“Why Didn't You Fight?”

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL VIOLENCE

            Why didn't I fight? This is probably the question I am most asked by others. For a long time, it was a question I could not stop asking myself. The following is an excerpt from my memoir, written years ago when I was still grappling with that question.

            “Right,” I told him at the intersection. He smiled and turned left.

            “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice jumping in fear, which I tried to disguise as playfulness. Of course this was a joke. See? I get that it’s a joke. Now turn around. Turn around. Turn around. My eyes focused on my hands on my lap, the seatbelt tight across my chest, suddenly feeling too tight. The inside of his car was grey, all grey. I wanted to think of what to say, to do, but all I could think about was the grey.

            He reached beneath my seat and pulled out a roll of duct tape. With one hand on the wheel, he motioned it towards me.

            “Tie yourself up.”

            “What?” Fear cracked through playfulness. This was too cliché to be real. My stomach twisted as we picked up speed. I watched the trees disappear in the side mirror, felt part of myself leave with them.

            He dropped the tape onto my lap.

            “I’m kidnapping you.” He said it like a joke, but his smile had faded. Maybe it was still a joke.

            I laughed.

            “I don’t want to.”

            “If you don’t tie yourself up, I’m going to keep driving until we get to Selinsgrove. Then you’ll be at my place.” His voice was different. There was something beneath his joking, something predatory and sudden. My vision narrowed to the tape in my lap, the handle of the car door. If I opened it and tried to jump, I would die, rolling down the highway at 60 miles per hour into the dense traffic behind us.

            I straightened my skirt and remained silent, trying to think. Twenty minutes passed and still all I could concentrate on was the pathetic grey of the car’s interior. This was still a joke. I knew this was a joke. I looked up and saw us approaching a familiar intersection, only 18 miles from Selinsgrove and farther from where we’d started. I began to panic.

            “What are you going to do?”

            He jumped a bit, as if he’d forgotten I was in the car. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

            “I just want to see you tied up. I’ll take you home as soon as you do that.”

            I hesitated. I thought I heard compassion in his voice, hoped I’d heard the truth. There was no way I could believe him, but there was no way I couldn’t believe him. It was the only option, and I wanted to go home. The doubt in my stomach turned to nausea.

            “Tie it around your legs, then your arms, and your wrists.” He turned the car right, and I fumbled with the tape. This isn’t the way to Selinsgrove. I looked back at the intersection. We should have stayed straight to go to Selinsgrove. I looked outside at the growing unfamiliarity of the road. And this isn’t the way back to Bloomsburg.

            I forced myself to stop thinking, to stop panicking. He’d made it simple. Tape my legs and wrists, and I go home. Simple. I pulled on the tape and started at its rough sound. I felt his breathing quicken beside me. This is ridiculous. This is Paul, my friend. This is all a silly game.

            I slowly unfurled the tape beneath my knees in a robotic way. I looped it twice and straightened. We were turning again, this time onto a dirt road. The car bumped as he steered it, the headlights illuminating a child’s playground, a baseball field. He turned at the end of the lot and began driving back towards the road. My heart jumped and I let out the breath I’d been holding too long. We were turning around. I fumbled with the tape on my wrists, trying to hurry so this could all be over.

            The car stopped. My heart stopped. He turned off his headlights.

            “I can’t do it.” I held up my wrists apologetically, the tape curled and twisted in my hurried attempt. He turned his body to me, the car swaying with his weight. Saying nothing, with his eyes only on my hands, he grabbed the tape and began turning it around my wrists, methodically, meticulously. This was not his first time. I watched without thought or emotion, soothed into numbness by the rhythmic motion.

            He finished quickly, tearing off a second piece of tape and placing it across my mouth before I could react. A hand grabbed my ponytail from behind and pulled. My head snapped backwards, my eyes on the ceiling of the car. I wasn’t surprised that it was grey. I cried out in pain and surprise, muffled against the tape. My body struggled between numbness and panic. I whimpered and closed my eyes.

            I’m not sure how long he held me like that. That part seems the longest. My head was tilted back, neck exposed, my hands and legs were bound – bound by me. I did this to myself, I thought, and now I’m going to die. I swallowed and let the numbness take over. I did this to myself, and now I’m going to get exactly what I deserve.

