Dear Stanford Survivor,

I don't know you and you don't know me but I want to thank you.

Everyone wants to put in their two cents and say that your attacker is a monster and to call you a victim and say that the judge was wrong. All the comments have been geared towards your assailant: "He's not an athlete who made a bad decision, he's a rapist who happens to know how to swim" was my personal favorite. Or towards the judge: that six months did not match the severity of his crime and this is an example of rape culture, or the petitions circulation to oust the judge. I agree with all of this: he didn't make a bad decision, he made a choice. The judge's sentencing does highlight that rape culture focuses on how we treat the victims as the guilty party and do everything possible to give the perpetrator as light of a sentencing as possible or ruling them as "not guilty" claiming "there wasn't enough evidence" or that "not remembering it doesn't mean you didn't consent to it when it happened"

We've started to put the power back in the hands of the survivors with movies like "The Hunting Ground" or "It Happened Here" and my school has the Step Up! Griffs program to have students teach their peers about sexual violence, signs of abusive relationships, how to intervene, who to go to and all the campus resources.

But with all of the media coverage surrounding this case, no one wants to thank you for your courage. No one wants to call you a survivor. I want to do that right now.

I'll be honest, I didn't know about this case until the verdict of it appeared on my news feed on Facebook. Then the next day a copy of your 12 page letter came up on my news feed. I read it and watched as friend after friend shared it. Then I watched as people wrote their own open letters to your rapist or his father.

But after seeing everything unfold on social media, and seeing everyone rally behind you to say that there it is unquestionable that your attacker was in the wrong, and that sharing your letter with the world was so brave, I kept asking myself why is no one actually talking about you?

I read your letter, and so much came to mind. First, it reminded me so much of Lady Gaga's song "Til it Happens to You" I think this was the first time we (the general public) has had such an inside and integral part of a sexual assault case. When you talk about taking a shower and wanting to step out of your own body because "I was terrified of it, I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it." that resonated with everyone, victims of assault or not. I've never been in your situation but I know people who have and I think this sticks with people no matter what because someone violated you in the most intimate way possible.

Then you're told to "go home and get back to my normal life" How can you get back to a "normal life" after something like this? We don't tell people who have just lost a loved one to "go home and get back to their normal life" and this is similar to your circumstance. You lost an integral part of who you were and were still beginning to process what had happened to you. So why is it okay to tell you to move on and pretend this never happened?

Then you talk about your sister. Even after something so traumatic happened to you, your first instinct was still to comfort her, to let her believe everything was okay. She's your sister and our first instinct is to protect those we love.

The next part that talks about your boyfriend and him worrying about you. You told him yes. You weren't ready to tell him and everything has to be done in your own time. You needed to process what happened to you before you told everyone about it. You really connected with me when you talk about the hospital sweater being the only thing that served as proof it wasn't all just a bad dream. And without your memory of what happened, it could have easily just been a bad dream. But it wasn't and you are so strong and so brave for surviving something like this.

You learned all the details about the assault at the same time the entire world did. Screw that fucking deputy and hospital for not telling you the circumstances surrounding what brought you to the hospital. Screw the media for its insensitivity, there are certain details that should be kept private. Does no one in today's society have morals anymore?

The whole world agrees with you that when the article threw in his swim times that was completely uncalled for and ridiculous. It was to make us feel for him not for you. I go back to, "He's not an athlete who made a bad decision, he's a rapist who happens to know how to swim."

One of the other most powerful quotes you have is, "He admitted to kissing other girls at that party, one of whom was my own sister who pushed him away. He admitted to wanting to hook up with someone. I was the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself, and he chose me. Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone, then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else." And that's what so many people don't realize: regretting a drunken hook up is NOT nor will it ever be the same thing as someone taking sexual advantage of another person who is clearly incapacitated.

Then in one sentence you share everything that is wrong with the systems we have in place: "But I don’t remember, so how do I prove I didn’t like it." When in actuality when did it ever matter if you "enjoyed" it. The point is whatever sexual acts occurred were not consensual and he was at fault. You further prove this with, "I was not only told that I was assaulted, I was told that because I couldn’t remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, almost broke me. It is the saddest type of confusion to be told I was assaulted and nearly raped, blatantly out in the open, but we don’t know if it counts as assault yet. I had to fight for an entire year to make it clear that there was something wrong with this situation." and later you talk about feeling helpless because your memory loss was used against you. But I'm going to ask what if he was the one with the memory loss and didn't remember assaulting you because he had had one too many drinks that night? We wouldn't be "forced" to believe your story because then his lawyer would have argued he didn't know what he was doing because of the alcohol he consumed and therefore can't be held responsible for any harm he caused. Ladies and Gentleman, this is the epitome of rape culture and sexism.

You make strong points on what counts as consent. How in his story the only words you ever say are yes. You never introduced yourself to him, you never asked his name, he never introduced himself. When something doesn't seem right about a story, that means their lying about something. Then his attorney says we had no proof of when you became unconscious. Consent is not the absence of no, it is the presence of yes. Consent is not withdrawn when someone falls unconscious. And furthermore consent has to be given in order to be withdrawn and as we just read, you never gave him consent.

I have to give you a special applause for when you respond directly to his statement and use his own ignorance and close mindedness against him.

You shut down his argument on alcohol consumption as an excuse. And you're right alcohol is never an excuse. It does not take away from the legality of the matter, nor does it take away from the fact that he was caught mid assault and then tried to run away.

When he brings up being wrong for drinking, I wanted to scream because it was never about drinking or giving in to peer pressure to be "like everyone else" and have a drink. But your response is much more eloquent than anything I could have ever said under those circumstances. I have to make the same comment for your response on his comment about the drinking culture. I never would have been so calm and collected.

On his final statement: you're right, there is more than one life ruined. He is in no way a victim but there are repercussions for his actions. As I was reading your response to this, I personally cheered when you made the note that he took away your voice until that day. You empowered yourself and as a result you'll empower so many survivors to find their voice and so many people to watch out for instances like this and do what they can to prevent them.

Your honesty about how this one night (or according to his dad this 20 minutes) and how it affected you on a day to day basis is heartbreaking and raw and above all honest. The world saw a new perspective, rather than hearing statistics on victims of rape and what they go through following the incident is so impersonal. But hearing how it affects one person and what one person goes through, is transformative and eye opening beyond all belief.

You conclude with "To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you." Now it is my turn to say that although I don't know you personally and I only know so little about your entire life, I am with you. You showed the world that you are more than a victim. You are a survivor, and you inspire survivors everywhere.

Thank you,
Nicole Masaki