The Day I Didn't Return From Crater Lake

Why I can't close my eyes when it comes to the rape academies

Crater Lake, Oregon. Focus on this for relief. Image by Pexels from Pixabay

How to evolve humanity? Person by person. Let’s heal trauma, master our emotions, and manifest a better reality. Warning: potentially triggering content. Please give yourself all the care you need, and shut this down if today is not the day. Sending love to all survivors.

‘Why does it matter, when it doesn’t affect you?’

The porn site, Motherless, is what he’s talking about. The 20,000 videos of ‘sleep content’ where men have drugged their wives, girlfriends and fiancées so that they can rape them without their knowledge. Film them, stream them, upload the results. I contend that my husband of 25 years is a good man, but I know he doesn’t get it; doesn’t want to. On his terms, it’s simple: if it makes you upset, and it’s not directly affecting your life, look away. Stop reading about it. Tap away the anger. Turn your eyes to the sparrows squabbling at the feeder, hang out with your offspring who love you, watch comedy.

To be fair, this is my philosophy too. The only way to stay functional in the face of dark times is self-care. As a sensitive person, I’m shielded from the news by design. Two decades ago, I ditched the news in all its forms to stop my mood being buffeted by grief or anger at events I cannot control. That way lies paralysis, despair and ‘what’s the point?’ Somewhere in the world, we are always at war, there will always be disasters and damaged individuals, and I don’t want to end up like my mother-in-law, afraid to go outside. Then social media arrived, with my friends, and other writers, and its jokes and its memes and its cute puppy pics, and the news bled through.

I limit who I follow or click on; let the algorithm know to give me literature, comedy, therapy, easy on the politics. But, being connected to thousands of folk who aren’t buffered, the big stories make it to my timeline. On the whole, I resist. I label it ‘pain’ and don’t peel back the skin. Major horrors have glanced off my surface like sunlight on a lake. I don’t have a moral duty to incapacitate myself. I can’t afford to go there.

But the Pelicot case last year? That was different. It was something that felt essential to understand. The reality of the world we women are actually living in. That reality being so much worse than we knew. Women spend our lives conducting a seemingly endless series of risk assessments: avoiding that carpark, that badly lit street, that ground floor flat, that man, that dress. But none of us knew that our homes could be so unsafe. That, spurred on by the man we loved, our neighbours might rape us without our knowledge one evening, and the next day sell us a loaf of bread.

That felt like an important software update, one essential for every woman to install.

This ‘rape academy’ news is a patch on the update.

Image from CNN piece ‘Exposing a Global ‘rape academy’’

#eyecheck

In these videos, men film themselves lifting the closed eyelids of women to show they are sleeping or sedated, with some “eyecheck” videos surpassing 50,000 views. — ‘Exposing a Global ‘Rape Academy’

Women and girls live under the male gaze. I remember when it first landed on me, around 14 (later than some). For about three days, I was pleased: I hoped, after all, for a boyfriend. But you can’t control which males are gazing, or what they do next. The foul comments, the cat calls, ‘smile love’, ‘nice jugs’, ‘suck my dick, Blondie’. For the next thirty years, these intrusions randomly derailed my trains of thought. Never mind the stalking (more than once) and those men so persistent you’d end up screaming ‘fuck off!’ or faking a boyfriend or climbing out the bathroom window. Or on one memorable occasion, aged 33 (there was context), grabbing the guy’s nuts through his trousers and giving them a twist.

On the streets, I learned that if you accidentally look at a man, you’re increasing the chance he’ll harass you, and the habit of looking at my feet became so ingrained that, still to this day, Paul will say ‘Look up!’ Traditionally, the men who see women only as objects, they want you looking at them, when they say something crude.

But the rape academy men don’t want you to see them. They’ll drug you free of your shocked, accusatory look. They want the male gaze only; want other men to see them using you. They’ll put you under the gaze of strangers, in all your vulnerability: that turns them on. It shows they own you. They’re in control. They can film you and pimp you without your knowledge, monetise your humiliation. They find community with other men who share dosages to help them balance your life between unconscious and overdose.

