I said, “No.” I said, “Stop.” I tried pushing him away. When I was fifteen I was date raped at summer camp by a boy I had a crush on. I pretended I was okay, but I tried to kill myself not long after that. How had this happened? Had he started listening to locker room banter? This man had known me since I was nine - he had two daughters. It took twenty years and much therapy before I could tell her the full story, before I could admit it even to myself. I told my mother only that he had propositioned me, not anything else. I went to school the next day, sitting in class like nothing happened. He told me it was “safe” to have sex with him - he’d had a vasectomy and wouldn’t get me pregnant. He sat on my bed, ran his hand under the covers and put his fingers up inside me. My mother’s boyfriend came into my room to say goodnight. The second time I was kissed I was twelve or thirteen. I was reading Beverly Cleary books and wishing I could be a horse.ĭo you think he had been listening to locker room banter? I don’t know why he thought he could do this. He lifted me up by my armpits, sat me on the kitchen counter, leaned over me and slid his tongue into my mouth. The first man who kissed me when I didn’t want him to was the boyfriend of my babysitter. The Record's Jeannie Yandel speaks with Tara Weaver about her experiences with sexual assault.
