The night Lissa Cunneen was raped by a stranger in the University of Washington dorms, she was wearing Levis, a red sweatshirt, boots, an Arab scarf, and pearl earrings gifted to her by her grandparents.

This is the outfit Cunneen plans to recreate on June 19 for Seattle Slutwalk, a march organized to combat an all-too-common argument that women should dress less provocatively to avoid being raped.

“The person responsible for rape is the rapist,” she says. “Victims are never to blame for being sexually assaulted.”

Now Cunneen is organizing a group of like-minded sloggers, feminists, victims of assault, and anyone else who refuses to believe that women bring sexual violence upon themselves to join her on June 19, at 11:30 a.m. at the conical fountain in Cal Anderson Park, and march.

Cunneen was 19 when she was attacked.

It was Christmas break, 1982. She was spending her vacation in a secure, well-populated campus dorm. She’d noticed an unfamiliar man walking through the hall, presumably looking for a friend. When she went to the bathroom, this man sneaked into her unlocked room and armed himself with the knife she was using to prepare dinner. When she returned, “He kicked the door shut and beat the crap out of me,” she says. “Then he sat on me, held the knife to my throat, and told me to ‘suck it.’ So I did. I remember thinking, ‘I can do this. I can buy time here.'”

Eventually, she fought back. She started screaming. She grabbed the knife, cutting her hands. Her rapist panicked and fled. He was never caught.

“It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t dressed provocatively,” Cunneen says. “I was slut-shamed afterward by other girls on the [dorm] floor. People always try to find excuses for why it’s the victim’s fault.” Men and women still tell her how she brought the attack on herself—her dorm room wasn’t locked, she didn’t fight back soon or hard enough—because if you can blame the victim, it means there was a reason for the attack. “They tell themselves the same thing would never happen to them because they’d do things differently,” she says.

And to the people—and slog commenters—who claim that airing the brutal details of rape is somehow crass or voyeuristic: “It’s important that these stories are told,” says Cunneen, otherwise, “people get comfortable. They think that if you don’t talk about it, it’s not happening. My own parents still won’t even say the word ‘rape.’ We have to remind people, again and again, that this is happening.” That women are victims, not provocateurs. Even re-telling her assault 30 years later leaves her shaking and sweaty. “Because the victims never forget,” she says, “and there are a lot of victims out there.”

SlutWalk Seattle is scheduled to begin at noon at Cal Anderson’s Bobby Morris play field. Participants will march through the streets, downtown, to Westlake Center for a rally. The Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest the event.

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

61 replies on “Why One Rape Victim is Marching in the Seattle Slut Walk—And Why She Wants You To Join Her”

  1. @50: I bet there are, actually. Because in Saudi Arabia, it’s not a proven rape unless there are six reliable witnesses (someone double-check that number for me) to the actual nonconsensual penetration. Sharia law may have worked fine thirteen centuries ago, but the Saudis aren’t doing their people any favors by refusing to supplement it.

  2. I’ll be there. My sign is probably going to be My Dress Is Not a Yes. I’m hoping my husband can arrange his Fathers’ Day bonding with his boys so that he can be there, too, carrying a sign that says I Know The Difference Between NO and YES.

  3. Oh, and I know better than to feed trolls, but hey dumbass? Look up what started Slutwalk before you criticize it. It’s a protest against the mindset that led a Toronto police officer to tell students that “Women shouldn’t dress like sluts if they don’t want to get raped.” Leaving aside the fact that “dressing like a slut” is entirely in the eye of the beholder, so how does one then explain the rapes of elderly women? Unattractive women? Children? Women at home in their own beds? Women wearing fucking HIJAB? All these things happen. Where’s the sluttiness?

    Most of the women at Slutwalk aren’t dressing like streetwalkers; they’re dressing HOWEVER THEY CHOOSE. Just as they should be able to safely do ANYWHERE.

    Surefire rape prevention strategy: Don’t rape anyone.

  5. @11
    I am definitely concerned about, and virulently against rape perpetrated against anyone, anywhere! I often rant about the fact that rape of men in prison is treated as a joke, and I think there is a real need for services for male victims of all kinds of sexual abuse.
    Both men and women are welcome at this event. The specific “Slut Walk” theme is because of the comment quoted above, that if women don’t wish to be raped, they should not “dress like sluts”, which is clearly aimed at female rape victims.
    Your argument seems to be that every event or media story about rape should include men and women equally, otherwise it “sustains the idea of female inferiority” and “creates an unrealistic fear in women” This seems disingenuous to me. Saying that the fastest growing group of rape victims is men, doesn’t negate the fact that far more people who have been raped are women. 1 in 4 women in this country has been raped. I’m one of them. Most women are in fact afraid of being raped, and take regular steps to avoid it. This is not unrealistic, given the fact that for this particular crime being a woman DOES vastly increase the chances that you will be a victim.

  7. @jiggaboojones
    How a woman dresses is not a CAUSE of rape. It may be an excuse a rapist uses. Have you committed rape? Do you feel completely unable to control your behavior whenever you see a woman dressed provocatively? You seem hell-bent on focusing the behavior of rape victims, of feminists, of the participants in this walk, while showing no apparent concern for the behavior of criminals.

    I think it’s reasonable to talk to women, especially young women, about safety strategies that include considering their decisions about where they go, who they go with, how much they drink and what they wear. It pisses me off, but it is reasonable from a woman’s point of view to take precautions. However even women who do everything “right” get raped, and if a woman makes choices I might consider risky it is still noone’s fault EXCEPT the criminal if they are attacked.

    The ideas that girls will dress like sluts because of this event AND that more of them will therefor be raped are both patently absurd.

  8. @jiggaboojones

    Have a daughter.

    Tell all of this to her, after she is raped.

    oh…sorry, you’d probably be the one committing it, you worthless pile of flesh.

  9. Girls & boys,
    Quit pretending like you give ONE CARE for rape victims! Shame on you!
    This is an occasion for you to proudly flaunt your sin & demand acceptance.
    Furthermore, God Almighty controls all things. God sent the rapists. Deal with that hard truth.
    The person raped does NOT own that crime. Don’t pretend this slut pride parade is about rape victims. Liars, liars, whore panties aflame!

    Your best friends from the WBC will be there to remind you of these truths.

    Love,
    Jael Phelps

  11. Hi, My name is catherine I wished I could of been at the walk yesterday. I have been threw my faIR share like so many others. We need to put an end the reason so many men think they can get a way rape with the excuses they have. Power and control their way threw it. Would like to get involved. Catherine

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