There’s a personal reason I can’t close my eyes to the rape academies.

Echoes at Crater Lake

In 2015, I hired a sports convertible and drove from San Francisco to Ashland, Oregon. Drove up the Pacific Coast Highway with the roof down. A breathtaking drive that twice, driving through the stands of giant redwoods, filled me with such joy I had to stop and cry. I was on my way to present a paper at a conference and had chosen the drive to visit my childhood haunts around Berkeley first, and then, yes, have an unforgettable road trip.

Weird, that some stranger I’d met on a Marlowe forum, who lived in Ashland, had said in an email, when I mentioned my plans, ‘You don’t want to drive’. I said, ‘Yes, I do. You clearly don’t know me.’ He tried to put me off hiring a car — why not just fly? I ignored him. None of his business. “Over-protective” men, who think they know better than you (or think women can’t drive)'; I’d dealt with them all of my life.

He wanted to meet me. Sure. Why not? Fellow Marlowe enthusiasts are rare, and sharing a passion is often a pleasure. ‘Have a break from the conference after your paper,’ he suggested. ‘Instead of the conference buffet, I’ll buy you lunch.’ I pointed out that the lunchtime after you’ve delivered a paper is exactly when people will most want to talk to a person and say nice things, so no, “but you could join in the buffet?”

He introduces himself after the paper. He joins for the lunch. He’s easy on the eye and good company, but seems not so keen on hanging around with the others. He tries to persuade me to go with him somewhere else, “get away from these Oxfordians.” But I say, “I have friends here,” and also, papers I want to hear.

“Tonight?”

“There’s a theatre visit planned.”

“So when are you free?”

“Maybe the final evening,” I say. “Early evening, before the farewell dinner.”

Just ahead of that is a free afternoon. I’m planning to drive up to Crater Lake. The deepest lake in the USA, it’s more than a third of a mile at its deepest point, and apparently, unbelievably blue. So clear you can see 100 feet down.

“We should meet for a drink after that,” he says, and I say, “Okay.” The guy isn’t boring. We haven’t talked much about Marlowe. It seems pretty harmless.

---

On my way to Crater Lake, my phone pings. I pull off for a slice of cherry pie at a place recommended to me by a friend (too Twin-Peakish by nature to ignore) and read the message. The guy, confirming the venue. And can he pick me up?

—No, I’ll drive. I’ll just have one.

—What do you drink? Wine? Spirits?

Something’s tingling. Some deep, intuitive alarm bell.

—Why do you want to know?

—So I can have one ready for you when you arrive.

The alarm bell rings a little louder.

I shut down my phone. Finish my pie and get back in the car.

Heading for the lake, I’m barely noticing the view. I’m wrapped up in thoughts. He didn’t want me to drive. Even from the beginning, that email. He wanted to separate me from the people I knew, take me out of the conference. And now, he wants to know what I drink. Wants to have a drink “waiting for me.”

I begin to feel an energy, sexual energy. Like a plan, something he’s thinking about. I see myself, seeming drunk, barely able to walk, being taken into a garage where a bed is set up, and a camera. My sports car is miles away, at the saloon.

Now maybe it’s fear plus imagination. Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s a premonition (I have had them before). But the feeling is growing louder and louder.

At Crater Lake, I get out of the car and walk onto the rim. Look into the lake’s blue eye. Its depth and its clarity. I will stay at the lake for a long, long time. I will not be going back for a drink.

This Wine Tastes Off

Because years before, I went for a drink with a charming stranger. A Frenchman. Good-looking. A year or two younger than me.

I was two years out of an abusive marriage, and still in the throes of a hostile, exhausting divorce. My kids had just gone to stay with their Dad for the first few days of the Easter Hols, and with some rare time to myself, I’d caught the train to London to meet some online friends in real life for the first time. Spring had finally arrived, and it was warm enough not to wear a coat.

I was walking through London’s Soho when he asked for directions. I was clear as I could be, but he didn’t understand me. It wasn’t far, and I had time, so I walked him towards the road he was after, and while we walked, we got talking. He asked if I’d join him for a drink. As a writer, I feel driven to say yes to unexpected plot twists, so long as they don’t look dangerous. Experiences can make material. So why not have a drink with a good-looking, charming Frenchman?

