"I Asked Him for My Clothes and Phone" - Surviving Sexual Assault

This article contains explicit and disturbing accounts. Reader discretion is advised. For Arlington County sexual assault resources, click here.

Caroline Raphael was a junior at Washington-Lee (now Washington-Liberty) High School in 2016 when she learned that her older sister had been sexually assaulted. The assailant, a fellow student on her sister’s college campus, was found responsible and expelled. But the aftermath took a toll on not only her sister, but the whole family.

At the time of the assault, their mom, Abby—a former member of the Arlington County School Board and former assistant commonwealth’s attorney—had recently become co-chair of the Prevention Committee at Project PEACE, a countywide initiative to end sexual assault and domestic violence in Arlington.

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Caroline soon followed suit. “I became passionate about sexual assault prevention because my sister was a survivor,” she says.

As chair of the student-led Healthy Relationships Task Force through Project PEACE, Caroline began leading talks with her peers about sexual assault prevention and relationship red flags. She didn’t just have access to information about how to recognize toxic relationships and minimize the incidence of sexual assault—she lived and breathed it.

She graduated as one of W-L’s Class of 2017 valedictorians and received a prestigious President’s Scholarship to the University of Miami.

Then, on Oct. 12, 2017, during her first semester at college, Caroline Raphael was drugged and sexually assaulted.

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“I met this guy through a mutual friend,” she says. “We enjoyed hanging out, and he asked me out a few times, but I’d said no—I had a boyfriend at the time and I wasn’t interested. But when he asked me to his fraternity’s date party as friends, I agreed to go.”

At the party, they shared a bottle of Champagne. “I was a little stressed out about a test I had the next day, so I told him I wasn’t going to drink much,” Raphael remembers. “He drank most of the bottle, but I have a specific memory of him handing me the bottle, me taking a sip and handing it back to him, and then him telling me that I killed the bottle. Which was weird, because I was pretty sure I hadn’t.” She didn’t say anything about it at the time.

Within 20 minutes of that last sip, she felt disproportionately intoxicated and disoriented. Her date offered to escort her back to her dorm and called an UberPool. She remembers almost nothing of that car ride. “I was in the back seat with two other girls, and he was in the front. I remember hearing the girls talking to him, but I couldn’t even speak. I kept thinking, My lips are so swollen.”

The next thing she remembers was arriving at his apartment and thinking, This isn’t where I’m supposed to be—why am I here? He ushered her inside, gave her a glass of water and she passed out.

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Forty minutes later, campus security footage shows Raphael running out of the building. But what happened in the interim was a blur. She recalls waking up in pain, disoriented and unable to move. Her clothes were off, and he was on top of her.

Struggling to get free, she pulled herself up to gather her things and leave. “I asked him for my clothes and my phone. He opened his bedside table drawer and pulled out my phone, which had been tucked underneath his, then handed me my clothes.”

Sobbing, and with what little physical coordination she could muster, she ran home.

Back at her dorm, Raphael’s roommate offered to take her to the hospital, but all she wanted to do was crawl into bed. “I was worried I was going to get in trouble for being intoxicated. And I was distraught—this guy was my friend!” she says incredulously, realizing in retrospect that there must have been more than just alcohol in her last sip of Champagne. “I was in pain, I was bleeding, it was just too much for me to think about. Not that you can ever really prevent it, but there are things that I always do and that I always did to stay safe. I couldn’t believe it had happened to me.”

It would be several days before she was able to officially report the assault. “I woke up the next morning [after the party] and for a second I forgot. Then it hit me and I wanted to die,” she says. “That was my first thought. My next thought was, Oh my god, I have a test.”

She went to class, took (and failed) her test, and stayed silent about what had happened the night before. “I didn’t want everyone to know. I didn’t want to be the girl who was raped.”

By the time Raphael gathered up the courage to tell her mom—who then urged her to report the incident to the authorities—she had missed the window in which the police could have collected evidence. “I so, so regret not reporting it right away,” she says.

Caroline Raphael (Photo by Arleigh Curry)

Tragically, Raphael’s story is one that Mary Hale has heard before. As director of the Inova Ewing Forensic Assessment and Consultation Team (FACT) at Inova Fairfax Hospital, Hale has worked with victims of sexual assault for more than 20 years.

“Sexual assault is a hugely underreported crime for lots of reasons: the shame, the self-blame, the fear of not being believed,” she says. “A lot of times it’s about not wanting to get the other person in trouble.” Especially if that person is a friend.

