Former Duke women's soccer player Avery Rape speaks out about mistreatment of women nationally

After The Washington Post released a video of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump making lewd comments about women, Avery Rape, a former women's soccer player at Duke, published a blog post reflecting on the comments and the treatment of women on college campuses. The Chronicle's Amrith Ramkumar spoke with Rape about her time at Duke and instances of sexual harassment and assault she experienced when she was a student.

Some readers might find the question about the specific incidents to be graphic. The Chronicle was unable to verify the specific incidents referenced in Rape's blog post. Rape did not report the incidents to Duke and similarly declined to share details or specific names associated with the experiences with The Chronicle because she said the intention of her blog post was to bring light to sexual harassment.

Regarding the incidents, Duke Athletics spokesperson Lindy Brown emailed the following statement:

"Duke Athletics was not made aware of any incidents by Avery while she was a student-athlete. Clearly, we believe in a culture of respect within our department and misconduct is not acceptable, nor tolerated. If we are made aware of any incidents of this nature, it is our affirmative duty to report them immediately."

The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. 

The Chronicle: What led you to publish the blog post?

Avery Rape: I did not expect to post that blog. In general, my post-college life has been a lot about who I am and who I want to be. When you're in college, you're not exactly sure what you're doing, you're just kind of doing it. 

I had been hearing about what Donald Trump had said, and I happened to watch the full video as well. It all came together for me, especially him calling it 'locker room talk' really hit home because I was an athlete at Duke and was around a lot of male athletes. All of that came together. 

AR: The first one was a football player my freshman year. I was standing outside my dorm room. There had been a lot of uncomfortable comments in that same week. I have a lot of freckles, and a football player asked me if I have freckles on my pu**y. He just came into my room and just asked me that. That was something I was like, 'I've never been asked that in my entire life.' 

The example I wrote about where I got grabbed ['by the pu**y'] was by one of his friends outside of the dorm room. It wasn't malicious, it wasn't aggressive, it was just a man thinking that that was okay. At the time, I was so caught off guard, I was honestly shocked. I didn't do anything. I was thinking, 'Wow. Is this a welcome to college? What's happening?'

The other incident with a lacrosse player was a situation where I was with him one evening and things started to happen, and I kept telling him, 'I don't want to have sex with you.' He kept trying. I was like, 'You're not listening to me, get off of me,' and I left. I was not raped. He was a friend, I texted him the next day and said, 'Look, you're lucky that I'm one of your friends because if that were not the case, you really crossed the line.' 

Maybe, at the time, I should have done more about it because I don't think that that caused that guy to wake up, and maybe I should have taken more responsibility in that sense. That's kind of why I included that example. 

One thing I also didn't want to happen for people reading the article to really zero in on Duke lacrosse, Duke basketball or Duke football. I wanted it to be about the issues in general and not those specifics. I know people can get really involved when they hear scandal around those things, I didn't want it to be about that at all. I just wanted people to understand that this is happening and it's not acceptable.

*Duke Athletics' response to the specific examples Rape mentions can be found at the top of this story.*

TC: What is your response to those like Trump who classify those kinds of statements as 'locker room talk'?

We've all become de-sensitized to how bad things are, which you can see through Donald Trump when he's like, 'It's just locker room talk.' The things he said are pretty horrible. I was in a girl's locker room, so people did not talk like that. Being around male athletes, some men absolutely do talk like that. I would never put everyone in one bucket, but specifically in college, I think girls get used to being around those things, hearing those things. 

Guys have a sense of entitlement and ego, especially in that stage of their lives. I had a guy text me about this article and say, 'Wow, you forced me to self-reflect on things that I've said and done to girls.' It's clear that a lot of these guys don't even realize what they're saying because everyone is used to it.

TC: You said you didn't want to call out some of Duke's most popular sports, but do you think the effects are worse for the dominant sports at colleges, which would be football in most cases?

AR: For the dominating sports at colleges, those guys definitely have a sense of entitlement that is not normal, I guess above average. When men are put on a pedestal where they are literally the best athletes in the country, if not the world, it makes them feel invincible and act that way in a lot of cases. 

Some of the Duke basketball and lacrosse players are some of my great friends even today. I love a lot of those guys. I was very lucky to become friends with a lot of them, so I would never say that they're bad people, but I think the culture on such successful sports teams can be overlooked a lot. 

TC: You mention a separate piece you wrote that was rejected by GoDuke.com and ESPN.com about your name and why you like Rihanna. What happened there? 

AR: For some context, my senior year, ESPN asked Duke if we wanted to have someone write articles throughout the season. I had written a lot for GoDuke, I wrote a lot in my free time, whether it was in high school or college in general. A lot of the girls on the team had liked things I wrote because they were usually pretty comical, a little sarcastic. They were funny, they were interesting, they were creative. I volunteered that season. 

People always make fun of me because of my obsession with Rihanna. I happened to control the music in the locker room, and it always came back to her. No one ever understood why. It was on one of our long bus trips, I wrote that article combining everything together trying to make a light-hearted message about, 'Wow, I'm an athlete with the last name Rape. That's pretty hard.' It wasn't just me, my sister played soccer at Duke as well. People would associate us as the Rape sisters. 

I remember reading something online, someone had written a small blog right after my sister committed to Duke, and it was titled 'Rape returns to Duke, but in a different way.' Thinking of that at that time, I was like, 'Wow, that's really horrible.' This is literally just our last name. Long story short, when I submitted what I sent you to our media guy at the time, he was like, 'Okay, I'll read it, I'll let you know what people say here.' 

And he came back to me and was like, 'No, this isn't going to work, sorry. Duke doesn't want to be associated with this thing. It's obviously a sensitive topic for the University.' He said he would submit it to ESPN as well, and I know they turned it down. I did not speak with them directly, I just know it was turned down by both parties. 

That was very, very hurtful to me. It's really cool to have a voice on GoDuke.com and on ESPN.com, and that was the first time I was like, 'Wow, I know in the back of my mind my last name has definitely hindered me from opportunities, whether it's a job, a class, people not even wanting to talk to me.' 

I had people commenting every week, and that was the first time it was really in my face when they were like, 'Because of your last name, you are not going to get this opportunity.' I was very hurt at the time. 

Brown emailed the following explanation for why GoDuke.com did not publish Rape's piece: 

"The entry was not appropriate for our platform. GoDuke.com provides news, scores, information and background on Duke Athletics and student-athletes. It is not a forum for commentary. We encourage student-athletes to use their own blogs and social media accounts, or media outlets such as The Chronicle, to present their personal viewpoints on current issues."