Dear E. Jean, You were raped.

Dear E. Jean,

You were raped. I just finished listening to your interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR where you describe what President Trump did to you in the mid-90s.

It was rape.

I understand you have a hard time with the word “rape.” Most victims do. I understand that you feel other women have experienced sexual assaults and rape to a much more damaging degree than you had to endure. Most victims minimize their experiences too.

Here’s the legal definition of rape: “Rape in the United States is defined by the Department of Justice as “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

I know you think it devalues the experiences of women who have it worse than you did. But you said it was against your will. It was rape.

Please call it rape. By not calling it rape you are feeding the misinformation that rape only happens if they have a gun or a knife. That it only happens when it’s a stranger in a mask in a dark alley. By not acknowledging and accepting that what you describe is, in fact, rape, you may lead other victims to second-guess what they should call their experience. To downplay what happened to them. To stay silent  just in case they got it wrong and what happened to them shouldn’t be called rape either.

By downplaying the semantics of what happened to you. By not calling it what it is. By not addressing it head-on, you are only giving wiggle room to those who want to doubt you, the defenders of monstrous people and the monsters themselves.

For the sake of all the other victims of sexual assault, please let us call this what it is. I understand it is REALLY hard for you to say the word. So let me do it for you. Donald Trump raped you. You were raped.