It Happened to me: A Letter to my Daughters About Date Rape

May 16th, 2012

“The thing about being murdered,” writes William Langewiesche in this May’s issue of Vanity Fair, “it usually comes as a surprise.”

The same can be said of date rape.  When I awoke that bright spring morning of March 21st, 1986 in a pensione in Venice, Italy, I didn’t expect the day to end on a dark, deserted beach with a boy I’d just met pinning me to the ground hissing in my ear that he had “un coltello” (a knife) and that “ho intenzione di ucciderti” (he’d kill me) if I didn’t “f–k” him.

Our group on our first day in Venice, before the incident. I’m furthest to the right.  What I’ll tell my daughters is that while traveling you may be anonymous, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt. Be cautious, but unafraid.

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