Alcohol is present in many cases, but Hale is specific about not blaming the assault on the victim’s inebriation.

“I’ve sat with victims of sexual assault who had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, who were carrying an M-16 when they were raped,” she says. “The reality is that we have patients who have done everything right to keep themselves safe and they still end up crossing paths with someone who has bad intentions. Whether alcohol is present or not, it’s just not their fault.”

FACT’s highly trained nurses specialize in providing forensic exams and counseling to sexual assault victims. Inova is the designated medical facility for victims in six area cities and counties, including Arlington, Falls Church City and Fairfax. (Virginia Hospital Center responds to emergency calls, but then refers patients to Inova.)

“Any services we provide, as long as the patient is willing to have evidence collected, are free of charge,” Hale explains. “They don’t have to report to law enforcement or press charges.”

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However, time is of the essence, says her colleague Ariel Ward, a forensic nurse. “We want to make sure patients have access to medications that can significantly reduce their risk of contracting STDs,” Ward explains—like the one that helps prevent HIV, which needs to be administered within the first 72 hours—“and that we recover any physical evidence that may help them if they decide to file a report with the police.”

Still, evidence collection is only a small piece of the big picture, Ward stresses. “The most important thing is to ensure people are healthy, they feel supported, and they have all the right resources.”

As part of that bigger picture, each survivor is paired with a personal advocate who can guide her or him through the entire medical examination—which is often an intensely emotional ordeal lasting several hours. Advocates are specially trained and provided for free by Doorways for Women and Families, an Arlington-based nonprofit that offers a safe haven and support system for people in crisis.

Members of Doorways’ Revive team, from left: Clinical director Samantha Clarke, youth therapist Mariana Velazquez and director of counseling Alexandra Miller. Photo by Dixie Vereen.

In 2015, Doorways became Arlington County’s consolidated resource for victims of sexual assault and their families, regardless of the victim’s age, gender or where the assault occurred. In each case, the nonprofit’s Revive program helps create a holistic plan that considers the victim’s personal safety, legal options, mental health counseling and financial support, if needed. These services are provided even if the person chooses not to take legal action.

Last year, Doorways helped more than 60 individuals through their hospital accompaniments. That’s up from 30 in 2017, and almost eight times the number of victims the nonprofit was able to help during its first official year in this role, says Doorways president and CEO Caroline Jones.

Some may be tempted to attribute the increase to an overall rise in sexual assaults, but police and hospital personnel say it’s more likely the result of coordinated efforts to reach victims—as well as greater awareness of what constitutes sexual assault and how to report it.

Since 2015, Doorways’ Revive program has provided short-term post-trauma sexual assault counseling for more than 400 individuals between the ages of 2 and 82.

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It happens here. Sexual assault may not be talked about at soccer games and cocktail parties, but it is more prevalent than we think. “One in 3 women and 1 in 7 men will experience sexual assault or intimate partner violence in their lifetime,” Jones says. “Those numbers may go up as people start to feel empowered and not ashamed to talk about it.”

In 2017, Arlington had 88 reported incidents of “forcible rape, sodomy or sexual assault with an object,” and 97 reported incidents of “forcible fondling,” according to Virginia Uniform Crime Reporting from the Dept. of State Police. But crisis advocates note that sexual violence is largely underreported, so crime data does not paint a full picture.

Attitudes that lead to sexual violence also take root earlier than some may realize. In a 2017 survey conducted by the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth & Families, almost half of female students in grades 8, 10 and 12 said that they had been sexually harassed at school, and 8 percent of high school seniors said they had been forced or coerced to have sex.

Teens are often reluctant to go forward with a forensic exam because they don’t want their parents to know. “We want to reach teens where they’re at [both geographically and emotionally] to ensure that they’re safe, that they know it’s not their fault and what resources are [available to them],” Jones says. “We can be the nonjudgmental, trusted adult who can get them the support they need.”

In the best scenario, support starts with prevention. And it focuses on everyone, not just girls. “If our prevention is all about what girls should and shouldn’t do to keep themselves safe, how victim-blaming is that? We work with boys and girls to talk about how we can work together as allies to stop this epidemic in its tracks,” Jones says. “Boys and young men are not the bad guys. More than ever, we really need them working on this issue. We need them to be upstanders and not bystanders, to have the tools they need to say something.”

