‘I feel numb to it’: The before and after of sexual violence on Miami’s campus

Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault, violence and other sensitive topics that some readers might find upsetting. 

Bella’s name in this article is an alias to protect her privacy and those involved. Hoye decided to use only her last name to protect her full identity, as well.

Bella had spent only one weekend at Miami University before meeting a man in her honors dorm on Western campus in 2022. They flirted. Bantered. They even spent two nights together in his dorm room.

She trusted him.

That changed when she stayed over a third night.

She said it was like any other time they hung out during the two weeks of knowing each other, peacefully falling asleep, some light cuddling. But it was different when he kissed and touched her while she wasn’t fully awake.

Bella said she didn’t have much experience with sex, so when he started to pull on her shirt and kiss her, she rejected him. But he didn’t stop.

“Eventually I just kind of gave up and let him do what he wanted because I was just so tired and I didn’t really know what to do,” Bella said.

They had sex that night.

What Bella said she experienced is shared by thousands of other survivors.

Nearly two-thirds of college students are sexually harassed, and among college women, nine out of 10 victims of rape and sexual assault know their offender. More than 90% of the assaults go unreported, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center

Now a junior, Bella said at the time she didn’t realize she’d been raped.

“I thought I liked this guy, and I had never had sex before, so I didn’t really know, like, how things were supposed to go,” Bella said.

Over the next couple of months, Bella struggled with school and completing everyday activities as she tried to understand what happened to her.

Near the end of October in her first year, two months after the initial incident, he started acting strange toward her. She said he would steal artwork off her door and harass her in their shared dorm hallway.

After that, she approached her resident director and told them about that night in September and what he’d been doing since. Bella said it was the first time anyone mentioned sexual assault.

Things sped up from there. Bella talked to Miami’s Title IX and the Miami University Police Department (MUPD) about the incident.

“When I talked to Title IX about what my experience was, they were the ones who told me, ‘What you described is the definition of rape,’” Bella said.

After reporting him, she said she was scared to leave her room for fear of seeing him. She said she felt he turned her whole dorm against her. Of the three people on Bella’s side, one of them gave a statement on her behalf. Bella said she was scared to the point where she asked friends to always be with her in her dorm.

“I had friends from high school who came [to visit],” she said, “and would come with me on the few times that I would leave so that I wouldn’t be alone as I was walking in and out of my room.”

It got to the point where Bella moved back home in mid-November and commuted to school until she could move into another honors dorm in January. She said it took Title IX until April to reach a verdict because new evidence would be submitted, the other party could respond to it and the cycle kept repeating.

She said during the process, she was pushing for an adaptable resolution over an investigation.

An adaptable resolution pathway offers the respondent or accused the opportunity to acknowledge harm and seek repair without an investigation, hearing or needing to find a party “responsible” for a policy violation, according to the university policy library.

Bella’s end goal was for him to apologize, admit responsibility and tell the truth to the people he turned against her.

Finally, in May, Title IX ruled she was not raped.

“They sided with him,” Bella said, “and that was heartbreaking for me. I thought that I would have to move schools because I just felt so distraught.”

Psychological and physical effects

“I’ve been here for 25 years, and [sexual assault] happens all the time,” said Terri Messman, a psychology professor at Miami and clinical psychologist, with a focus on sexual assault and sexual abuse.

Messman’s studies center around factors that help promote recovery like self-compassion and how to battle shame and self-blame.

Specifically, Messman studies disclosure responses or the reaction to someone sharing information, such as an experience of abuse or sexual misconduct.

Messman said the issue is that by the time students get to college, the perpetrators of sexual assault have already formed these negative behaviors – they don’t start once they get to college.

In some cases, the lasting effects of sexual assault can differ if the accuser previously knew the perpetrator. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, most of the time they do.

The most common type of sexual assault is alcohol or drug-related, Messman said, where someone is incapacitated. That type of assault typically happens by people who don’t know each other well, but they might be acquaintances.

Another type of rape happens between dating partners, which is more likely to be a forcible rape, Messman said, where their partner is forcing them to do it.

Afterward, victims can suffer from self-blame, betrayal trauma and challenges processing trauma because of memory impairment from substances.

According to Medical News Today, the concept of betrayal trauma examines how a person processes and remembers a betrayal committed by a trusted person. This trauma affects someone beyond the scope of the experience.

It can contribute to revictimization, where people who experience betrayal trauma as children are more likely to encounter it repeatedly throughout their lives and see dysfunctional behavior as acceptable rather than processing their trauma.

