It was a frat party. Don't tell me I was dumb for drinking the pj, because I've already heard it and I already know it. I'd been to this house a few times, and knew some of the brothers as great guys. I felt comfortable here, but I shouldn't have. It was alumni weekend, and the place was crowded. I split up from my friends to ask a brother, one that I didn't know but had seen around, to show me to a restroom other than the one that was overflowing with people (and a questionable-looking floor). He took me somewhere, saying something to another brother on the way there. I was lead down a hallway on the main floor to a restroom, and turned to say thanks to the brother who lead me when I was pushed backwards into the room. Before the door was shut and locked, the brother I'd asked came in - along with two other guys I'd never seen. They started saying shit. About how a girl doesn't ask a brother for the bathroom unless she's a slut. About how they were alumni and they 'ruled this bitch.' Whether they were talking about me or the frat is unclear. 

I told them I just wanted to go to the restroom while they pulled their polos out of their pants. I told them I wasn't a whore while they unbuckled their belts. I told them my friends would be looking for me as they pushed down their pants. And I told them I didn't want it as they pinned me to the floor and shoved their body parts inside of me. 

I'd sworn when I was younger that I wouldn't be another statistic. I'd been molested by my grandfather throughout my childhood and I'd heard that people who were abused previously were more likely to be abused again. As I lay there, one man holding my wrists, another my feet, while the third... my mind swirled, wondering if it was a nightmare, like I so often have. I thought about the bathroom - how white it was, a brother had left their toiletry bag on the counter, the toilet needed cleaning. I tried to think of everything except what was happening. I left the room after they were done with me - throat hoarse, clothes and hair a mess, face smeared with tears and other things. They'd taken me, taken my ability to say no, and taken my dignity. They'd degraded me and ruined me. 

I didn't tell the police. I told my close friends, and they tried to get me to, but after the court cases with my granddad and the humiliation, anger, and depression I felt when he was acquitted of every charge against him, I didn't feel like going through that again. I didn't want to feel like a monkey in a cage again. 

I haven't gotten over it completely. I've had breakdowns while intoxicated. I've been irrationally frightened of men for next to no reason - other than that I've been physically harmed too many times by the male sex to trust anyone fully without years of proof that they aren't going to hurt me. I'm not one of those people who goes around telling their story to incriminate the Greek system or men in general. I'm a member of the Greek system and I still know a lot of great men. But I don't feel safe at Carolina anymore. Not just because of being raped. But because of the nonchalant - or worse - victim-blaming attitudes that I have encountered. Rape culture exists, and it exists here.