Description Drug-facilitated assault occurs when drugs or alcohol are used to compromise an individual's ability to consent to sexual activity. Reasons for this inability to consent include, but are not limited to, being drugged, passed out, unconscious, mentally incapacitated, or asleep. Drugs and alcohol are often used in order to minimize the resistance and memory of the victim of sexual violence. Alcohol is the most commonly used chemical in this type of sexual violence. Other substances used by perpetrators include Rohypnol, GHB, and GBL. Survivors of this type of sexual violence often blame themselves because they drank or used drugs. It is essential to understand that it is not their fault; the aggressor is the one who took advantage of their diminished capacity. Resources RAINN Writing Prompts “I started feeling kind of strange…” “I left my drink for a few minutes to use the bathroom…” Stories Anonymous from Columbia, SC | 25-May-04 He transferred into our high school when I was 16; he was a 19 year old senior from California. He was an artist and a film-maker. He was a bigger personality than I'd ever known in our small town. A year later, when he offered a friend and I some kool-aid at his house neither of us had any reason to decline. After that, I remember laying on my back, feeling a hand stroking my shoulder. When I heard the jingle of my friends keys, I rolled my head just enough to see the door shutting behind her as she left. Freshman year of college; the predatorial drug section of my SHARE (Sexual Health Awareness and Rape Education) class. The flashbacks started during a lecture; me, sitting at a long table with my blood running cold. Going back to my dorm and slicing my arm over and over and over and over while Tori Amos' cover of "Famous Blue Raincoat" played on repeat. Not understanding what was happening. I wore sweaters in April: my entire left forearm was pulp. My suitemates called my parents, who almost took me out of school. They asked me if I had been assaulted, and I looked my father square in the eyes, and said with more emphasis than expected, "No. No." And for a longer period of time after that, I couldn't understand the roots of a seemingly impenetrable conflict between knowing I was sexually assaulted at least five times for several hours at a time, and the feeling that having someone go down on you isn't generally considered an "assault." Even though I lost my virginity to him, he refused to fuck me -- he said of that, "I want us to stay friends." As if the insertion of one body part over another could justify having slipped liquid ecstasy into my kool-aid. As much as I understand that sex is not consensual when one person has to be continuously repositioned limb-by-limb like a corpse, I still take too much of the responsibility for having put myself in that bedroom more than once. Why didn't I know better? Why did I go back? GHB, what I suspect was used, has amnesia side-effects. I remember most all of the NOT remembering. I remember not remembering anything other than having found someone willing to touch my body... this, after having been told by someone I loved, "people love you, they just don't fall IN love with you." Because she was more beautiful than me, I believed her. The first thing I remembered in the spring of 1999, during the SHARE class -- flashbacks of denim being tugged over my ankles while I lay on my back, unable to move. This while I sat in a bright room with 30 other people. I remembered another time standing on his front stoop before the 4am drive home, leaning against the wall because my legs would not support me. He asked me to describe what my orgasms felt like. I didn't know what to say because I wasn't conscious enough to know if I'd had one. I paused, and said something like, "Dark. Like being alone underground." He looked bewildered, then told me to think about it and write it down for him. He gave me a gentle push towards my car and went inside. I could've killed myself driving home so many times. I don't remember making it home, mostly. The mornings after, all I knew was that there was someone who wanted to touch me. Someone who liked me -- the fat girl who no one could possibly love. The fat, unkempt, melancholy girl no one else had ever wanted to touch was finally getting touched. I felt I should be grateful, but I was empty. The first night it happened, the girl I was deeply in love with was there with me. We drank from the same glass. When he started touching me, she got up and left his house. Drove home, slept. I only started letting him touch me because I wanted her to touch me. She said she kind-of liked him, and maybe she'd be more comfortable with a boy there. It'd be less gay. Then she was gone, I was alone with him, and he wasn't stopping. By then, I could no longer move. It happened so fast, but for so long. I remembered after the first time, him saying proudly, "You just had lesbian sex. Only it was with me." I remember the self-satisfying smile on his face, even in blurry memory. The last time it happened, he handed me a cup of orange juice. As I drank, he put his face close to mine and said, "There is SO MUCH lsd in there!" I choked, and began to get scared. He immediately started arguing that he was just kidding. He got angrier and angrier that I wouldn't believe him, then switched suddenly and began to speak soothingly, and put on a movie. I was unconscious five minutes into it, and remember vaguely waking up once or twice with his fingers inside me. After that, I never went back but I only had a vague feeling telling me not to, not a clear reason. I couldn't remember what had happened, I just knew not to go back that time. How, at 17, could I have expected to know that this charismatic, popular, "creative genius" wasn't being "liberal" or "progressive?" He was a rapist. I just didn't know they came in those packages. I didn't know enough to know what "acquaintence rape" was. I never would've thought it was "rape," because he said he respected me too much to use his cock. I thought that since I wasn't leaving