Amarantha Robinson - In a Small Dark Room

 

 

I've traveled to over 45 countries. I slept in an igloo I built with my own hands snow camping in British Columbia, Canada. I jumped out of a perfectly good plane in Argentina. And I got my first tattoo in a dirty little shop in Cusco, Peru. I'm a badass. [audience laughter] But one day, I stood on a street in my own neighborhood, a street I knew so well, and I was shaking. I was about to walk into my local police station and report the most personal of crimes. I knew the only way I could get through this was just to think of it as another one of my escapades. 

 

So, as I walked into the police station, there were three police officers behind the counter. I was relieved when the one who came towards me was a woman. As I walked up to the glass partition, I kept telling myself, this completely fits the description of what you know, an adventure to be. The fear of the unknown, the spike of adrenaline, the pounding of my heart in my chest, I've got this. As I walked up to meet her, I leaned in, desperate not to be overheard, and whispered, I would like to report a sexual assault. She nodded and quietly asked me to follow her into an interview room just to the side. 

 

It was small and dark. There was a large, heavy desk, a computer, and three chairs. “Tell me what happened,” she said. It was someone I knew, a man I was dating at the time. “What happened?” I did not give my consent. She took notes and then left the room. I squirmed in that hard office chair wringing my hands together nervously. She came back in to tell me that two detectives were on their way down. She would start taking my official statement, and then the detectives would complete it when they arrived. 

 

So, I explained to her how it is that I came to know this man. It was in the traditional way, the way you would hope to tell your parents at a party. I softened a little bit as I recounted how wonderful our first two dates were. He took me to my favorite restaurant. We had the most romantic dinner. And the second date, he packed a beautiful picnic for me in a park. There was a knock on the door. Two burly male detectives walked in and introduced themselves. I wasn't sure if I was able to tell a man my story, but it was too late now. 

 

One with dark hair sat across from me and explained that he would be taking over from the female police officer who was leaving the room. It was in that moment that I understood why only 5% of cases of sexual assault are actually reported. It's too hard. It's too painful, too awkward to retell it all, to relive it in excruciating detail, to tell it to a man in a small, dark room. “What happened next?” he said, as gently as he could. I closed my eyes and I pretended for a moment that I was standing at the edge of a bungee jumping platform, just as I had done in New Zealand a few years before all this. I had looked down into the ravine then. With my familiar mix of courage and in sheer force of will, I had stepped and felt myself fall. 

 

It was our third date. He had invited me over for lunch at his place. I had no reason to be wary. He seemed mature and sensitive, and I had already explained to him that I wasn't ready to be intimate. Now, as the words came out of my mouth, I was bothered by my own self-doubt, because this story, my story, probably didn't sound anything like what this detective was expecting to hear. I wasn't walking down a dark alleyway alone at night, pounced upon by a stranger with a knife. 

 

This was someone I knew, someone I liked, someone I was hoping to be able to tell my parents about. But he was also someone who sought the thrill of taking a risk, which we all do. I mean, that's why we pursue and love adventures. But this pursuit comes from a peculiar sense of entitlement, where someone prioritizes their own pleasure over another person's basic well-being. As I told the detective about the moment it happened, I felt a surge of anger rise inside me as well as a fierce resolve. If that had been his idea of an adventure, pressing charges would be mine.