Sexual assault is broadly defined by Arlington County as “any act of a sexual nature committed against someone without that person’s freely given consent.” And the consent of the #metoo era is not the same as the so-called “consent” dramatized in 1980s John Hughes movies or Rat Pack-era songs like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—reflections of a bygone time when men were expected to steer the sexual pace of the relationship and culture dictated that women coyly say “no” before giving in to “yes.”

“Consent,” says Mariana Velazquez, a youth therapist at Doorways’ Revive Counseling Center, “is sober and enthusiastic. Silence doesn’t mean yes. Yes means yes. Consent is about being informed so that when it comes time to make those decisions, they align with your desires and your comfort level.”

Velazquez works directly with teens in Arlington high schools—including the choice schools and career centers—and supports Arlington’s Healthy Relationships Task Force, the student-led group that Caroline Raphael worked with to eliminate the culture of sexual aggression.

Schools are also stepping up to help enact a cultural shift. “Two years ago, APS [Arlington Public Schools] adopted a new policy that spells out what sexual harassment looks like—whether that’s snapping a girl’s bra strap in a crowded hallway, sending unwelcome messages through social media, or exhibiting controlling behavior, like monitoring your partner’s phone usage and isolating them from their friends,” says Abby Raphael (mom of Caroline), who continues to co-chair the Prevention Committee at Project PEACE.

That effort includes training teachers and administrators to identify and address such behaviors, and engaging all students—including boys—in conversations about respect and consent. Project PEACE works with health and P.E. teachers to coordinate guest speakers, video presentations and interactive discussions on the topic.

“Whereas in the past teachers might have dismissed certain behavior as boys will be boys, now they’re recognizing it as harassment,” Abby Raphael says. “The reality is that most girls and women who are assaulted—it’s someone they know. We have to shift the focus to changing men’s attitudes so they’re not perpetrating crimes against women. All of these attitudes that boys can develop about women—the ones that could lead them to commit sexual assault later—we have to address those at an early age.”

Parents have a role to play, too, says Michael Swisher, the other co-chair of the Project PEACE prevention committee and a parent educator for Arlington’s Department of Human Services. For example, parents can help their kids practice what to say in a critical situation—whether it’s an intimate moment or one rife with peer pressure—even if the drill feels awkward.

“It’s up to us as parents to create a space where our kids feel comfortable coming to us,” Swisher says. “Generally that’s not our natural response. We hear our kid talk about a difficult issue and think, Oh my god, I need to teach him this thing! But that’s less effective than being able to listen without judgment. If you go into lecture mode, you may have just closed the door forever on the topic.”

Instead, he says, ask questions like, How does that make you feel? or What do you think about that? “If you’re not lecturing them or correcting them or freaking out, they’ll come to you and share, and you can make smart decisions together.”

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Prevention efforts and supportive parents won’t always insulate people from becoming victims of sexual crimes. The way we respond as a community needs to be informed, too.

“When someone reports a sexual assault in Arlington, we’re here to coordinate services and give them the best of all our resources—from legal action to medical treatment to emotional support,” says Candice Lopez, program and prevention specialist for Project PEACE. This means that law enforcement, the judicial system, hospital staff and advocacy professionals are working together to minimize trauma and promote safety and healing.

One significant community effort, a program called the Arlington Restaurant Initiative (ARI), is playing out on the front lines, in local bars. Launched in October 2018, ARI sends county police officers to businesses that hold liquor licenses to train waitstaff, bartenders, managers and security personnel how to identify risky behavior and intervene as needed. Perhaps you’ve seen the “Ask for Angela” posters in restaurant bathrooms? They encourage patrons who feel threatened to use those code words to covertly ask restaurant staff for help—whether that means extricating themselves from a bad date, stealthily securing a safe ride home or calling the police. Currently, nearly two dozen Arlington establishments are ARI accredited.

Involving police doesn’t always mean pressing charges. “We use a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach,” says Eliseo Pilco, Arlington’s Special Victims Unit supervisor, reiterating that Doorways’ services are presented as an option even for those who are reluctant to pursue legal action. “If they decide to have evidence collected, we’ll hold it for at least two years in order to give them time to consider what action to take.”

Some survivors seek help years after the scars of trauma have set in. For Sara, an Arlington resident who prefers to keep her last name anonymous, that step would become the light at the end of a decades-long tunnel of despair, and a life that had been defined by sexual assault.

“My pastor found Doorways for me because I was at the point where I needed to be hospitalized,” says the now-37-year-old. “I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t think I could ever have a meaningful future because I couldn’t make any sense of my past.”

