“I should have known better...”

At some point in almost thirty years of child welfare, you learn how to hear the unthinkable without reacting to it.

You don't gasp, you don't cry and you don't let your face register the horror of what you're hearing because the woman sitting across from you shouldn’t have to manage YOUR emotions while trying to survive her own.

But…this was MY FRIEND… and she couldn't make eye contact with me.

I knew her fifteen years ago.

I was THERE fifteen years ago.

And I had no idea.

“I should have known better...”

Of all the things she told me about that night, THAT is the sentence that stayed on loop in my head.

15 YEARS

And somehow, HE wasn’t the person she was ashamed of.

She was 37. Married to a man she loved. Two little boys at home. Smart, ambitious and well past the point in her career where she needed anyone to convince her she belonged at the table.

He was twenty years older, part of senior leadership and someone she trusted. Someone WE trusted. Proud grandpa of two beautiful little girls who were practically celebrities around the office.

There was nothing about this man that screamed danger.

They were traveling for work and had a presentation to finish. Corporate had booked him a suite with a separate living area, so they worked there.

That's it.

THAT'S the terrible decision she's been prosecuting herself for ever since.

She went to his room to work on a PowerPoint.

He gave her a drink.

And then there’s nothing.

The next thing she remembers is waking up with him on top of her.

She didn't scream. She didn't fight. She didn't push him off.

She froze.

She laid there underneath a man she had trusted for five years and waited for him to finish.

Then she went back to her room and tried to scrub the smell of him off her skin.

A few hours later, she went to work.

Nobody knew what had happened that night. She didn't report him. She didn't confront him. She didn't quit.

She went home to her husband and her boys.

And for FIFTEEN YEARS, she sat in meetings with him, she answered emails from him, she passed him in hallways and she told no one.  

I've been thinking about her a lot lately as the internet has gone to war over the “Cornell 7.”

If you haven't been following it, the short version is this: a former Cornell student alleges that seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity sexually assaulted her during a night in October 2024 involving alcohol, marijuana and ketamine. 

She says what began with consensual sexual activity became something very different as the night progressed. Seven men are now named in her civil lawsuit. No criminal charges were initially filed. Cornell conducted its own Title IX investigation, which resulted in a range of findings and sanctions, including expulsions and suspensions. Now, nearly two years later, the criminal investigation has been reopened.

And then there are the texts.

Messages sent in the days after the incident have been used to argue that what happened was consensual. In some of them, she described at least some of the sexual activity positively. 

There are texts expressing concern that people were talking about what happened and that her reputation was being ruined, allegations of incapacitation and discomfort, and that what began consensually, changed as the night progressed. And there are messages from one of the men apologizing for how things had gone, saying things had “gotten out of hand”.  

Weeks later, when she spoke to police, she clearly reported: “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”

Depending on which corner of the internet you're standing in, those texts either prove she “wanted” everything that happened that night...

OR

They shouldn't be questioned AT ALL because “rape is rape”.

Neither of those positions makes any sense to me.

Of course, the texts matter!  So does everything she said happened before them.

ALL OF IT IS EVIDENCE.

So how did believing “the texts matter” become the same thing as “she's lying”?

Regardless of your personal value system, a woman can freely walk into a fraternity house...drink…use drugs….willingly have sex with one man…or two.  Say “YES” at 11:47 and “NO” at 12:23.

Consent isn't a wristband.

A yes to one man isn't a yes to seven. A yes to one thing isn't a yes to everything. And a woman does not lose the right to say no simply because you don't particularly approve of all the things she’s already said yes to.

THAT is victim shaming.

But questioning HER choices and questioning the evidence are not the same thing.

The texts matter. Toxicology matters. Witnesses matter. Inconsistencies matter. The accounts of the accused matter.

Looking at the evidence isn't “shaming her.” And taking her seriously doesn't mean we have to look away from any of it.

I've heard “I should have known better” in more versions than I want to remember and I believe that a lot of women responding to this case aren't only responding to Cornell.

They're responding from a hotel room of their own.

When someone says, “Look at her texts,” they hear all the old questions again:

Why did you go there? Why didn't you leave? Why didn't you fight harder? Why did you act completely normal afterward?

My friend didn’t even tell her husband.

When I asked her why, she said she didn't think he could handle knowing.

Then she looked at me and said, “What if he didn't believe me?”

And what if he DID?

What if he believed every word…and something between them changed anyway?

She couldn't control what had already happened to her but she could control who knew.

So she said nothing.

For fifteen years.

The worst kind of solitary confinement while he just…went on with his life.

Tell me again what a rape victim is supposed to act like?  

So YES, I understand why women are angry.

We aren't arguing about one woman at Cornell anymore. We're dragging thousands of other women into that frat house with her.

Women who weren't believed. Women who weren't protected. Women who froze. Women who kept dating the guy afterwards. Women who went to work the next morning and acted completely normal because acting completely normal was the only thing they knew how to do.

There are women looking at this case who desperately want this woman to be believed in the way they weren't.

Their stories matter…but those stories cannot tell us what really happened that night at Cornell.

Our trauma cannot become someone else's evidence.

What happened to us doesn't tell us what happened to her. And what we would or wouldn't have done that night doesn't tell us what she consented to.

THIS case has to stand on THIS evidence.

And sometimes evidence doesn't give us the clean answer we want.

THAT feels like a radical position to stand on right now.

If you question the texts, you're “victim shaming”...if you question what happened before the texts, you're defending a rapist. Pick a side.

We want a victim and a villain. We want a hashtag. We want to know which team we're supposed to join before lunch.

But I believe that sexual assault deserves more from us than blind allegiance to whichever side of the internet got to us first.

So do victims.

And so do the accused.

I don't know what happened at Cornell.

I know a woman can drink too much, make terrible decisions, have consensual sex with one man or five men and still be raped by the sixth.

Asking what happened is not the same thing as asking what she did to deserve it.

My friend walked into a hotel room to work on a PowerPoint and spent fifteen years believing SHE should have known what was going to happen next.

She shouldn't have.

But maybe WE should.

We should know better than to confuse sexual freedom with unlimited consent.

We should know better than to decide what rape looks like based on what a woman did before it happened or what she did after.

And we should know better than to call every difficult question “victim shaming” simply because we don't like where the answer might lead.

Reader Resource: If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual assault, confidential support is available 24/7 through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). You are not alone. Healing is possible, and you do not have to navigate it alone.

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