The Cornell case triggered teenage memories I had long forgotten. There's no point to this story other than wanting to share my teenage experience with a fraternity
This is gonna be long and its not going in direction most of you might think it is. But I feel like if I can get it all out of my head, I'll be able to stop thinking about my adolescence - memories I had otherwise forgotten. I'm a 38 yo woman. The Cornell case gave me a series of flashbacks to my own experience with Greek life. I had long since forgotten about the men in this story. But it has my warmed my heart remembering them and I just want to share it. I had a rare experience that I was very lucky to have.
I had a rough home life. My older sister was always my protector. Until she turned 18 and went to college. I floundered without her. I was 15yo. Just bc she loved me and sought to protect me doesn't mean she made the best decisions. She was herself after all a teenager. She had me at ages 15, 16 up at her college campus every weekend partying with her. For her part, she had joined a sorority and was in the midst of her own party life phase. She had the best intentions. But obviously I didn't belong on a college campus at my age. One night, I found myself locked out of her dorm room. I had no idea where she was. I found myself at 15 wandering around a college campus very late at night by myself.
I passed a group of frat boys walking in the opposite direction. They stared at me curiously. "Yo...you miller's sister?" I said yes. The guy replied, "where is your sister?" I responded I didn't know. They began exclaiming and talking amongst themselves how fucked up it was I was out here alone and what to do with me and they couldn't just leave me. Finally, "Little Miller! you're coming with us!"
And they brought me back to their frat house. This was the age of AIM and cordless phones. After attempting and failing to contact my sister, I was sat in a bedroom with 4 other guys and two tvs - one for video games,one for sports. They were treating me like I was a stray puppy. I was permitted one beer per hour. And one drunken guy insisted I drink my bud light with a crazy straw "bc I was a child." It was all manner of inappropriate but simultaneously extremely sweet. Other guys returning to the house would walk in, ask who I was "don't talk to her, she's 15." Meanwhile I played video games with drunk and stoned frat boys. The topic turned to what to do with me if my sister remained MIA. They were very uneasy about my being there, aware of what my sister and I were not - I did not belong there. One of the dudes called his girlfriend who was in the same sorority as my sister. She came and got me, they put me in her room for the night while she went back to her boyfriends room.
My sister and I were later reunited. And my weekend visits continued.
Now, I didn't get alot of attention at home. Home life was tough. So now on my weekend visits, I went looking for these boys. I reveled in their attention and I would seek it out. I imagine these 19yo-20yo boys became very amused by this. Bc they would tolerate it to a point. I was their stray pet / surrogate little sister. I also think a few of them began practicing for fatherhood on me. One guy got shitfaced once and drunkenly yelled at me to "go to my room." I pointed out I did not have a room. They would let me tag after them, to a degree. They would let me drink, but not alot. During a houseparty raid, I hid in a closet with several of them. No one ever touched me. On another occasion, they explained to me I wasn't getting high when I smoked weed bc I wasn't inhaling. And demonstrated how to inhale. After about a year, the curiously asked me if I had a bf. I said no. They told me to never ever sleep with a guy on the first date. And they told me I needed to make guys work for it for when I started dating. My drunken older brothers / father figures.
It was all manner of inappropriate but there was an undeniable paternal element to it.
I thought about them often with such affection in my later teens and early 20s. And gradually over time forgot about them. The Cornell 7 case brought them back to mind. Whether you believe Jane doe or not - sexual assault on college campuses is a rampant problem. We all know this.
It's never been lost on me on hpw lucky I was to be adopted by this group of frat boys who owed me nothing and still took it upon themselves to look after me and continued to look after me. I am incredibly grateful to those young men. I have no doubt that wherever they landed they are world class dads now. I got to keep my innocence and naivete for so much longer bc of them.
I'm not minimizing sexual assault on college campuses. It's a real problem. But I don't think it's harmful for people to share their experiences of young men being good men. I think those stories are important. Those boys easily could have just kept walking. And my night could have just as easily ended much differently.