Messman added that research shows for any person who’s been raped, the odds are that they’ve been raped more than once. She said this creates a “cumulative impact of the trauma,” where it keeps building on top of itself.

Increased levels of anxiety as a fear response is a common trauma response specific to rape. Instances of this can include being afraid to be alone, panic attacks, becoming afraid of the dark, not wanting to sleep alone and the desire to be with your parents. Other trauma responses include jumpiness, hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating and trouble sleeping.

Messman also said the responses can include numbness, where survivors dissociate and act like nothing happened in an attempt to return to normalcy, or they can become very irritable and sad, similar to depression.

For some, there’s a general aversion to sex and being touched. For others, they become hypersexual, trying to regain control.

The effects aren’t just mental, though. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the consequences may be chronic. Survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and experience recurring reproductive, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and sexual health problems.

Sexual violence is also linked to negative health behaviors, including smoking, abusing alcohol, using drugs and engaging in risky sexual activity.

Hoye’s story

Hoye said she woke up at four in the morning last fall in her room on North Quad to a man’s tongue in her mouth and his body on top of her.

She never gave him consent.

The pair met on Snapchat through the Miami community story and had been hanging out the night before, watching anime and doing homework when they fell asleep.

“When I originally woke up to him on top of me,” Hoye, an emerging technology and business design major, said, “I was so tired, and I’d say delusional, as in, I can’t think. I can’t say anything. I can’t move. I can’t do anything to where I never gave consent, and it was scary to me because I didn't realize till a few days later, what he did was wrong.”

Hoye went to her parents first, who helped her contact her dorm’s RA and go to MUPD. This was the first time she reported being sexually assaulted, although she said she had been sexually assaulted a year prior.

She said her RA told her, “It’s not your fault” and that there’s a legal process she has to go through with the police. The RA also offered counseling and support group options. Hoye decided not to go through with legal action, but she did attend counseling services.

“I chose not to because [of] how scared I was because he’s a big guy,” she said. “I know I can’t fight against that, and with him living so close and knowing exactly where my room was [it made me feel unsafe].”

Hoye’s feelings pushed her to move to a different floor of her dorm.

Later that day, MUPD’s report of a sexual assault on North Quad went out.

After the incident, she said she felt numb to it, and the experience reinforced her fear of men.

Later, Hoye reached out to him before he blocked her on all social media. She asked why he thought his actions were OK.

“He said he was awake the whole time, and thought I was awake,” she said. “That was his only reasoning

Hoye said even though she didn’t press charges, her end goal is to avoid him at all costs. She doesn’t want to be near him, talk to him or see him.

“Even though he did that, it feels wrong pressing charges, having that on his record and kind of taking his future career away,” Hoye said. “So I always feel like that’s hard on people trying to bounce back, so I don’t think I would. Maybe a restraining order, nothing else.”

Hoye said she felt the university handled her situation well.

Miami’s response and resources

The Office of Community Standards houses Title IX and its affiliated services.

After her investigation and hearing process, Bella said she felt angry that Title IX did not do what it promised: protect her from retaliation. She said he spread lies about her, saying she made it up.

“It just feels unfair that he got to take so much from me and then there were no consequences,” Bella said. “And it makes me mad that Title IX claims they will help people, and then they seem to always side with the perpetrator. I talked to other friends who experienced something similar or knew someone who did, and everyone says the same thing: Miami Title IX does not care about survivors of sexual assault.”

Maria Vitullo, the director of community standards, wrote in an email to The Miami Student, “The University, through its Deputy Title IX Coordinator, has a variety of resources and supportive measures available to students who may have experienced an incident of sexual misconduct.”

Bella also added that she felt let down by Title IX because its claims of being trauma-informed weren’t backed up in her case.

Trauma-informed care seeks to realize the widespread impact of trauma and understand paths for recovery, recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma, integrate knowledge about trauma into policies and actively avoid re-traumatization, according to the Trauma Informed Care Implementation Research Center.

Cecilie McGhehey, the deputy Title IX coordinator, didn’t respond to an interview request by the time of publication.

Rebecca Young, the director of the Office of Student Wellness, oversees the university’s strategic plan for promoting mental health, sexual interpersonal violence prevention, survivor support and substance use. Young is also part of the Coordinated Community Response Team, which is committed to creating a campus culture dedicated to the prevention of and response to sexual and interpersonal violence, according to the Dean of Students website.

