. I got safely back to my car and raced away. I had learned the hard way how to protect myself. I had no problem staying awake for the rest of long boring Interstate drive. And I even got a part: not the one I wanted, but a good solid role.
My point here is not to make light of the gravity of the problem of rape. It is hideous for someone to invade your physical space and force you into acts you don’t want to do. Still, I think that the relatively privileged but twisted situations I describe do not compare to a sheltered child or teen who never even imagined that a trusted adult could do something sexual to her; or a woman who experiences violation as an act of war; or all types of incest; or any similar experience that has caused a fellow woman (or man) pain.
I’m just saying there are some women, like me, who are admittedly lusty and risk-taking, and certain kinds of sexual assaults are significantly different than more clearly black and white violent sexual assaults. And maybe they should be given a different type of legal treatment: one that would allow for less negative repercussions and thus encourage more reporting, and perhaps, one hopes, more discussion and prevention. Some of my early experiences did indeed border on the criminal and certainly on the immoral. But the only time I called the police was the incident in the rest stop which I felt was a civic duty. The next girl who that creep targeted might not be strong enough to fight. Or he might have a weapon. I still don’t know if he did have or not with me. I never stopped to think about it. I just fought.
I never reported the others, not because I didn’t think they might do similar things to other women, but because it was in my own best interest to keep silent. All these men were in my same circle. Some went on to movies, television, and major awards, like a Pulitzer. I felt like if I spoke up, it would damage my career. And there is probably something wrong with that picture, a small hypocrisy with all the women’s rights stuff I’ve been involved with, particularly equal pay and abortion rights. In some small way, I let my sisters down.
I wish I could have charged the big shot actor with some kind of lesser criminal activity: like a speeding ticket: “Fucking violation. Unsafe Penetration. Sex under the influence. $1000 fine and six months of probation, with mental and behavioral counseling.” That would have fit the crime.
Moreover, such an intervention might have saved my third rapist’s life. You see, I don’t wish suicide on anyone. It is the most desperate and bleak of acts. He must have had a great deal of pain. Why else would someone think force was an acceptable way of expressing their sexuality? I didn’t like him as a person, but he was a good actor, overall.
And me, I’ve pretty much worked through my anger, shame and self-image issues, although the last time I acted was over ten years ago. I realized that while I liked acting, I hated being an actress.
Life upon the wicked stage ain’t nothing for a girl. — Show Boat lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
A particularly scary rendition with Anna Kendrick.