Why I Didn't Report

Why I didn't report:

(Trigger warning)

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First of all, I have no proof of the majority of the events on this list. That's a pretty strong deterrent.

I won't explain all of the things that have happened. Some of them are still too upsetting to think about. I'm not ready.

1. He was gay, so I didn't think it counted as assault.

2. He was my boyfriend.

3. I was friends with his girlfriend. I punched him in the face. I guess I thought that was enough. 4. I was a month into grad school and I didn't want to cause a problem. By the time I finally did report (after many incidents -- and by which point, I was terrified of him), I was asked to file a formal complaint with the university, and take him to some sort of hearing. I refused, crying, because I was so sure that he would try to kill me. (He did eventually get kicked out of grad school, but not for all of the things he did to me: he got kicked out for using the c-word in front of a donor to the school.)

5. He was my friend, and he was drunk. I left him stranded at the bar where he was without a ride home... and I felt so guilty about it that I called and apologized.

6. A professor witnessed what was happening and stopped it. I was mortified and celebrating someone coming to my defense simultaneously in my mind.

7. I tried to report it to a female stage manager. She laughed. (I was not Equity at the time, so had no Deputy or union to report it to.)

8. He was a stranger who approached me from behind, and I never got a good look at him.

9. He was my boyfriend

10. He was a stranger.

11. He was my boyfriend.

12. It was a stranger. It was in public, in daylight, in front of my boyfriend, who did nothing to help or

stop him. I was so shocked that I didn't do much either, although I was able to stop it from happening and the guy ran away. And by the time I thought about doing something (which, honestly, wasn't until a few days later when I worked up the courage to tell my parents why I'd been crying), there was no way to track him down in NYC.

13. It was at my job on a tv show. I reported it to a union rep. I was told "well, we're his union, too, so we have to protect him as much as we have to protect you. If you want, you can sue Sony Pictures..." (Spoiler alert: I did not sue Sony Pictures.)

14. I forgot about it for a full year (to the week) after it happened, until a friend posted about a similar event on her facebook wall. It was so, so awful that I guess I blocked it out of my mind. What's strange is how clearly the memory came back after that year. And I realized then just how horrific it was. I recently realized I'm still facebook friends with one of the men. I didn't delete him, because I feel like I have some sort of responsibility to other women to keep tabs on him.

15. I forgot about it until yesterday, when I read another woman's "why I didn't report" list, and it came flooding back. At the time, I didn't even confront him about it. He was staying with me at the time. It happened while I was sleeping (or while he thought I was sleeping). I felt so badly for him and excused his behavior because of everything he'd been going through... I remember telling a mutual friend what had happened, and she told me, "Yeah, he did the same thing to me a few years ago."

16. It was a first date. He very forcefully started making out with me against my will. He seemed like a nice guy who just misread the situation. He kept writing to me for months, and I liked him, but I just couldn't see him again after that.

17. It was a first date. We spent four hours together. I drove him to his apartment, because he had walked to the date. After I told him I didn't want to kiss him (because I was trying to draw boundaries after the last one), he grabbed me by the back of the head and very forcefully started making out with me. I was terrified that he might rape or kill me, and I just froze. We were at his place. I managed to get away from him. When I got home and told my male roommate what had happened, he said, "What a baller move!" The guy texted me the next day wanting to go out again. I deleted the dating app and blocked his number.

18. It was a second date. It took me weeks to process just how badly things went. I still see him in social situations. When I retell the story of why there was no third date, I tell the lie of what SHOULD have happened on the second date... which would have been bad enough... because I feel this need to spare him from gossip, and to spare myself from the pain of people telling me what I could have done differently to prevent it.

Note: this is a partial list. Both because some things I don't want to talk about, and some I'm sure I'm just not remembering in the moment (I mean, if I'd made this list yesterday, it would've been one shorter). And these are all pretty traumatizing events. This doesn't count every time a male actor has touched me inappropriately in a rehearsal, or every time a drunk man has groped me while dancing in a club, or every guy that kissed me after I told him I didn't want him to (even my FIRST kiss happened that way). Those are such frequent occurrences that my brain hasn't bothered to record them. BUT THEY ARE STILL WRONG.