More specifically, the response team is a collaboration between Miami’s Title IX coordinator, assistant director for sexual interpersonal violence prevention, Women Helping Women, student counseling and representatives from Miami’s Associated Student Government.

Young said the group meets monthly to discuss programming and look for a more comprehensive approach to educating students who want to learn.

Miami provides sexual assault prevention training for undergraduates through a first-year experience course, aiming to help students become informed before coming to a college campus. The course focuses on when sexual assault can occur, what to do in that situation and bystander training.

Miami is also partnered with Women Helping Women. The memorandum of understanding states: “The parties will work together to provide trauma-informed services to student and employee victims of sexual assault and to improve the overall response to sexual assault at Miami University.” 

Young added that Ohio collects data from all the public universities around sexual interpersonal violence, and those questions are included in Miami’s Student Health Survey in the spring. That data is then given to the state and a report is given back comparing Miami to other public universities.

“Miami consistently has students report that they have greater confidence in the university to respond,” Young said. “They have greater confidence that the university will take them seriously and believe them. They have greater confidence in the actions that will come after, as far as support.”

Sexual assault spreads off campus

Pixie Menezes made it through her first semester at Miami in 2022 and roughly a month into spring semester she went to a senior’s off-campus apartment to hang out.

They had talked for a couple of days on the anonymous social media app YikYak when she agreed to go over. The two of them started to kiss on his couch, but then she said it went too far.

Menezes said he brought her to his bedroom, velcroed her arms and legs to the bed, strangled her and raped her for three hours while one of his roommates was in the other room. During the three hours, he also took nonconsensual pictures of her naked.

“Throughout the incident, I had said I was in pain,” Menezes said, “I asked him to stop multiple times, which led to me being gagged as well.”

After he untied her, she couldn’t move for 10 minutes due to the pain.

That was when he asked if she wanted to take a shower. After multiple times pushing the topic, her final answer was “no.”

“With my ‘Criminal Minds’ knowledge, I said, ‘No,’ because it would get rid of evidence,” Menezes said.

He dropped her off at her East Quad dorm, where she immediately got an Uber to the hospital.

SANE is a Registered Nurse who has received special training to provide comprehensive care to sexual assault victims. They’re also able to conduct a forensic exam and may provide expert testimony if a case goes to trial, according to RAINN.

The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) exam used the man’s DNA at McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford to verify they had sex.

Menezes said she left half a day later with medicine to prevent HIV, in case he exposed her to it.

When he gave his formal statement the first time to the police, she said he admitted to most of it but changed his story to being fully consensual when he had to recount it again at the police station on tape.

He maintained that story throughout the rest of the police and Title IX processes. 

The next few days were filled with shock.

 “I didn’t think anything like that could ever happen to me,” Menezes said.

That feeling didn’t fade. For the next two weeks after the incident, she didn’t leave her room, skipped class and struggled to eat. She said her friends snuck food from the dining halls in plastic containers to bring to her.

Menezes’ Title IX process

Menezes submitted the formal Title IX report five days after the initial incident, and then Title IX Investigator Wesley Highley interviewed her the next month.

“He ended up crying during my interview because of how gross everything was,” Menezes said. “Honestly, that was very validating for someone else to have acknowledged how awful it was.”

The student went through the same interview process as Menezes, but she said he came equipped with a lawyer and a written statement. Menezes said she didn’t know that was an option or that she could have a representative. Miami’s sexual misconduct protocol states that every student is provided information on guidance through its steps.

According to the university policy library, a respondent is presumed not responsible for the alleged conduct until a determination regarding responsibility is made after the student conduct process.

The final investigation report stated the specific section of the code of student conduct relevant to this investigation was non-Title IX sexual misconduct because it happened off campus and not in any building owned or controlled by Miami.

The investigation resulted in a hearing, where Menezes said a board of three men and one woman oversaw the case.

In July, they determined that it was not rape because Menezes could not remember if he took her clothing off or if she did. She said they deemed her an incredible source and found him not responsible.

Menezes appealed the decision based on new evidence. She said three other girls contacted her, saying they experienced similar things with the same man, with each assault becoming more violent.

Menezes said a former Title IX coordinator told her she couldn’t use that as evidence, but she found out later he was wrong.

Community standards did not accept the appeal.

“[It’s] really heartbreaking because it could have changed things, especially with that many women,” Menezes said.

Menezes said she started getting violent nightmares as soon as she moved back to Oxford from home, but now, two years later, she said her symptoms are “a million times better than they used to be.”

stumbata@miamioh.edu