“Just a coffee,” I said to the barman.

We chatted for a while, then I had to set off for the pre-arranged meetup. “Maybe we can meet up later?” he said. “Can I have your number?” And I thought, why not? Perhaps this is the start of something fun, maybe even something good in my life. About time, surely, for something outside angry exes and disturbed little boys.

Meeting my online friends in person, in an upstairs bar, involved multiple Wizard-of-Oz moments: the curtain pulled back from screen names that possess a certain pizazz to find ordinary humans, stripped of their witty repartee. Some of us are better conversationalists with the buffer of time to think and edit. So I was happy to answer a call from an unknown number that came with a French accent. “Join us!” I said, but he was keen for me to leave them. “Spend some time just you and me.” In fact, he was waiting for me downstairs. We walked to a pub a few streets away, and he asked if he could buy me a Pernod.

“Half of cider,” I said.

“You sure you won’t try a Pernod? It’s very good. Very French.”

“No, I know Pernod. I’d rather have a cider.”

“Really? What about a glass of wine?”

I let him persuade me.

I went to the loo while he got the drinks. If you’re a woman reading this, you are probably already thinking Oh shit. You are correct. Bear in mind, I’d been locked in a marriage for a number of years, and was brand-new to 21st-century dating. MySpace and Facebook did not yet exist. I’d not seen coverage of this kind of thing in the news. No one was yet selling condoms to put over your drinks or spike testing kits.

When I got back, he was at a small table. I took one sip of the wine and said,

“This tastes off.”

“Are you sure?” he said.

I had another sip.

“Yep. Really weird. I’m going to take it back to the bar and get another.”

“I’ll do it,” he says, and does so. “Keep this table,” he says. Where the table is, while he’s at the bar, I can only see his back, and not what he’s doing. But I don’t know that I have to. He returns with a replacement glass of wine.

“Jesus,” I say, after taking a sip. “This is off, too. This bar serves terrible wine.”

“Maybe it’s just the brand of wine,” he says. “Maybe it’s meant to taste like that.”

“Well, it’s foul,” I say. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

I stand up and straight away, I know something’s wrong. I feel seriously drunk. What’s happening? I had a glass of wine at the other place, and only a few sips here. How can I be this drunk?

“Steady!” he says, and laughs. “You’ve had one too many.”

Have I? I can’t remember. This doesn’t feel right. Am I really this drunk, this quickly? Am I really such a lightweight? Something’s happening to me. He takes charge.

“You just need some fresh air,” he says. “Let’s go for a walk.” I’m swaying so much that he has to hold me up, and he’s laughing at how drunk I am. I’m laughing too. It’s ridiculous. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I like this man.

He helps me towards a main road, and suddenly I know where I am. Trafalgar Square. We cross to one of the giant lions. He climbs up on one and holds down his hand to pull me up. Now I’m sitting, facing him, straddling a lion, the iron cold through my trousers. He shuffles up close and holds me steady (because I think I might fall). He kisses me, and I don’t mind.

Which is weird, because I do. Because actually, I’m in love with someone. A brief affair from the year before that I haven’t got over. This guy’s got his tongue in my mouth, and my body’s responding, and the part of me that I would call me is like a tiny person trapped in a room at the end of a very long corridor shouting something I can’t really hear.

I break off and say, “It’s really cold.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, brings out a hip flask, and says, “This will warm us up.” He puts it to his lips, seems to take a sip, passes it to me, and I take a sip too. That Pernod he so wanted me to try. A strong taste.

He snogs me again, and now his hands have slipped under my top, are inside my bra, on my breasts, and my body’s just going along with it all, my body is keen, my body says Yes, mmm, Yes! and the part that is me, locked down the end of that long, ever longer corridor is shouting,

“You don’t want this! You’re in love with Luke! You love Luke, remember!”

I can hear it, I can, but it feels like there’s nothing I can do. That part’s not in charge. I’m going wherever this man wants to take me.