when he began touching me, that I must want it. I wanted affection, but I didn't know everything he did to me until a year passed and the flashbacks began. Until the flashbacks began and I started piecing together the slices of memory, I didn't know that he had been drugging me. I had always thought he was just affectionate, that he thought I was beautiful, that because he knew more about the world than I did, was trustworthy. I didn't know what being drugged would feel like, I didn't know what not being able to trust a friend felt like. Suddenly understanding both at once is a stark, formidable feeling that will never completely leave me. anonymous from Bethlehem, PA | 27-October-02 My daughter is a freshman @ Lehigh U. in Bethlehem, Pa. 1st weekend prior to the start of classes (aug '02) she was @ a party, was slipped a date rape drug and was raped by 4 members of the wrestling team, reported it, taken to the hospital, did everything she should have done, but the blood test were taken a good 12 hrs after the drug was given and the test came back 0 for drugs in her system, GHB starts to breakdown after 4 - 8 hrs. The Da of Northampton Co. Pa will not prosecute because he says he can't win without a positive blood test or witnesses. She was so out of it she can't remember anything but in PA that seems to be ok, they will get away with it under the pa law. Our only hope is that when she presses charges with the University that Lehigh will take a more positive action. Two of the lowest things on earth are lawyers and politicians and a DA is a political lawyer. We also think that the hospital should have taken the blood test right away knowing that a date rape drug was suspected. We have an attorney of our own now, we should have had one from day one but the da said we didn't need one, yes we did. He has guided us thru this nightmare. Anonymous from Boston, MA | 21-March-02 A mutual friend introduced us a year prior to the rape. I remember I was in a dressing room on Newbury Street, shopping with my girlfriends, when Brian called. He caught me so off guard. Why would he wait until the day of his fraternity date party to ask me to go with him? I made up excuses. I didn't want to go with him. He lied and told me he was going to be fined $75 if he didn't go to the party. As the Vice-President, he had to go. He promised I'd only have to make an appearance with him, and then I could leave. I felt guilty and accepted the invitation. I threw on a dress I had, and took a cab to his house so that we could go to the party together. We talked over a couple drinks, about our families, jobs, school, the usual. He brought me to his room, serenaded me with a little guitar playing, and won my trust. We proceeded to the party, where we stayed for a few hours. He was the perfect gentleman. He always held my hand, and made sure I was never by myself. When I got out of the ladies room, he handed me an opened beer. The one time I didn't get my own drink, the one time I let my guard down, he slipped a date-rape-drug into my drink. Before I could even finish the beer, he asked me to go back to his house to watch a movie. Why not? I felt fine. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and I was careful not to drink too much, so that I could make the right decisions. I remember sitting on his bed while he knelt down to put in the movie. I passed out cold. I woke up and he was taking off my underwear. I told him to stop, and he told me not to worry and everything would be okay. I rolled over to face the wall, and I passed out again. I woke up again, but this time I was in excruciating pain. I had no idea what was happening, and why I couldn't get up. I was lying on my back, completely naked, with Brian on top of me. He was naked, in the middle of raping me; I was menstruating, and still had a tampon inside me. I told him to stop, I pleaded with him, but he continued. My first actual thought: Was he at least wearing a condom? No. I only lost my virginity a few months before, and wasn't on birth control. I became hysterical, and he finally stopped. The next thing I knew, he was back on top of me, back inside me. He thought putting on a condom would make it better. I pleaded again, and tried to tell him how painful it was. I don't even remember if he ejaculated inside me or not. I was just grateful he stopped. I rolled over, faced the wall again, and passed out. I woke up the next morning, too scared to even move. I didn't know where my clothes were. I remembered only parts of the night, and when I asked him about it, he laughed, and said "you remember that?" He laughed, got defensive, and kept switching the topic. I held back my tears until I got home. He couldn't have raped me. All I wanted was someone to tell me that he didn't rape me, that he couldn't have raped me. I was stronger than that. Someone tell me that I was stronger than that! A few days later, I told a friend who was in his fraternity what had happened that night. He held my hand when I started sobbing, and told me it would be okay. Within a few days, he was kicked out of the fraternity. Two of his fraternity brothers approached me and told me the names of other girls he raped before me. I broke down when I found out there were other girls before me. I wasn't the only one. I'm not angry none of the girls stopped him. I'm sorry it happened to all of us. No one knows exactly how many girls he raped. I talked to a few of the other girls and got to know them. We are all two years younger than him. We all have blonde hair. We all have blue eyes. We all have similar personalities. We were all raped by this man. We all fit his profile for a perfect rape victim, except me. I wasn't as weak as he thought: I filed charges, I filed a complaint with our school, and I got him expelled his senior year at Boston University for what he had done to all of us. I will never forget that night he drugged and raped me. But he will always remember me as his first victim who stood up to him, and found some sort of justice. I fought for all the other girls who couldn't.