Reflections Of Shame

Something interesting happened on the way to lunch a few weeks ago. I had meant to write about it, but as with so many other things in life, I was distracted. Things kept piling up and the world had taken a turn for the surreal. Clinton had appeared on the idiot box to clarify his personal relationship with Monica Lewinsky. I had listened to that broadcast and I still was not sure what Clinton had in fact clarified. Then there were the American cruise missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan. It had been an insane week. The next sixty or so odd days were not going to get any better. Well, that is roughly how many days are left till the November elections (1998). The question that is on most political pundits’ minds is what happens after Ken Starr turns in his investigative report to the Congress.

Which brings me to the subject of this article. I am, to be honest with you, not sure how to approach this subject matter. The event, or rather my recollections of it, happened some six years ago. Much has changed since then. I still have strong emotions about what happened and how I dealt with that whole situation. Even though I would like to use the names of the people who acted out this sordid drama, I will not for the obvious reasons. The event, which I will try to describe as accurately and honestly as I can, is perhaps one of the more reprehensible ones. It is, and can be, considered as a hate crime. I am talking about the guilty act of a date rape. The alleged rape, because there was only circumstantial evidence to support the accusation, occurred in a fraternity house. At that time, I was a member of that house and I was living in the house.

What caused me to remember those weeks was an accidental trip to see an old friend. I had always wanted to have lunch with her, but our work schedules would not allow it. The last time I saw her was almost a year ago and she had just married someone then. By some unseen luck, I found her at work and was able to see her without an appointment. We started to talk and were discussing the latest gossip about common friends when she mentioned the alleged rapist’s name. She was attending the graduation ceremonies when she had spotted him with other graduates. She also mentioned that he had gotten some girl pregnant. Ignoring that fact, we both laughed at the idea that he had finally graduated. Soon the conversation turned to other topics and presently, someone paged for her and before I left, we promised each other that we should have lunch sometime.

I did not think much of the fact till much later. It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon and I was sitting in the shadow of suburbia listening to the neighbors’ lawn mowers. I was merely sitting in my backyard and smoking a cigar when a sense of uneasiness overcame me. It was an instinctive awareness that something was wrong. One of those feelings, which trigger a realization that something, is not right. I have no idea what triggered it, but I was thinking about what my friend had said. At the time, I was wondering if my actions had been wrong and then all of a sudden, I knew that in those two or three weeks, there was an act of betrayal. Who betrayed whom still remains debatable to this day.

This is my recollection of what happened. The rape occurred during a fraternity party held, sometime in spring, to celebrate the end of the midterm exams. The theme of the party was reggae. Most fraternity parties were closed to the general student body, as per instructions from the university and the fraternity’s national headquarters, and this was no exception. This was an invitation only party. However, this was a biased policy and it was never strictly enforced. This policy was never applicable towards the women, especially if they were attractive. All women were welcome, because our rationale was that even plain looking girls had cute friends. We always allowed women to enter our parties, but prevented males so as to create a favorable male to female ratio, which we had every intention of “exploiting” later in the night. This policy was further relaxed in the case of sorority girls. The sorority women always had a carté blanché to enter our parties, because of a practice called the “freshman buffet”. What this meant was that we, fraternity men, would have the first pick of the new sorority pledges and the same was true for them too.

I am not exactly sure when the rape occurred, but already the signs were visible to those who cared to see. The girl involved belonged to one of the sororities and was known to all present as a “blueballs” and as a “tease”. I am not casting doubts on her character, but she had her share of Kodak moments. That night she was dressed in a suggestive outfit and was heard to have occasionally uttered, what we called the mating call of a sorority girl, “I am drunk”. For most of that night, I was circulating between groups of conversations. Sometime, towards one or two in the morning, as a few friends and I were standing in the living room and speculating who would end with whom, we saw this girl stagger into the room and lie down on one of the couches. We could all see that she was drunk to the point of almost passing out. One of the guys there called out for her sorority sisters to take her home, because we did not want the liability if she should hurt herself or if someone should take advantage of her. Before she could be helped, she had managed to piss on the couch and had puked on the carpet, because she obliviously had exceeded her tolerance of “jungle juice”, a melody fruit juices, vodka, Jagermesiter, rum, Jack Daniel and bourbon. The last I saw of her, she was being carried out by her sorority sisters, reeling back and forth and unable to walk.

