Party games

No one goes to a party wanting to have a really bad night. (Though sometimes I’ve not gone, just in case I do.)

But looking at old photos recently I was reminded of a time that I’m sure some would rather forget – and probably many already did, years ago. Ah, the loneliness of the remember-everything historian.

Photo credit: Blue velvet vintage

It was a great party. Miles out of town, a beautiful old house in a huge amazing garden, and all the old faces. Fabulous food, sound system in the barn, and a whole lot of drinking, etc. It was a long way home so we all stayed the night, crashing out one by one as the wee small hours wore on; on the living room floor, in tents outside, on the verandah, in the barn.

And then we all woke up. Who was that screaming and shouting? Was that someone sobbing?

It was our hostess, with a bottle in her hand. It was our friend, bon vivant and ‘great guy’, and our fellow guest who’d woken up to find him in her sleeping bag, on top of her.

Turned out we were all shocked for different reasons, and it was the first time I’d seen how this plays out (though sadly it hasn’t been the last).

Because did most blame the rapist? No. They took his side. In fact they didn’t even see it as an attempted rape. The woman who smacked him over the head though, protecting her friend, well. Clearly she overreacted. Because, he’s a really great guy. It’s just that he’s been drinking. And, well, he’s someone we know, how can he be a rapist? Must be a mistake. He didn’t mean any harm. Is she crazy? 

In a way I wasn’t surprised that his man-mates stood up for him, though it made me feel angry, and confused, and kind of…invisible. But my women friends too? Even some of them seemed to think it was no big deal – like it would be fine to wake up to some random man molesting you in your sleep and – what, exactly? Say excuse me do I know you? By the way could you get your hands out of my pants and kindly exit my sleeping bag? 

“He’s a good guy, it’s only when he’s drunk.” People can so easily convince

Photo credit: Marina Molares

themselves it’s not rape when it’s someone they know, because that doesn’t happen in your own crowd. It’s something different, something more innocent, it can’t be that bad. 

We were a politically aware kind of bunch, no one would have dreamed of blaming the ‘victim’. But many just couldn’t bear to put the responsibility for this ugly scene squarely where it belonged: on the aggressor. So they bounced the blame onto the rescuer, a stand-up hero who’d stepped in and protected another woman from a sexual attack. Outraged, I suspect, almost as much at having her hospitality violated – my house, my party, how dare you behave like this – as at the violation of her friend. 

All these years later I confess I’ve forgotten the name of the woman in the sleeping bag, but I’ll bet that unlike all those other guests, drunkenly arguing til dawn about who was in the wrong, she still remembers every single detail. She was so lucky that our hostess was right there, brave, strong-minded and willing to act; not doubting her own reading of the situation. And him? He was lucky she didn’t hit him harder.