OREGON STATE RAPE RIPPLE EFFECT HITS HOME

An Oregon State rape phone call starts the rape ripple effect.

Throw a stone into a calm lake and count the ripples until it’s a calm lake again.

Then throw a bigger rock for bigger ripples.

An Oregon State rape phone call makes a rape ripple and it goes through every room of every place you ever lived and everyone you’ve ever known.

It starts with a phone call like this: (from anonymous sources.)

Home: “You’re what? We’re doing what? Breaking up? On the phone like it’s middle school. Come on, you’re better than that. We’re better than that.”

From the phone: “I’m doing it for you.”

Home: “Instead of texting me, emailing me, or tweeting or facebooking me, we’re breaking up on the phone and we’re doing it for me? Excuse me if I don’t feel special.”

Phone: “You need someone better than me.”

Home: “Who’s better than you? I’m not blind. I’ve looked. You match up really good.”

Phone: “No, I don’t. You don’t know. But you will. I want you to know I’m sorry, as sorry as I’ve ever been.”

Home: “This isn’t how break ups are supposed to go. You call me, I get angry, and you’re sorry. You’re supposed to say something like I’ve found someone else, or, I never loved you, or, you’re emotionally unavailable. Something better than I’m sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Phone: “This isn’t going the way I planned.”

Home: “What? You think I’m not crying enough. My heart isn’t broken enough. What was the plan?”

Phone: “It’s harder than I thought.”

Home: “Why don’t I come over and we’ll talk about it face to face.”

Phone: “You can’t come over.”

Home: “I already on the way.”

Phone: “I’m not home. I won’t be home for a long time.”

Home: “Then we’ll run away together. We talked about that once. Remember? Just the two of us on our own.”

Phone: “I remember. But where I’m going you can’t come.”

Home: “Because I’m a girl? It’s 2016. I can hold my own.”

Phone: “Not where I’m going.”

Oregon State rape a year later

From Corvallis Gazette-Times:

A jury trial got underway Thursday for a former Oregon State University student accused of raping a woman at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2015. . . .

The case was scheduled to go to trial in January, but there were several delays as parties waited on the results of DNA testing. 

Man: “Did you hear about the case in Corvallis, the Oregon State rape case?”

Woman: “No.”

Man: “A student accused of rape spent a year in the county jail waiting for his case. He didn’t have money for bail, his family did either, so he sat it out.”

Woman: “County jail is no place to sit it out. Too many hard cases stop in on the way to real prison.”

Man: “Real prison? Seems like anything with bars and locks on the outside is real enough prison.”

Woman: “So what’s the story?”

Man: “The young man thought he had consent with a drunk woman one night. Turns out he didn’t have the consent he thought he had the next day.”

Woman: “He was arrested and thrown into jail waiting for trial. Common story, don’t you think?”

Man: “People who know him said he was a good guy, that this is the last thing they’d ever expect.”

Woman: “If the woman never came forward the story wouldn’t be a rape story or a rape case.”

Man: “Now he’s a rapist, probably the only rapist anyone who knows him knows. He’ll be a registered sex offender the rest of his life.”

Woman: “If he’s convicted.”

Man: “Convicted in Corvallis.”

Woman: “Rapist need to hear this story. Non-rapist need to hear this story. If you rape someone and get caught, you are a rapist. If you don’t get caught, you’re still a rapist.”

Man: “Rape makes everyone a victim, but there’s only one victim.”

Woman: “People change their story, but the tag always sticks. And it should. Brenda Tracy is making sure by raising campus rape awareness. She’s the point on that stick.”

Man: “I’ve read her story. She posts names she says she isn’t supposed to post. If she gets negative messages, she posts those too. She’s amazing.”

Woman: “Yes, she is. Not many people could do what she’s doing. And she’s doing it with grace and forgiveness. I couldn’t do that.”

Man: “No one should have to do that, and wouldn’t if people behaved better.”

Woman: “It’s amazing how far things can reach. It’s like a ripple effect when you toss a stone into a calm lake. Those concentric rings move out until they’re tiny waves breaking on the shore.”

Man: “It’s easy to call a rapist a victim when they’re a young black man convicted by eight white women and four white men in a small Oregon town. They may not be a jury of his peers, but there’s still only one victim in a rape case.”

Woman: “And it’s easy to turn the page of the paper, or scroll down, or change channels, until you hear the hurt and disappointment from people who know the guy. If there’s one take away, it’s make sure consent is consent before consenting.”

Man: “Maybe get a consent witness.”

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The ripple effect grows according to the force that starts it.

A dike breaks, the earth quakes, an Oregon State rape,
and the ripple is a wave of horror ripping through your life
and the memories of everyone who knew you before,
sweeping every good thing you ever did into the trash bag
that is the life of a registered sex offender.

Rape has one victim; the ripple effect hits everyone else.