2021 Gallery

"he was like an older brother. i felt safe with him. he told me maybe i wasn’t gay and just hadn’t been “fucked right” he said he was doing me a favor. He told everyone that he turned me straight."

"This was the first, one of many outfits, that I wore when two of my classmates began assaulting me during our sophomore year of high school. On the bus ride home for months, the only other two high schoolers would take turns grabbing me by my hair and arms while the other let his hands creep around my body. I tried wearing hoodies to hide my body, but it never stopped regardless of what I wore. I convinced myself that what was happening couldn't be as bad as I felt because we were in public; no one ever noticed me being held down in the back seat as I was fighting to keep them off of me. I became so terrified of riding the bus that I got my permit and learned how to drive."

"I attended the UNI vs. Iowa football game in Iowa City with friends. I was staying with a friend that night. She had other friends that I had not met before that day. I had changed (privately) into my pajamas, and I went to sleep alone on my own mattress; one of the men that I met that day had crawled into bed and sexually assaulted me while the others were still sleeping in the same room."

"My ex boyfriend of three years locked me in a car with him after all my friends had left the beach. He told me the only way I was going to get home was if I got him off first."

"I was 18. One month from graduating high school. My life wasn’t just dysfunctional, but it was chaotic dysfunctional. There wasn’t anything stable about my home. My parents alcoholism was being exacerbated by my moms sisters death and my dad’s split with her girlfriend, in addition to my moms husbands anger management issues. I was desperate for validation and attention so I joined an online friendship website. That’s when I met him. The first person I ever met online. I snuck out of my moms house, walked down a block and he picked me up. We went to his house and we were just going to hang out. He took me to his room for some privacy and I felt a lump in my throat. He told me couldn’t wait to see me at UNI the next semester. (The University of Northern Iowa). My enrollment was already verified for the fall, and I was so excited. The next thing I knew he was kissing me. I felt his hands advance toward my most intimate places and I thought in the back of my mind- if I made him go get a condom I could buy myself some time to say no. I was already in shock of what was happening so when I blurted out “do you have a condom” and he left the room, I couldn’t move. My body was shaking, and I kept saying “no”. I stated crying but he wouldn’t stop. After it ended, I left. I reported it to the police but that never amounted to anything. The next day when I was questioned, I passed out in the police station from the shock, the medications, the fear, and the pain. Then was asked why I expected anything different to happen. My heart was shattered. When I came to UNI I couldn’t stop having panic attacks. I failed some of my classes and I couldn’t get beyond my shame. I told my story to a sexual assault advocate, who helped me learn that I could have peace again. She cared for my heart and my body. Most importantly, she cared for my spirit. She helped me to arrange a student panel hearing. She sat with me through lots of questioning and hard conversations. And finally, she was my protector through the panel hearing where she shielded me from being retraumatized. My rapist was expelled from the University for sexual misconduct. A privilege I know many women don’t get to have. My rapist was a foreign exchange student and he was sent home. He will most likely never be able to attend a University in the United States. That was 8 years ago. 8 years of fighting and suffering. 8 anniversaries. 8 years of post traumatic stress disorder and 8 years I’m proud as hell that I’ve chosen to live. Today I’m a student at UNI again. I’m thriving and I’m changing my life. I want to thank everyone who was a part of my journey. My advocate, the panel organizers, all of the advocates and social workers at Riverview, my high school guidance counselors, the counseling staff at the UNI student health clinic, and all of the individuals on the student panel hearing that I will never have the privilege to thank in person. Every day is still a fight, but because of the role these individuals played in my being free from the daily oppression of my rapist, I can continue to work toward being that person for someone else."

"It was by someone I knew very well. Which hurt the most. I couldn't say anything. I was too scared."

"It was late and i was walking to my car because i dont live on campus but i was hanging out with friends who did i told them i could go by myself and when i got to the parking area i saw this person following me and what followed wasnt what i like to think about but after i just got up and walked back to the dorms and cried on my friends. I didnt know this person i dont know why it happened and it couldnt be about my clothes."

"I thought he loved me, that’s what he always would say. I didn’t realize it was just something he said to manipulate me into thinking what he was doing was ok. He didn’t ask, he just did. I would cry and he didn’t care. I would have panic attacks, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t strong enough to push him off me. He didn’t care what I was wearing, each time I was wearing something different, but the first time I was in clothes that I was wearing to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep that night, I cried, but didn’t truly understand what had happened until a year later." 

"It happened three times, but the only outfit I can remember was after a swim practice. I remember my hair still being wet."

"I meet him off of Tinder. The incident happened in Shull Hall over 5 years ago. I never told him no I was so scared to say anything. To this day, his name still haunts me. He destroyed me, but everyday I am learning to find my voice again."

"I was 16 when I was assaulted by my then boyfriend. A relationship does not = consent, your right to say 'no' does not go out the window when you are committed to someone." 

"I was 15 and he was my taekwondo instructor. It all started in my taekwondo class. He would pull me aside from the group to give me solo lessons because I was behind. I was never behind. When he would pull me aside, he would get close and rub his body against mine. Eventually, he began to feel me in places with his hands during the class full of families and other students. He later told my dad I needed lots of practice, so he began giving me lessons at home too. I feared this man and still do. This man continues to be a very known individual and friend to many in my community."

"I was 13, he was my cousin. He pulled me into his lap and kept trying to rub me in places I knew were bad."

"After lots of begging, my parents had let me camp out in the backyard overnight with my dad’s girlfriend’s son. I had known him since I was 5, and he was basically my brother. We slept in sleeping bags side by side and listened to the bugs buzz in the trees. We talked about what it would be like to run away from home, get married, to go to college. I was 7. He was 14. We slept through the night, and the next morning he said we should go play in the sprinkler. We raced into the house, and I put on my blue one-piece swimming suit. I remember I was going through a very intense pink-hating phase because I didn’t want to be seen as a 'girly-girl.' We played in the sprinkler for a while, then ran around the backyard pretending to duel with sticks. Then, he suggested that we should play house and motioned for me to come back into the tent. He told me that if I was going to be his wife then he got to touch me. I said no, and he pushed me down and pulled my swimsuit to the side. I remember squirming and crying, not able to get away. He told me that if I told my dad it would make my dad and his girlfriend fight, and it would be all my fault. I remember feeling so scared, ashamed, and determined not to cause them to fight. I don’t really remember anything for the rest of the day. That summer, I refused to wear a swimsuit, even on the hottest days."

"I put on a T-shirt and athletic shorts before I left the house to go for ice cream and a drive around with a boy I had been talking to for about a month the summer before my freshman year of high school. We parked at the baseball field to look at the stars, but evidently, he had something else in mind. I remember pulling my T-shirt up as I walked into the house so my parents wouldn’t see the bruises from him holding me down by my neck."