I’ve had it happen to friends and I’m pretty sure it happened to me once but at least in my case I think I was collateral damage. That said, without really knowing the strategies of that sort of thing hitting the wrong target seems like something that would happen fairly often if you don’t care about other people which, presumably, you don’t.
Had it happen to my wife-to-be when we started dating (like one week in).
We were at a party in a field, with tents and all that, and she was sat on my lap. She complained she was feeling a bit tired, stood up and after a few steps, she just collapsed on the ground. I just had the time to launch myself and catch her before she hurt herself, because she really fell like a lifeless doll.
I brought her in our tent, checked her heart rate, breath, all was normal, she was just really asleep. I was young and didn’t think it was more than alcohol, but thought that she maybe had a condition, or didn’t eat enough that day or something, so just decided to bid everyone goodnight to stay with her instead off calling the hospital. I stayed awake a few hours with her to make sure her vital sign didn’t degrade and after some time she woke up and threw out (outside of the tent, luckily), before telling me she was okay and I could sleep.
The next morning she told me she hadn’t any prior condition, had eaten correctly, hadn’t drank that much, and after she collapsed she was fully conscious, just unable to move any muscle. So she heard everything I said and did, and she wanted to tell me she feels ok, but just couldn’t.
It’s years later that it clicked for both of us: that night, a guy at the party wanted to get some action with one of our lady friends and was very vocal about it. At one point, my girlfriend jokingly took said girl’s beer from her hands and drank it, and I remember her mentioning that she must already be drunk because it tasted funny. And the said guy was a known drugs user (not a junkie, but still).
Our group of friends was pretty respectful and basically were just decent human beings overall, so we didn’t think, at the time, that one of us could pull something like this out. In insight, if it had to happen, this guy was the best candidate, as an alpha male apologist and insane enough to have been fired from the army.
The irony is that he indeed ended up smashing with our friend, in the morning, when she had sobered up and consenting. And trust me, she was conscious and consenting, as we all heard, so good for her I guess.
Unfortunately we don’t have any contact with both of them anymore and wouldn’t know how to find them again. But this story stays in my mind forever. I cannot fathom how our friend could have lived with a rape that horrible, while still perfectly conscious and unable to even cry for help. And I cannot imagine how we would all have lived with the fact that it happened under our nose, separated by a thin layer of tent fabric.
I’m glad it didn’t happen this time, but unfortunately I’m sure if he tried it that time, he tried it again with someone else, possibly wasn’t his first time. And it horrifies me that we didn’t think about the obvious explanation at the time so we could have warned other girls and involve the police.
I’ve had it happen to friends and I’m pretty sure it happened to me once but at least in my case I think I was collateral damage. That said, without really knowing the strategies of that sort of thing hitting the wrong target seems like something that would happen fairly often if you don’t care about other people which, presumably, you don’t.
Had it happen to my wife-to-be when we started dating (like one week in).
We were at a party in a field, with tents and all that, and she was sat on my lap. She complained she was feeling a bit tired, stood up and after a few steps, she just collapsed on the ground. I just had the time to launch myself and catch her before she hurt herself, because she really fell like a lifeless doll.
I brought her in our tent, checked her heart rate, breath, all was normal, she was just really asleep. I was young and didn’t think it was more than alcohol, but thought that she maybe had a condition, or didn’t eat enough that day or something, so just decided to bid everyone goodnight to stay with her instead off calling the hospital. I stayed awake a few hours with her to make sure her vital sign didn’t degrade and after some time she woke up and threw out (outside of the tent, luckily), before telling me she was okay and I could sleep.
The next morning she told me she hadn’t any prior condition, had eaten correctly, hadn’t drank that much, and after she collapsed she was fully conscious, just unable to move any muscle. So she heard everything I said and did, and she wanted to tell me she feels ok, but just couldn’t.
It’s years later that it clicked for both of us: that night, a guy at the party wanted to get some action with one of our lady friends and was very vocal about it. At one point, my girlfriend jokingly took said girl’s beer from her hands and drank it, and I remember her mentioning that she must already be drunk because it tasted funny. And the said guy was a known drugs user (not a junkie, but still).
Our group of friends was pretty respectful and basically were just decent human beings overall, so we didn’t think, at the time, that one of us could pull something like this out. In insight, if it had to happen, this guy was the best candidate, as an alpha male apologist and insane enough to have been fired from the army.
The irony is that he indeed ended up smashing with our friend, in the morning, when she had sobered up and consenting. And trust me, she was conscious and consenting, as we all heard, so good for her I guess.
Unfortunately we don’t have any contact with both of them anymore and wouldn’t know how to find them again. But this story stays in my mind forever. I cannot fathom how our friend could have lived with a rape that horrible, while still perfectly conscious and unable to even cry for help. And I cannot imagine how we would all have lived with the fact that it happened under our nose, separated by a thin layer of tent fabric.
I’m glad it didn’t happen this time, but unfortunately I’m sure if he tried it that time, he tried it again with someone else, possibly wasn’t his first time. And it horrifies me that we didn’t think about the obvious explanation at the time so we could have warned other girls and involve the police.