Is It Ever Too Late to Call Out Your Rapist?

A survivor considers confronting the man who raped her more than 30 years ago after finding him on Facebook.

I went down the rabbit hole the other night. 

What started as me becoming obsessed with the Cornell 7 news and the horrific things that happened to Jane Doe in October 2024 ended with me on the Facebook page of my own rapist.

I found him quickly with his name and the people we still had in common from school. He wasn’t hiding. I scrolled through the pictures of his face—aged but undoubtedly the same. Him on a fishing boat; him with this head tenderly touching his wife’s in a selfie; him with his kids, his daughter looking no older than I was at 14 when he stole my virginity.

It was my sophomore year and I was new to my high school; he was a senior. That late fall evening, when I innocently went to his house to hang out with a small group of my new friends, was the last time I’d talk to him. He’d signed up to join the military after graduation, and in six months, he’d be 18 and gone. After that night, I’d avoid even being in the same hallway as him at our small school. I didn’t exist to him.

The last words he’d say to me, his body pressing mine down heavily into his mattress, were, “Was it good for you, too?” My face was turned away from his, tears silently streaming down my cheeks. When he finally pushed off of me, I got up and pulled my clothes up. They’d never come all the way off. I went to the bathroom and shoved toilet paper into my underwear to catch the blood. Back out in the living room, I rejoined my friends who were watching something on tv, completely shut down in shock. I wrapped my arms around myself, in a gesture of self-protection that had come too late.

I didn’t say anything to anyone that night. At home in the dark, I curled up in my twin-sized bed, wondering if I felt different now that I wasn’t a virgin. Eventually, I told my best friend I was “date raped,” even though there was no real date. That’s just what you said when you knew the person who raped you back then. We contemplated if I should tell the police and ruin his life or not. I decided I didn’t want to bear the burden of that. I didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want to own the shame of them knowing I’d had sex, let alone against my will at a boy’s house. Years later, I’d tell the boyfriend who would become my husband. He told me he wanted to kill my rapist for what he did that night. Back then I wanted that, too.

I lingered on his Facebook page for a long time contemplating whether I would message him and ask him if he remembered me. I wanted to scream at him, “FUCK YOU!” for the stunned girl I was who didn’t have a voice back then. Somehow, it felt pathetically small to do so via Messenger. I wanted to ask if his wife knew he raped me and, if the rumors were true, other girls at our school as well. I wanted to ask if his daughter knew. I wanted to ask what he would feel if the same thing happened to her. If a man had ever rolled off of her, consequence-free, leaving her with that story of how she lost her virginity? Would he feel rage? Would he want to kill?

I wanted to write publicly on his page: This man is the reason I spiralled with self-hatred and shame for five years. This man is the reason I couldn’t trust anyone for years more. This man doesn’t deserve his happy life, his happy wife.

And I couldn’t do it. 

Deep down I had the same thought I had decades ago: Do I want to be responsible for ruining this man’s life? In the cold light of day, I would say, Yes, yes, yes. I’d say yes a thousand times if it were my daughter, or my friend, or Jane Doe from Cornell. But when it’s just me? Alone in the dark of night, with only my laptop and his face staring back at me, I feel like that 14-year-old girl. I lose my conviction when it means standing up for myself. I wonder how he would feel. I wonder how his wife would feel, his daughter, too. I wonder if it’s too late now, anyway.

I didn’t want to write this with my own byline. I’m doing so under the cover of anonymity because of how I feel about being a victim, and the shame and guilt associated with rape. I don’t want to own it publicly. The questions that spring to mind in the people who doubt victims are the same ones I ask myself: Did I do enough to make it clear I didn’t want to have sex with him? Why did I go to his house anyway? I liked him, didn’t I? What did I think making out would lead to? If it was a rape why didn’t I scream, or run, or call the police? What’s the point of doing anything now?

I hate that I have these questions because I know what I know. I know girls and women can be overpowered, and men feel they have a right to our bodies. I know I didn’t want to have sex, particularly lose my virginity, to this kid I had a sort-of crush on. I know that saying no but not running away would be taken as a yes. I know that if I told, I would have been the bad guy. I would get asked why I was ruining this man’s life. No one would ask if he had ruined mine.

Writing this anonymously also protects him. And I hate that, too.

Is it too late to call out a rapist? Will I type his name at the end of this page? I could. But the fear and shame that gripped me that night more than 30 years ago still won’t let me. Jane Doe of Cornell is braver than I am and I’m proud of her for it. May all the men learn that women like me may not have had the courage to call out what you did, but other young women now do. You are now the ones who aren’t safe. I hope they come for you all.

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