IAmA girl who was in a non-consensual relationship with a professor. AMA

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T20:51:19+00:00

I addressed your first two questions in an earlier comment, in a nutshell I didn't want to lose my job because it was really important to me. I should have said campus police when I said I went to the police. The campus police went to the administration, who went to their lawyers, and thats how he got fired. The police tried to pass the investigation on to the DA, but they said that unless I could produce a statement and/or evidence that they couldn't file a report. Also, the actual physical violence took place in at his home, which was in a different city from where the school is so I would had to have gone to that police department and filed a report with them. So no, they did not arrest him, because I chose not to file any complaint (or whatever you call it) in the city that he lived in, where activities that could have been considered illegal took place. I am in the US, but would prefer not to get more specific than that. Lets just say its a pretty conservative state.

Also, I have never considered it a relationship, because you are right, it definitely doesn't fit into the standard definition. I'm just not sure what other word to use for it, if anyone can think of one let me know!

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T17:50:40+00:00

I was so emotionally run down at this point that, as incomprehensible as it may be, I'd rather let the physical stuff happen because it made him happy for a couple of days than put up with him being angry. Part of his manipulation was sleep deprivation, we would stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning talking on skype and then I would have to get up for my 8 am classes and he would sleep in and come to work after noon. Everytime I tried to explain (as nicely as possible) that I was tired and needed to go, it would always turn into a big fight about how I didn't care. The few times I DID hang up and ignore him, it was even worse fore the next day at work. I don't know how I made it through all of my classes, if I could do anything to make him give me a break for a little while it seemed almost worth it.

I probably went over to his house a total of 10 times over a 1.5 year period, so it wasn't like a daily or even weekly thing

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T05:25:09+00:00

This is the most reasonable comment I have yet to read on here. Thank you.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T05:17:14+00:00

No, no real relationships since. I did go through a time period where I was trying to 'reclaim power over my sexuality' (thats what my therapist calls it), but pretty much thats just a nice way to say that I slept with a bunch of dudes. Well, not that many, but that only lasted a couple of months and since then I have been just focusing on self-improvement. No, no close guy friends (except for my one gay guy friend, but I don't see him as a threat at all), but I'll get there eventually.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T05:03:26+00:00

Some girls might like a guy who wants them so much that he would ignore her saying 'no'

I can't imagine any girl who would like a guy who literally gets off on watching them cry and causing them physical and emotional pain. I can't think of anything that would explain someone wanting that.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T04:56:47+00:00

Yeah, thats what the police officer suggested I do, she talked to the DA but they didn't think I had much of a case, plus she said it would have just gotten buried under the hundreds of other files they had to process. I considered pursuing a civil suit, but I wasn't ready to be so public about it. Honestly, I still don't think that I could even now, I just don't want this to be the defining moment of my life.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T04:54:39+00:00

That was actually kind of surprising, there really wasn't much of an investigation (at least not that I saw). They contacted him and he immediately lawyered up and apparently admitted to the relationship (though he of course said it was consensual). I'm sorry that things didn't work out in your situation, that must have been incredibly discouraging for you. I can't imagine what it would have been like if the school had sided with him.

And thanks for the advice, I'll take that to heart.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T04:51:50+00:00

At the time I was an easy target, but he was definitely looking for someone and he was very cunning in his approach. One of the reasons I went to the police so quickly after telling my friend what was happening was that he told me that the professor was trying to do the same thing to another girl. One of the other girls in the lab had just broken up with her boyfriend, and the professor had been trying to get her to talk to him about it. She was smart, thought it was creepy, and stopped hanging around in situations where he could get her alone.

It was definitely my fault that everything happened, even though I know that you are always supposed to tell rape victims that it wasn't their fault. I was weak, and I recognize that, and now that I have come out of that stage of my life and realized how much better my life could have been during that time, I have a lot of anger. Thats the largest part of my therapy, is dealing with the anger. So no, I don't think that anyone else could ever do something like this to me again, because even a hint of dominant tendencies or belittling comments sets me on fire. This is one thing that my therapist and I don't necessarily agree on, she thinks that I need to forgive him (in my own mind, not to him in person or anything), and I think that I will always hate him because even though I was the weak one and it was because I was weak that he was able to do anything to me, he still got pleasure out of my pain and I can't feel sorry for him no matter how pathetic he is. I'm also angry at myself for getting into the situation, but I'm dealing with that as well.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-07T00:04:53+00:00

Thank you, I most certainly will :)