Next day, life went on. This being my senior year, I was well embroiled in taking care of the university’s bureaucratic requirements for graduation and finishing the senior thesis that was required of all political science students. My mind was on graduating, in four weeks, and wondering if I would ever end up marrying my girlfriend, whom I had dated for about four years. In all respects, we were a common law couple and even acted and thought as a married couple. It was during this time period that I was approached by one of my fraternity brothers and questioned about that particular night. I was asked what I remembered and what I had seen that night. Slightly interested, I asked him why the questions and what did it have to do with me. The answer shocked me. I was told that young lady in question had alleged that she was raped by one of our members that night

After blurting out a symphony of expletives, I calmed down and asked if anyone else knew about this. No, was the answer. As my fraternity brother told me, this incident was being kept quite for legal reasons. Legal lawsuits against a fraternity are a lawyer’s wet dream, because in the eyes of the society, we are the bad boys. An image from the days of Animal House that we have instead of refuting only have lend credence to by our deeds of hedonistic frivolities. Also, if there is a lawsuit filed against the fraternity, for whatever reasons, the officers of the fraternity are named as a party to the suit and they bear the sole responsibility for the consequences of another person’s actions. Another thing that terrified us about date rape charges was that it could crucify us on the cross of political correctness which then was sweeping the country.

After a little more questioning, I learned that the matter was not referred to national headquarters, but was to be taken care of by the fraternity itself. A group of seniors from the fraternity went go over to the girl’s sorority house and discussed the matter with her. I was asked if I would be interested and my answer was a resounding no. Since I was one of the seniors in the fraternity, I knew that I would in the midst of this mess. I did not want to see that girl, because I was afraid that meeting her and seeing her personally might change my perceptions of what had happened. Later that night, during a special executive council meeting we discussed the allegations and finally decided that it was all purely circumstantial. The victim had waited a week before she had told the president of her sorority about the incident. During that time, no doubt, she had showered and thus, there could be no physical evidence that could point to the crime. We were not certain how long could traces of male semen could last in the vagina, before it became a moot point as far as physical evidence was concerned. Though we had not questioned the alleged rapist, we were certain that he would have washed the sheets by now and destroyed whatever evidence there might have been.

The consensus that was reached that night was to contain the damage and see if this thing could be settled without resorting to a legal nightmare. We, as officers, did not want this matter to be brought to trail, because we were not confident of prevailing in such a case. Secondly, we did not want the humiliation of a public trail and nor did we relish the details that would have been played out in the newspapers. On top of this, we had to think of our potential careers and if this thing had ever leaked out, all the money we had poured into our college education would have been wasted and all our hopes for the future would have been still born. It was decided that a group from our house would go over to the sorority house and hear the allegations. I still opted not to go. However, I did promise that I would continue to take part in the future discussions.

The executive council meet again, a few days later, to hear what the alleged victim had said. According to her, she had left the party and that her sisters had tried to walk her home, but she was too drunk to walk. As there were cops around waiting to give DUIs and the fact that she was a minor, her sisters had merely taken back inside through the door at the back of the house. This immediately raised the question that who had let her in since that back door was not meant be open. The door was supposed to be locked, in violation of fire codes, to prevent people from crashing the parties. Since it opened to the patio, which was also used as a basketball court, people would go out there to smoke and did not always remember to lock the door on the way back. We merely looked at each other and shock our heads. This nightmare was turning out to be too real. We had security to check this sort of thing, but they were helpless to prevent such incidences when fraternity members would tell them to let in the girls, because they were drunk and there was always a chance of having sex with them.

According to her story, confirmed by her sisters, one of our brothers supposedly approached her sisters and told them that he would be willing to watch over her for a few minutes. In the meantime, he suggested that her sisters look for a sober person to drive her home, a mere half a block away, and this way the cops would not be able tell if there was drunk minor in the car. When her sisters managed to find a sober driver and came to collect her, she was nowhere to be found. They looked for her, but apparently gave up when they could not find her and no one remembered seeing her either. The party, it seems, was too much fun to be wasted looking for a drunk. During this time, according to her own admission, she had agreed to go to his, the alleged rapist’s, room and lie down for a few minutes. By this time she had sobered up a little bit as she told us. As she went on to say, she does not remember if she encouraged him or not, but they started to kiss and engaged in some foreplay. Before she knew it, he had pushed up her shirt and was on top of her. As she said, since she was wearing a mini skirt, he had no difficulty pushing aside her panties and entering her sexually.

Next day, that person was brought before the executive council and told of the charges against him. Just as we expected he denied the charges. As he put it, the sex was consensual and she did not seem to mind it. We asked him again if he wanted to amend his earlier statement since her sisters were confirming his offer of taking care of her while they searched for a driver. He denied it again and still maintained his earlier assertions. We could see that this meeting was turning argumentative and we wanted to prevent that. To impress the seriousness of the situation, we told that him even if the sex was consensual, as he said, it did not matter if she recanted and changed her story. The allegation was still out there and it had to be addressed. The problem was that we did not know her state of mind during the alleged intercourse and the subsequent rape. We did not know, in fact, if she had tried to say no, or in anyway tried to stop the sex. For whatever reasons she had alleged rape, the reality was that something wrong had happened. We did not want a he said-she said situation. We needed to resolve this situation before the national headquarters found out and verbally kicked the crap out of us.

