ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for essays, poetry, fiction, comics, and artwork by women, trans, and nonbinary people who engage with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
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Dear Ms. Harper,
We hope this letter finds you well. We are writing in response to your request to have your sexual encounter with Mr. Harrington classified as rape. While we appreciate your interest in having this liaison wiped from your record of consensual sexual experiences, after careful review and consideration, we regret to inform you that this incident did not meet the criteria for the elite caliber of rape that we have come to expect.
We understand this must be disappointing for you after a lifetime dreaming of the day you would finally get to accuse someone of rape—poring over the glamorous images in glossy rape victim magazines, figuring out how you’d wear your hair and makeup for the big day, and creating Pinterest boards filled with inspirational messages like, “Why didn’t you fight back?” “At least he’s kind of cute,” and, “If it was really rape, you would have gone to the police.”
Unfortunately, this event was simply a promiscuous young woman’s drunken mistake that just happened to end with her boss’s penis inside of her multiple times.
We understand the time and effort you put into this accusation, as well as the inconveniences you caused yourself: electing to dispose of the red-and-white floral underwear you wore that day because you could no longer look at them without having a panic attack, having your gynecologist respond to your allegation by suggesting an HIV test without being able to make eye contact with you (our condolences that the company health insurance did not cover this), and being forced to resign from your job while simultaneously blackballing yourself from ever working in this industry anywhere ever again.
The decision to reject your request was made quite easily due to a variety of factors: (1) Mr. Harrington’s father is an important member of our executive team; (2) you are a naive twenty-two-year-old at her first real job out of college; and (3) we have received multiple firsthand accounts of your flirtations with Mr. Harrington, including smiling at him, laughing at his inane jokes, and saying “good morning” to him on multiple occasions.
On the evening in question, you went to Mr. Harrington’s townhouse. Having left his wallet at home, he suggested you follow him to his home and then on to the team’s getting-to-know-you happy hour in your honor as the office’s latest hire. However, due to your gross negligence, Mr. Harrington was the only person who got to know you that evening.
Then you accepted the invitation into Mr. Harrington’s home for a “quick tour,” did you not? And—oh, bother—your coworkers weren’t going to be able to make the happy hour after all, Mr. Harrington informed you.
“We’ll order Chinese food. There’s this great little place around the corner.”
Mr. Harrington thoughtfully supplied us with the receipt from the Chinese restaurant as evidence that this was, in fact, a consensual sexual encounter. One beef and broccoli with white rice, Mr. Harrington’s order, and one General Tso’s chicken for you. It is universally acknowledged that a woman who orders General Tso’s chicken is looking to get fucked.
We’re certain you know what pairs perfectly with Chinese takeout: a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon. Mr. Harrington, being the generous man he is, saw you admiring his extensive wine collection and offered you a glass. And then a second. And maybe just a splash more?
“Might as well finish the bottle,” he said as the last drop of crimson liquid clung to the bottle’s rim before succumbing to gravity, releasing a sigh of resignation as it landed in your cup.
You also voluntarily removed your brown leather slingbacks before entering Mr. Harrington’s white-carpeted living room. You took off the shoes yourself, did you not? How was Mr. Harrington to know that he wasn’t doing you a favor by then removing your dress, bra, and underwear once you’d fallen asleep on his couch while watching The Simpsons? He was merely doing for you that which you could not do for yourself.
And yes, we are aware that the company’s human resources representative had to inform you by phone that Mr. Harrington admitted to having sex with you a total of four times that evening. After hearing this, you screamed and then began dry heaving while still on the phone with the representative. We consider this behavior quite unprofessional.
“You didn’t know?” she asked incredulously.
The first time—well, you remember the beginning of that one, don’t you? You managed to get the word “no” out before rudely falling back asleep. Lucky girl, you got a good nap in during times two and three. Then time number four, you awoke in his bed with only a gray fitted sheet, no top sheet, no comforter. Only one pillow, and it was under Mr. Harrington’s head. You were naked and cold, and the ceiling fan whirred overhead. You looked over and saw Mr. Harrington there, all flesh, arms akimbo. Your body quickly pieced together something your brain didn’t yet know. Within you, an imprint of his physical form, tainted by an intrinsic darkness. It was part of you now. He had branded you from the inside, leaving a shadow that threatened to engulf every last bit of you like a black hole. You tried to undo it the only way you knew how. You felt him staring at you as his body rolled toward and then on top of yours. You didn’t say no this time. (You thought—correctly, we might add!—that because of this, you couldn’t call any of it rape.) You watched the metal ball on the end of the rattling ceiling fan chain for the full three minutes it took him to finish and slump onto his side. You were out of his bed and down the stairs, throwing on your dress and grabbing your shoes and keys in only slightly less time than it took for him to climax.
Above all, you simply do not meet the qualifications of a true rape victim:
- You had been drinking alcohol.
- Your number of past sexual partners is in the double digits, and your workplace-mandated drug test showed that you are on birth control pills despite not being in a committed, monogamous relationship. And how many times was it that you took Plan B in college?
- You have a number of diagnosed mental illnesses: panic attack disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (please alert us if we missed any).
- Your drug test also showed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor in your system. Perhaps you forgot to take your medication on the day of this particular liaison with Mr. Harrington—or maybe you’d had a little too much?
- You actually thought you liked Mr. Harrington a bit at one time. You had only known him two weeks, but he reminded you of some of the guys you were friends with in high school marching band and drama club, the ones who hid out in the band room or backstage at lunch to avoid the football-playing living manifestations of testosterone-fueled aggression that roamed the cafeteria in search of weaker prey. You briefly thought you saw a glimmer of your old friends in Mr. Harrington, but clearly you were confused. Those guys from high school were losers just like you, Ms. Harper. Does Mr. Harrington seem like a loser? We think not.
In closing, we have decided that approving your request to designate your and Mr. Harrington’s intimate evening together as rape would not align with our current priorities and objectives. Please note that this decision is not a reflection of the quality of your proposal but rather a result of you being a genuinely terrible person who is clearly trying to ruin the professional and personal life of a promising young man.
We do encourage you to lose yourself in your current shame spiral and perhaps explore interspersed episodes of extreme depression and debilitating anxiety. If you have any further questions, please keep them to yourself.
Warmest regards,
Your friends at the Allegation Suppression & Scrutiny Handling Administrative Team
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Many names appearing in these stories have been changed. Visit the ENOUGH archives here. Rumpus original logo art by Luna Adler.
