Editor's Note: The author of this column asked that it be published with her name. However, in an effort to prevent the potential for invasion of privacy and misidentification of anyone referenced, The Daily Pennsylvanian and the author have decided to publish the column anonymously.
One in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape.
But "about 95 percent of rapes are never reported to the authorities," said Joshua Pollack, College sophomore and president of the Penn chapter of One in Four, a national rape-education program.
Many rape survivors "stigmatize themselves because they feel it's very shameful and confusing," said CAPS psychologist Meeta Kumar. As a result, 42 percent of survivors tell no one at all.
And if you're still reading this column, you're face-to-face with one of them.
I'm not sharing my story for show-and-tell; instead, I want to express a wish - that as women, we stop judging each other by socially-constructed reputations and support our peers when confronted with rape. Because I was never quite sure what was worse - the actual experience or the scorn that came afterward from my female friends.
It began as a caricature of a teenage movie. Throughout high school, I was hopelessly plain and relentlessly studious.
During my junior year, I found myself suddenly thrust into a relationship with a reasonably attractive and yes, popular athlete from a neighboring high school. Obviously, it didn't last (and neither did my virginity). But what should have ended neatly instead turned into weeks of mute suffering and months of extreme depression.
The facts were simple. He came over after the breakup, wanting gratification, which I was less inclined to provide. I was the weaker sex. He apologized. I forgave. Pause, rewind, play. Repeat for three months.
I told no one. The traditional aspects of my heritage dictated that dating without intention of marriage was tantamount to prostitution, and so I decided that any alternative was preferable to having my parents discover the truth.
As a result, word spread that I was a willing participant in these acts, that I was a straight-A whore. I did nothing to dispel the rumors; if anything, I condoned them.
I didn't particularly care about my reputation among random folk; my friends were the jury that actually mattered. These girls were similar to me, each with a course-load stacked high with AP classes, each with ambitions of medical or law school. But with promiscuity frowned upon by the academic set, my odds of winning the case were clearly slim. A few weeks later, the verdict on me came out: guilty on all counts of sluttiness.
The combination of physical defilement and emotional abandonment pushed me into a deep state of depression. I hit rock bottom when I purchased a box of sleeping pills with the intent to consume them all.
In the end, however, hope won out. But the damage couldn't be undone.
While my female friendships weren't severed, they turned into mere facades of true loyalty. Curiously enough, I didn't encounter the same type of cold condemnation from any of my male friends.
From then on, I became wary of my own gender, hesitant to place trust in the mercurial alliances of women. Even now, my roommates are male.
For a year, I told no one about what had happened. After coming to Penn, I disclosed my secret to some friends, but up until today, I had not considered talking openly about it or using my experience to help other survivors. Silence was so easy.
It wasn't until last week, when I read an essay in The New York Times, that I felt the urge to speak out. The 41-year-old author had been raped at a fraternity party over 20 years ago, then expelled from her sorority for her tarnished reputation. She never fully recovered.
But seeing a story so familiar provided me with an indescribable sense of affinity and empowerment. Unfortunately, many survivors - especially students - never experience that same feeling.
"There's the culture that exists on college campuses where survivors' stories are received with skepticism, where people aren't supportive of survivors," said College senior and One in Four member Nick Roosevelt. In other words, as women and as students, we often silence each other when we truly need to listen.
"Women need to have this conversation too," Wharton senior and One in Four member Stuart Stein told me. "As much as men, women believe the same rape myths . very few programs talk about rape or help people know how to think about the issue."
So let's all engage in open conversations about rape to protect and support each other when confronted with sex-related issues.
After all, there's a 25-percent chance that any one of your friends is already a rape survivor.
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