APRIL 2009 is SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS & PREVENTION MONTH
Sexual assault scars the lives of millions in this country. Speak out against abuse!! Visit RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) for more information on reporting a crime, recovery, effects of sexual assault and reducing your risk. Join us in the Loft on Wednesday, April 29, at 4 pm for a discussion on Crossing Boundaries: Sexual Assault and the Law: Impact, Consequences, and Remedies. The event is open to all teens. Learn about your rights, resources, preventive measures, and more from Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, Justice Project Against Sexual Harm, and the Evanston Community Defender Office.
Read more! The following titles can be found in the Loft.
FICTION
Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas. Anke feels like furniture, always there but rarely noticed. She is but a footstool in a house full of anger and violence. Is it horrible to want to be noticed at any cost?
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. Caitlin finds gorgeous and magnetic Rogerson Biscoe impossible to resist, so much so that when the abuse starts, she struggles to find her way out. Can she?
Inexcusable by Chris Lynch. Something happened, something potentially horrible. High School senior and football player Kier Sarafian narrates his side of the story. And then there’s Gigi, a childhood friend, whose very different view the reader gleans through Kier’s reporting.
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. What really happened at the end-of-the-year party that changed everything for sixteen-year-old Annabel?
Leftovers by Laura Weiss. What happens when victims become perpetrators? Blair and Ardith decide to exact revenge on their wrongdoers in this highly charged novel of lost innocence.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda’s freshman year in high school.
Stained by Jennifer Jacobson. Seventeen-year-old Jocelyn looks for answers when her lifelong neighbor and friend, Gabe, turns up missing and she learns that, while her boyfriend has been telling everything to a priest, Gabe has been keeping terrible secrets.
Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. Grady finally goes to a new high school where he meets several students who try to help him deal with the horrible secret that is robbing him of his life.
NONFICTION
The Date Rape Prevention Book: The Essential Guide for Girls & Women by Scott Lindquist
In Love & Danger: A Teen’s Guide to Breaking Free of Abusive Relationships by Barrie Levy, MSW.
Learning to Swim: A Memoir by Ann Turner.
Lucky by Alice Sebold.
Strong At the Heart: How it Feels to Heal From Sexual Abuse by Carolyn Lehman.
ONLINE RESOURCES
RAINN: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE and the Online Hotline; educates the public about sexual assault; and leads national efforts to prevent sexual assault, improve services to victims and insure that rapists are brought to justice.
Teenwire: Teenwire.com is an award-winning sexual health website for teens.
YWCA: The YWCA provides information on what to do if you’ve been sexually assaulted; how to help someone who has been sexually assaulted; rape myths; and prevention at home, in your car, and while walking. Rape Crisis Hotline: Call 888-293-2080 in Chicago Metropolitan Area
I was abducted, beaten and raped by a stranger. It wasn’t a neighbor, a coach, a relative, a family friend or teacher. It was a recidivist pedophile predator who spent time in prison for previous sex crimes; an animal hunting for victims in the suburban neighborhoods of Lincoln, Rhode Island.
I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. Although he was arrested and indicted, he never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 34 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.
In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didn’t go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasn’t a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.
Over the past 34 years, I’ve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreams–nightmares actually–dozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesn’t get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I don’t watch America’s Most Wanted or Law and Order, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.
Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldn’t change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps he’d still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.
Out of fear, shame and guilt, I’ve been silent for over three decades, not sharing with anyone the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. It’s time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family. It’s time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other victims know that they’re not alone and to help victims of rape and violent crime understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience. For those who suffer in silence, I hope my story brings strenth, comfort, peace and hope.
My novel, Men in My Town, is based on my abduction, beating and assault and the unsolved brutal murder of the man who attacked me. Men in My Town is available now at Amazon.com. For insight into Men in My Town, please visit the Men in My Town blog at http://www.meninmytown.wordpress.com