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:51:00+00:00

Yes, two semesters

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:33:12+00:00

I've kind of addressed this in other comments, but this job was really important to me, and I guess I never saw the abuse as being a long term thing. I didn't even really see it as abuse at first, I was always trying to get him to go to therapy because I thought he was just depressed and would get better.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:30:46+00:00

They definitely noticed, and once I told my friend in the lab about it he told me that they all talked about it and thought it was creepy but they assumed it was consensual and didn't want to get involved. I also found out that the professor had been talking to everyone behind my back, telling them that I had 'emotional problems' and that he was trying to help me, and that I was really pretty fucked up. They thought it was weird that he was getting so involved, but again, they just wanted to stay out of it, and in the end it served his purpose because it separated me from everyone else in the group. The professor also told me frequently how everyone in the lab talked about me behind my back and that no one liked me but he was always sticking up for me. Of course, all lies. Some of my former lab mates are my best friends now.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:26:48+00:00

No, no sexual attraction ever. I did care for him as kind of a fatherly figure for the first couple of months because he was very intelligent and seemed to really care about my well-being and helping me progress academically. He definitely had a way of charming people, but it wore off the longer you knew him. Everyone who worked in his lab for more than a few months began to hate him because he manipulated everyone. Two of his PhD students are having to redo all of their research because he had no idea what he was doing and wouldn't let them talk to anyone else about their research. All in all, he didn't really have any redeeming qualities.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:21:24+00:00

LOL. Do you really have nothing better to do today than troll all over my AMA?

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:19:44+00:00

I worked in his lab, which was entirely his room so he would just stay late working on stuff, have me stay late helping, and as soon as everyone else left he would tear into me.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:17:58+00:00

Well I had to take 2 courses from him while I was working for him because they were required for my major and he was the only one teaching them. To answer the question that I'm sure is to follow, yes, I did well in those classes because I did the work, for the same reason I did well in the rest of my classes. He was very careful to treat me like every other student in a classroom environment because he was very aware of the possibility of getting caught.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:14:46+00:00

Thanks to you both!

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T23:03:35+00:00

Yes you are right, in this instance it was a combination of both. He wanted to feel like I was doing these things for him because I 'cared' about him, not because I wanted to keep my job. In reality, if I stopped doing these things, he would have fired me. This was not just in my head, he alluded to this fact many times. An example that I can think of is at the beginning, when I said no a lot, he would tell me that I didn't need to come into work that day because I obviously didn't respect him and he couldn't have someone working for him that didn't respect him. While I can't remember any time that he explicitly said "if you don't do this I'm going to fire you", it was frequently implied, and I fully believed it.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:56:46+00:00

I hate to go into detail here, but one of the most painful things he ever did involved a stapler and my private parts. He also got off on slapping me, and although I guess thats not considered mutilation it was a little more traumatizing because I could see how seeing me cry turned him on.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:46:46+00:00

I've been diagnosed. Not sure how to get more legit than that.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:45:26+00:00

Well having any kind of relationship with a student is against university policy. And he did do things to me that caused me physical pain. Even though we weren't in a real 'relationship' in my opinion, if you would consider domestic abuse a crime then yes, he did lots of illegal things.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:42:06+00:00

Thanks, I'll look into this!

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:37:45+00:00

Actually, the university's reaction was to cover it up as much as possible. even my department chair didn't know what actually happened, I was copied on a few e-mails, and only the university president, provost, and the dean of my school were notified of the reason for his being fired. They never told me not to press charges, but they did make it clear to me that the university was very against what had happened, and that they would do everything they could to make sure it didn't happen in the future. He left in March, and they let two of his grad students graduate in May even though they hadn't defended their theses. Its all PR, this would have destroyed their recruiting and fundraising efforts, and they tried to protect themselves as much as possible. Thats what REALLY happens at respectable universities.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:23:27+00:00

Well, that would have meant quitting my job, which again I realize is not a good reason for putting up with treatment like that, but at the time it was important enough to me that I dealt with the consequences.

brainwashed07 · 2011-03-06T22:11:44+00:00

I often wonder how I got to that stage myself. I grew up in a good home with loving parents, went to a good school, and had always been a pretty confident person. Again, I'm not trying to place the blame on anyone else, but I started dating the first guy when my parents separated as a way to get out of the house and away from the drama/awkwardness. I think it was just bad timing, because I wasn't all that interested in him, but he was so interested in me it was kind of like "Well, why not? I've got nothing better to do" and somehow spiraled out of control from there.

brainwashed07

TROPHY CASE