He helps me off the lion, and he takes me by the arm. Leads me into a nearby street, though I’m very unsteady, struggling to stay upright. It’s busy with revellers, and he’s weaving me through. “Where are we going?” I slur, and he says, “Somewhere quiet.” I know what’s coming next. A quiet back alley, somewhere dark, with just kitchen waste bins and no traffic. And I know, despite everything my body’s going along with, I know I don’t want it. But he’s stronger than me. And I’ve no strength at all. He’s gripping me tightly, both hands on one arm.

Then one blessed moment. A police car just yards away puts on its siren. The shock makes him loosen his grip, and as it wails past us, I tug my arm free, and run. Run in the same direction as the police car, back towards the one place I know in my drug-addled state. I say run, but mean stagger at speed, trying very hard not to bump into people. I make it to Trafalgar Square, and he hasn’t followed.

But I’m not safe. I have to get home. My overnight home, a flat in Streatham that my parents own. I find the right bus stop, and now, I’ve just got to stay conscious. But there’s nothing ‘just’ about it. The drug is heavy in my system and shutting it down. At the bus stop, I’m falling asleep on my feet, aware of the strangers around me judging me, a paralytic woman whose speech makes no sense, who can barely stand. The bus's arrival is a blessed relief. I need the top deck so I can see where I am. But now I’ve got a seat, somewhere to fall asleep, and my body is saying shut down, shut down. For the whole next hour, I’m fighting to stay conscious. My eyes keep closing, and then I’m asleep, but each time the bus stops, that tiny little me at the end of the corridor jolts me awake, check the stop, check the stop! I can hardly believe it when I finally see it, ring the bell, clatter down and out and through the doors, and I’ve made it.

But I haven’t. When I get to the flat’s front door, I realise there’s a problem. I have the key, but can’t put it in the lock. Because inside’s an alarm and the minute I go in, I’ll have 30 seconds to put in the number. A four-digit number.

I know this number. It’s easy. My mother set it. It’s the last two primes before 100. The last two primes before 100. We’re number people, my mother and I. “The last two primes, so you’ll never forget it.” That’s right, Mum. I’ll never forget it. Unless I’ve been spiked.

I slump down by the door. Last two primes. Last two primes. I can’t think of any.

I don’t know how long I’m slumped on the concrete walkway, losing consciousness, trying to do maths. Then they come! I know them! Key in the lock, numbers on the keypad, and door shut safely behind me.

I don’t get any further.

The next morning, I wake, still by the door, with my face on the doormat, in last night’s clothes, a metallic taste in my mouth. As soon as I was somewhere my body felt safe, it shut down.

I take myself into the kitchen, make a coffee in a slant of sunlight. Try to put together what happened. My phone’s out of charge, but once it’s charged up, I call the police.

---

GHB, the police surgeon reckoned. It leaves your system within 12 hours, so there was nothing to test, but she said that the symptoms added up. The sexual inhibition. The metallic taste. They asked me to do a photofit of the Frenchman, and I knew it was pointless, but showed willing nonetheless. Pointless because I have prosopagnosia. It takes me weeks of repeated exposure to learn a face.

A lucky escape.

Could have been worse.

Not rape. Not death.

I was on beta-blockers at the time, had problems with my heart rate, was being treated for bouts of tachycardia. So I was lucky.

But it’s left its mark. The fact that a man would prefer me unconscious. Remove any chance of fight or flight; remove anything I could use in my defence. Leave me a blank in my life where I was defiled, but I wasn’t present. Where I was defiled, but looked complicit. The fact that I was kind and friendly to a man who didn’t even think of me as human. Just prey, a target. Just a warm object he could pleasure himself with.

This is why I can’t close my eyes to the rape academies. Because now, there are thousands of men doing this to their wives, girlfriends, fiancées, daughters. Women who love them and trust them.

I was lucky. Twice. But luck is not a policy, and love is not a shield. These men need to be tracked down.

---

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Over to you

This is a tough subject, but one that needs to be talked about. As always, I welcome your comments unless you are a dickhead. Dickheads get blocked.