Since he was a fraternal brother, we could see his point of view too. We could feel sympathy for him, because we knew a lot guys who had been burned by such allegations. Another fraternity house on campus was forced to close when its members were alleged of a gang rape of a female student. We did not wish the same thing happening to our house and thus, over the next few days, we encouraged him to seek transfer to another college. We hoped that if he moved to another college the matter would be settled, but some how the word leaked out and the girl in question found out. I do not know what her reaction was, but she called our national headquarters and told them of our feet dragging on the matter. She told the national headquarters that if we expelled him, she would drop the charges, but if we did not then she would file a formal lawsuit against the fraternity.

Within hours, the president of our house had his ass handed to him and we were told, in no uncertain terms, that before the school year ended, we needed to have charges brought up and person, alleged to have committed the rape, was to be expelled from the fraternity. The national headquarters did not want a trial on this issue. The next person who was verbally chewed out was I. That night, under a pall of despair, we called all the members of the fraternity and told them of the meeting, the next night, to expel the alleged person. Attendance was required and there would be no excuses tolerated. While the officers followed up on the rituals of expulsion, I went to my room and typed up the charges. I still remember those words: conduct unbecoming a gentleman and a lack of moral turpitude.

We started the proceedings at six in the evening. Each member spoke honestly and with passion. The house was pretty much divided between those who favored expulsion and those who tried to convince the others that the charge of rape could not be proved; the evidence was weak and there was some personal culpability on part of the victim herself. While some of the members stood by their embattled brother, the officers, including myself, were under no illusions. The gentleman had to go. What was at stake was the future of the house; our fraternity and we tried to argue that no one member was worth sacrificing entire fraternity for.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the accused was asked to offer his version of the story. He denied the charges and still maintained his innocence. He broke down and started to cry when he told us how much the house meant to him and how sorry he was for the grief his actions were causing. He even agreed to transfer to another college if we would not expel him. Even though our sympathies were with him and we felt his anguish, it was too little too late. The matter was out of our hands. We had to follow the directive from the national headquarters; there would be no compromise. This argument and counter-argument went on for hours and after each round of discussion, we would vote. Around two in the morning, another vote was taken. When the results were counted two thirds of the members, the required majority needed, voted for expelling him.

The fraternity house never recovered from that. The days prior to end of the school year were spent in a muted atmosphere and there was no graduation party as was the tradition. Some members resigned from the fraternity in protest of what they considered to be heavy-handed policies of the national headquarters. I left the campus that summer and though I have occasionally returned to the house, it is not the same house I once remembered. During the time I lived there, I had heard stories of possible rapes and no one discounted those stories given the true nature of fraternity houses, but we did not wish that reality to be visited upon us. Even though the members of the fraternity who were present at that meeting are scattered all over the world now, we are still divided over that issue. Most of us said our final good-byes to each other merely as a routine gesture without any meanings. Though we lived a part of our college experience together, that night still separates us.

My own feelings towards that sad episode are mixed. I did not like the person who was alleged with rape and later expelled. I thought he was shallow and not respectful of the house. He showed an interest in the fraternity when it suited his needs. If ever there was a male whore he was the personification of that ideal. My actions, in drawing up the charges and arguing for his being expelled did not earn me friends, but instead it cost me a few friendships. To this day, I am convinced that the course of action I took was right and I have no regrets over what happened. I have not lost any amount of sleep questioning my motives and deeds during those tiring weeks. I had thought that memories of graduation would be happy, but sadly they were not. I chose not to attend the graduation ceremonies and instead asked to receive my diploma via the mail. I will learn to live with that part of my life and I will put it behind me, someday. I hope.

That still does not prevent a sense of betrayal from creeping into my thoughts and questioning my real reasons behind that decision. I know that in time, I will bury this memory deep within me and may be even forget what happened. Though I do not like to admit it, I know that when we expelled him, he was counting on our fraternal bonds of loyalty and honor to come to his aid. If I were true to my oath, when I joined the fraternity, I would have stood by his side. I joined the chorus of voices asking for his expulsion, because we did not want his conducted to be reflective of what the fraternity stood for; love, truth and honor. Having said, I have to wonder if in order to safe the fraternity’s ideals, I ironically betrayed them by my own actions. These questions will haunt me till the day I die. In time, I will learn to put a mask on my emotions and pretend that what I did was right. I have no idea when that day will arrive, but till it does, I will have to justify myself to the demons of my conscience, which still haunt my thoughts.



Note: This article was written in 1998. The events, or my recollections of them, took place in the summer, May, of 1992. The sense of regret and shame is still fresh today as it was all those years ago. If there is any misrepresentation in this article about the exact facts, I accept the sole responsibility and the fault is entirely mine. I had often thought of about submitting the article to Chowk, but I would always re-consider my decision and once, I almost went through with the submission process only to hit “cancel” while the article was being submitted. The sense of a personal shame still haunts me over the events described above. Am I guilty by association? Yes and there is no justification to argue otherwise.