            When he ripped off the duct tape, it was only to replace it with his mouth. With his hand still holding the back of my head, he pushed my face into his, his tongue filling my mouth. As he pushed inside of me, my mind disconnected. I felt myself floating away, already dying. Then – a surge of no. I pulled my wrists apart with a strength I didn’t have. The tape snapped. He stopped.

            Pushing me away, he grabbed for the roll.

            “Hold your wrists together.”

            I mindlessly brought my hands together. What the hell are you doing? a tiny voice screamed. Why are you listening? Whose side are you on, anyway? I pulled my hands apart again. He reached for them and I shoved them beneath me. I stared forward, my eyes fixed on the dashboard, body tense, holding my breath. I watched him from the corner of my eye. Another indefinitely long pause, my mind blank. Then the car started.

            When the headlights turned on, I was disoriented. I had forgotten where I was, forgotten everything in the echoing thoughts of you’re going to die, you’re going to die, you’re going to die. He turned left, heading back to the main road, to my home. I sat in silence until I remembered I was still tied. I tentatively removed the tape still clinging to one wrist, bent and slowly removed the tape from my legs, aware that at any moment he could stop me, turn down another unknown road, continue, finish. This car was his world. I had to play by his rules.

            “This is a game,” I whispered to myself, eyes burning until I remembered to blink. We reached Bloomsburg, passed the empty fair grounds, passed the bicycle shop, and then we were home, my home, my dorm building. He stopped the car and sat. I watched the car door handle. If I opened it now, would I still die?

            He sighed. I sat. I looked up at to my room – seven floors up, three windows to the left. The light was on. Students entered and exited the building casually, some smoked outside. Open the door. Open the door. Open the goddamn fucking door. I couldn’t move. My salvation was inches away, and I couldn’t move.

            I felt his hand on my thigh. I didn’t jump. I didn’t feel anything beyond the rub of skin on skin, his breath too close to my ear.

            “You’re beautiful,” he said, in a voice I didn’t recognize. Who was this man? “I could touch you all night.” He moved his hand up my thigh and my eyes flicked to the students on the lawn. Look at me. Look at me. Look at this car. Please.

            My hand was on the door handle. Thank god; when had that happened? I pushed on the door and felt the cold night air greet me with an escape I couldn’t register, couldn’t believe. Was this it? Was it over?

            “Goodnight,” I said, my first words in nearly an hour. Now I didn’t recognize my voice. Who are these two people, parked in the car outside my dorm? None of this seems right. This story is unbelievable. Turn the page. Set down the book.

            He removed his hand, but I felt his eyes on me.

            “Goodnight, Samantha.”

            I understand now what I did not then: most victims of sexual violence experience tonic immobility. According to Polyvagal Theory, when our bodies are exposed to stress the nervous system responds along a spectrum of evolutionary options. At the most evolved stage, mammals activate social engagement, attempting to defuse aggression with charisma and social skills. Before this evolution, our basic response was activation of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight). Should the stress be perceived as too great to survive with either of these options, our bodies instinctively retreat to the most primal evolutionary response: tonic immobility. This is when – and why – we freeze.

            Tonic immobility is both the most common reaction in victims of sexual violence as well as the most misunderstood and harshly judged. Worse, it has sometimes been used to imply consent. THE ABSENCE OF NO IS NOT THE PRESENCE OF YES. It is crucial that we shift our concept of consent from one of No Means No to Yes Means Yes. This is known as affirmative (or enthusiastic) consent, and it has begun to reshape our social – and legal – response to sexual violence.

            Reading my story years later, I can see the moments when I attempted social engagement as well as the moment I assessed my ability to escape (flight). In the moment, however, all I knew was that I was trapped in my body: fully aware of what was happening (but for the gray moments of dissociation) but physically unable to respond. I am now in a place where I no longer feel the need to forgive myself, because I fully understand that my actions were both not my choice and simply my body's attempt to survive. It was not an invitation to cause me harm.

            Through my work at Transitions, and throughout my life, I hope to share this message not only with survivors but to challenge everyone's understanding of violence and consent.

           

Samantha F. is a counselor advocate with Transitions. She has been studying sexuality and ethics throughout her BA, MFA, and PhD ABD and has worked with several nonprofits including CARAS.