Silent no more: #MeToo

Jul. 24—I can feel my chest tightening. My face is flush and my flight response has initiated. It's as if I am a small animal slinking to the back of my habitat while a predator inches near me. It was a safe space. A place to go when you needed help with an injury, but instead, injury was inflicted.

The director of the athletic training department was a 20-something man with dark hair and piercing eyes. He was attractive and he knew it. What young female athletes of the college didn't know was that he would use it to get close, way too close, to those seeking help for sports injuries.

It started innocently enough. Wrapping an ankle and then rubbing your calf muscles as if it were part of the treatment. With each visit to the training room, his hands would travel further from the actual injury and closer to parts of the body that no man should reach without permission.

I will admit, for an 18-year-old small-town girl who had a terrible home life and a step-father who repeatedly physically beat her until she was in junior high, the smiles and words of encouragement were nice, at first. My parents didn't tell me how proud they were of me, no matter how well I did in the classroom or on the sports court. Then, when I was alone with no one to support me, someone paid attention.

It would be months later before I found myself called to the training room for treatment of a back injury due to high jumping and hurdling. When I arrived, no one was there but him. He assaulted me that day. He grabbed my arm and pulled me in, pressing his lips to mine. I pulled away, but his hands gripped tighter.

I didn't go back to the training room. Eventually, I left college. I never returned to college athletics, and I never said a word.

Years later I would learn I wasn't the only one, but even then I couldn't admit what had happened. I felt ashamed as if it were my fault. I liked the attention, perhaps I brought it on myself. I convinced myself I deserved it — I did not.

Reading Harrop's column on Kevin Spacey took me all too quickly back to the trauma I experienced so many years ago. As I read each word, my chest tightened, and my face became flush, but this time I am not running.

Men like Spacey need to be called out for their actions. Harrop claims that Anthony Rapp's report of abuse at the hands of Spacey when Rapp was just 14 years old was the "heart of the witch-hunting #MeToo era" and she commented that Rapp waited until he was 50 years old to launch his civil suit. A jury would find Spacey not liable for battery charges. Since Rapp's civil suit, dozens of other men have filed harassment and assault charges against Spacey. A judge in Los Angeles recently approved an arbitrator's decision to order Spacey to pay $30.9 million to the makers of "House of Cards" for violating his contract by sexually harassing crew members.

Harrop says, "What Spacey seemed guilty of was getting drunk and handsy with young men. This may have been creepy behavior, but court after court concluded it did not rise to sexual assault ... No one here is saying that this conduct was acceptable. But inappropriate behavior does not equal assault."

Listen closely, it does not matter if someone is drunk, dressed scantily, seeking attention, or just walking by in baggy clothes, no means no, and someone making you uncomfortable or being "handsy" is not your fault. Whether a court of law declares that act a criminal offense or not does not make it any less harmful to the victim.

My fear is people like Harrop will dilute the offenses of abusers and make victims feel like it is their fault, or as if what has happened to them was nothing more than an offense of everyday behavior.

Never let anyone silence you from telling your story. Your pain is valid. What happened to you is not your fault.

Victims matter. You matter. I matter. You are not alone. #MeToo

Contact Amy Graham-McCarty [email protected]