Sara points to three incidents in her life that chipped away at her emotional and psychological well-being. The first was when she was a child growing up in Oklahoma, where, from ages 7 to 10, she was sexually traumatized by a slightly older neighbor—who Sara now believes was also a victim of sexual trauma.

The second occurred when she was in junior high, after she moved with her family to Ohio. A boy she’d developed a friendship with through church convinced her that it was God’s will to have sex with him. She resisted in the early stages of their friendship, but eventually acquiesced—and instantly regretted it.

“I wanted to stop it and I started protesting, but he freaked out in a way I’d never seen before,” she says. “He was screaming and saying abusive things to me. I just froze. I felt like it was my fault, that I had ruined his life. From that point on I don’t remember saying no to anyone, ever. I felt like I had no agency over my own decisions.

“I grew up in an Evangelical Christian culture,” Sara continues. “I only really knew a language of shame around sex and sexuality, which set the stage for my confusion around boundaries and unhealthy relational dynamics. I put up with abusive or coercive partners, knowing that it felt bad or felt wrong but not knowing that there was any other way of doing things.”

In 2010, after a concerted effort to turn things around, Sara went out with friends to a bar in Alexandria and ended up drinking too much. She stepped into the parking lot for some fresh air and was picked up by a man she’d never seen before whose name she doesn’t remember. He drove her to an apartment in Springfield. Once there, she drifted in and out of consciousness, recalling the event only in hazy images. “I remember he laughed as he was raping me, telling me it looked like I was dead.”

Over the next six years, Sara struggled with alcohol abuse and PTSD. Eventually, the pastor at her former church brought her to Doorways. For the first time, she was able to come to terms with the memories that haunted her.

“Doorways didn’t try to pathologize me,” she says. “They saw and treated me as a human being who had experienced complex trauma. I was in a safe place knowing that I could finally tell the truth—all the truth—and not have it define the way I was treated or looked at. I can’t go back and change what’s happened to me, but I can choose to move forward with hope.”

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On Oct. 16, 2017, Caroline Raphael filed a report with her college’s Title IX office. Four days had passed since the night she was assaulted. “I was thinking I’d report him just to have it on the record,” she says, “but when the counselor ran his name, she found out that he had a previous complaint filed against him.”

With that discovery, Raphael decided to file a formal complaint with the dean of students. She spent the remainder of her first semester preparing a detailed case.

Once summoned to a campus disciplinary hearing, her attacker told a different story about the night of the Champagne party. He claimed what had happened between the two of them was consensual.

The inquiry concluded with a determination that he was not responsible because—Raphael was told—she didn’t look “intoxicated enough” on the campus security footage, and her decision to go to a date party with him, despite saying she was not romantically interested, made it “unlikely” he could have sexually assaulted her.

Raphael was gutted. Not only was her attacker still roaming free, but also she felt like she’d gone through the whole excruciating process for nothing.

That is, until a year later, when she received a call from a friend asking her to verify the name of her assailant. Several other women were accusing the same student of sexual assault and had spoken to the president of his fraternity. They were hoping Raphael would go on record so that he would be expelled from the fraternity. (She did.)

“[My friend] was in a room with seven other women, all of whom said he’d assaulted them at some point,” Raphael says. One accuser who had dated the student as a freshman decided to come forward and initiate a formal complaint.

This time he was found responsible. He appealed the decision but was ultimately asked to leave the university. Raphael says he apparently was granted permission to finish his degree online.

Though she no longer has to see his face on campus, she hasn’t found closure. Disappointed with the way her school handled her case, she decided to elevate the issue to local authorities. In October, Raphael filed a detailed report with the police. She says the experience has steeled her resolve to advocate for prevention, and also to shatter the silence around victim response.

“I gave all these talks about sexual assault in high school, but I really didn’t know what it was like until it happened to me,” she says. “There’s this utter loss of control. The aftermath, whether or not you report it, is horrible. The things you have to deal with, from regret to PTSD, are awful. The process of reporting is so intense and all-consuming, there’s really nothing else you can think about.

“It’s never over,” she says. “That’s the thing about rape—it never ends. Even if you get justice. The thing that’s so horrible about this crime is that it stays with you. It changes you, whether you like it or not. I want to use my voice now to help empower others to gain back control over their lives.”

A regular Arlington Magazine contributor, Adrienne Wichard-Edds has also written about anxiety, giftedness and parenting. Follow her @WichardEdds.