When I wrote about men who are raped by women, for Details magazine in 2004, it caught the eye of Bill O'Reilly, who discussed it on his show. He hushed me and called me "sexy," as in "You got this, sexy." He covered my sobbing mouth with his hands. What he didn't know was when to listen to me saying "no," when to stop, when to realise that my kicking and punching and shoving and screaming and writhing was not just some sick roleplay while he blasted Lady Gaga's I Like It Rough.
He knew exactly what he was doing, exactly how to stimulate me. The sex itself was - I can't really say it was "good," because that's far too moral of a word and far more than he deserves, but it was highly skilled. There was nothing about him that was "rapey" (a word I detest). He was handsome: 30, well-built, tall with long black hair, a surfer's laugh, and great taste in X-Men (Gambit). I had met him a few weeks earlier at a house party, and we had hit it off. He moved out soon afterward, which helped erase the existence of that place for me. Every addition to the tally meant I was one moment closer to the end.
Eyes squeezed shut, the tally was the only thing I focused on at times - like a ticking clock in a solitary confinement cell. By weekend's end, it was 17 times, according to my fog-of-war count. I had received anal sex twice in my life before that night. Sometimes I think I never left his apartment, that someone who merely looks and sounds like me walked out. I spent the weekend - about 60 hours - semi-conscious and didn't leave his apartment until Monday morning. Later came several more druggings, as he held Gatorade up to my limp lips with who-knows-what mixed in. "I said G." He meant GHB, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, commonly known as the date-rape drug. So I drank it and it was a bit sharp but really delicious, like tart watermelon. Then he pouted, comically and even adorably: "But I made it just for us." "Gin!" I thought he said, more excitedly than he should have. I laughed and, holding the towel around my waist in one hand and the shot glass in the other, I looked at it. I felt sore and had just taken a shower to rid the bus experience from my skin. It was already 9:45 p.m on a Friday last summer. Click the “play” button to listen to the entire conversation.I had been on a long, gruelling bus ride up from Washington, D.C., to his apartment in New York. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Patsy, they’re naked.” So Patsy, she pushes me aside, and we were mortified and ran away giggling.Įng: This was the fear of every 14-year-old boy, that this was actually happening. I looked first and I was like, “Oh my God. So we were peaking through the slits in the door. So we came upon the boys’ pool and the doors were locked, but we could hear voices.
And during one of our free periods, we decided to roam around and explore the school. Freshmen hijinksĮlle said she went to suburban Highland Park High School and remembers how she learned of the nude-swimming policy.Įlle: My girl friend and I, we were freshmen, and so we were new to this school. We always thought there was an ulterior motive that some of the coaches were on the pervy side, maybe, but that was just a joke among us.īut the whole thing, I don’t recall being traumatized by it all. And I think the rationale for keeping dirty suits out of the pool was given. It was kind of a comical thing among most of the students I knew at the time. There’s this sense of horrorification about the whole thing, and it just seems like we’re in a kind of new era of puritanism, where this whole episode is looked back on as something that just can’t be believed.
At the time, it was a little strange, but I think the way people look back on it now seems almost bizarre. John: It was the policy throughout my tenure in high school. John, who said he graduated from Lane Tech High School in 1979, said he is surprised by the reaction the policy receives now. After that - that was my freshmen year of high school - I would do anything to get out of having to take swim class. Tony Sarabia: Was this a traumatic experience for you? He would call it “checking the lint trap.” Stan: Yeah, and can I tell you what he used to call it? It’s just really embarrassing.
Stan: Not only did you have to swim with nothing on, but when you were going out to the pool from the shower, the coach would be standing by the door and … Boys were also inspectedĪ caller named Stan, who said he graduated from Lake View High School in 1971, said the experience of swimming naked was traumatic. And she’d inevitably give you a suit that was too small for you, so you’d be spilling out of it. Then she’d size you up for one of those tank suits, and I remember they were, like, light orange and light green, so I still hate those colors.