Helen Mirren's Date-Rape Story

When I first read the report about Helen Mirren's date-rape experiences I started shaking and I was horrified at the outrage and condemnation that was flung at her --- mostly by people who weren't even born at the time her rapes happened. Today we live in an era where there has been a lot of press about date-rape and both men and women know what it is, call it by name, and know that it is not acceptable. Men know that if they force themselves on a woman they are committing rape and women know that they have the right to say “no” and “no” means “no”. That's how things are now. But it hasn't always been so. This is a thing I know more about than I wish I did.

Helen Mirren is a few years older than I am but both of us were young and dating in a time when there were no laws to protect women from these situations. Not only were there no laws but chances were good that if you talked about them you were a.) told to shut up and b.) shamed and asked what you did to provoke it. This is also a thing I know more about than I wish I did. I think Mirren was very brave to be so honest and I understand her point of view given the era in which her rapes occurred. It would be different now if such a thing happened and she reported it but in the 1970s things were very, very different.

In 1972 I was 22 years old, just out of college, had my first job and my first apartment in a town a few miles from where I grew up. It was a fun time. One night a bunch of people were at my house and we were drinking and partying and having a great time. At some point people started leaving and I got up and went to bed. What I didn't realize was that there was someone still in the house. He had gone into the spare bedroom and fallen asleep on the floor. He wasn't someone I knew particularly well --- he hung around with our group but I actually found him kind of repulsive and stayed away from him. But, in the middle of the night, he woke up and you can fill in the blanks.

The worst part of the whole thing was that I was so ashamed. I was mortified that people would find out he had had sex with me, I was humiliated that he would tell people. I had hit him and punched him and tried to get him to stop but he wouldn't. It was awful. When I told someone I thought it was safe to tell the first thing she said was, “What did you do to get him all riled up?” the second thing she said was, “Well, that's what you get for being drunk.”

I never saw him again after that. I went back to college a year later and then had a different group of friends. I don't know what happened to him but I still get slightly nauseous at the thought of him.

The second time was a few years later. I had met a guy and had been on a few dates with him. We were at the necking stage but I wasn't sure I wanted more than that. One night when he brought me home after a date he asked if he could use the bathroom. He was a very big man and I was attracted to him and kissing him was nice. But then he wouldn't stop. And that was where I stopped having a say in the matter. I never went out with him again after that. I confronted him and I used the word “rape” but he laughed at me and said, “You wanted it, I could tell.” And then he said, “Nobody would believe you weren't asking for it.” I never told anyone --- I was too ashamed.

What would have happened in 1972 and 1976 if I had tried to go to the police? It was a small town. Every one knew everyone. Everyone talked about everyone. I had a a lot of family and I was scared to death my parents would find out. They would be furious and embarrassed and I can assure you it would have been my fault. This is what all those young feminists who are furious with Helen Mirren don't understand. They live in a world where it is commonly understood that a woman has a right to say “no”. Helen Mirren and I did not live in that world. And we did not live in a world where we would not have been shamed and despised and told we were sluts who were asking for it if we had told our stories. That's how things were back then.

It's easy to get all high and mighty and self-righteous about things you know nothing about. I admire Dame Helen for having the courage to say what she did. If her ideas are old-fashioned it is because she is, well, like me, old enough to have lived in an era where such ideas weren't irresponsible --- quite the opposite. They were the only way to retain some sense of dignity. Now, as I am not too many years from sixty myself I can be brave and tell my story too. But there was a time when I couldn't --- and I remember all too well the shame and humiliation of that time. Don't shame us twice for reacting like we did, you young feminists, you didn't live with what we lived with.

Thanks for reading.