Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

Tolentino begins her examination of rape culture at the University of Virginia, her alma mater, by discussing what appealed to her about the school. She writes that its image was "a sort of honeyed Eden, a college town with Dixie ease and gracefulness but liberal intellectual ideals" (197). Moving to Charlottesville at 16, Tolentino remarks that she loved time there, graduating in 2009. Then, a 2014 magazine story made her reconsider her relationship to the school.

This story, "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, appeared in Rolling Stone and described the rape of a woman, Jackie, at the Phi Kappa Psi frat at UVA. According to the article, seven men at the frat beat and raped her over the course of three hours. Later, she told Dean Nicole Eramo. When Eramo presented Jackie with options, Jackie decided not to pursue a case against the men.

Tolentino notes that there was precedent for this attack. In 1984, student Liz Seccuro had been raped at Phi Psi. While her attack had been minimized by the dean at the time, Seccuro received a letter of apology from one of her attackers, who was going through treatment in Alcoholics' Anonymous, in 2005. In the school's history, only 14 people had ever been found guilty of sexual misconduct, and nobody had ever been expelled.

When the article appeared, Tolentino was working at Jezebel, a feminist website. Since her time in college, the context of these cases had changed. These had become national stories. Tolentino's editor at Jezebel asked her about the story, given her own understanding of the school. Tolentino admitted that some details seemed off to her, but she wrote these off. Other journalists, however, began digging into story. The Washington Post reported that no party had occurred at the frat that night; meanwhile, evidence piled up that "Drew" did not exist as Jackie had described him. CNN interviewed Jackie's friends and found more problems with her story. In this context, Erdely got a call from Jackie. The next day, she emailed her editor and publisher to issue a retraction. Eventually, Dean Eramo sued both Jackie and Erdely for defamation and won.

However, Jackie had been attacked in some way. She had called her friends, upset, but did not have injuries. In this recounting, she was attacked by five men, which she reported to the dean several months later. The following year, after what she considered retaliation, she followed up with the dean, then told her about two other women who had been attacked. Eramo had recommended that she report these events to the local police department.

Erdely had written on this topic before and was looking for an assignment that would show on-campus tensions surrounding rape. She had considered covering incidents at several different schools before she met Jackie met through member of Jackie's support group. However, when Jackie talked to Erdely, Jackie's story had changed from what Erdely had initially heard. There were particularly issues around whether she actually had scars and whether Drew was a real person. Tolentino also writes that Erdely ignored red flags out of respect for the rape recovery process.

Tolentino then pivots back to a discussion of Seccuro's case. When her accuser wrote to her, it became clear that he didn't consider the attack rape, saying she had not put up a fight. In her memoir, Seccuro recalls the dean and police department downplaying her attack. 20 years later, a reinvestigation revealed that her memories of the event were true. Three men had attacked her; the man who wrote to her had been seen by witnesses dragging her, screaming, into a room. In the deposition, Jackie admitted to having read Seccuro's memoir in a class. Furthermore, Jackie had mentioned an SVU episode to Erdely that she claimed was similar to her case. In this context, Tolentino wonders if Jackie had come to believe parts of these events as her own story.

Tolentino then analyzes the fallout from the revelations that Jackie's story had been partially fabricated, focusing particularly on the outrage about false accusations. To contextualize this, Tolentino turns to biblical stories and Greek myths about false accusations, which, she writes, are "framed as obscene anomalies" (211), while rape appears in these same texts as sanctioned. It is presented as a crime on property, which American law has historically reflected. This same attitude, Tolentino writes, prevailed at UVA. Many students had been kicked out for honor code violations, whereas sexual assault only led to a letter of reprimand that could be later reviewed. Tolentino cites several examples, noting recent improvements in the administration's treatment of cases.

Tolentino discusses cultural history of UVA and the historical context for frats' liberties and social environment in particular. The history of white fraternities has been a history of creating networks to reinforce power structures. Universities often overlook bad behavior at frats because of the significant alumni donations they lead to, as well as the creation of extra housing. This gives frat members a sense of immunity. However, they have a long history of dangerous and violent behavior, including hazing, drinking and drugs, and wild parties. Tolentino then recontextualizes Jackie's story as a false accusation for a real problem. She cites Elizabeth Schambelan's argument that Jackie's story may have been an attempt to reclaim power. She then adds to the context by describing the city as a whole. The location of a 2010 white power rally, Charlottesville has a history of linking gendered and racial violence. Tolentino traces connections to other violent incidents, giving examples from the area and the school.

Tolentino presents this as compatible with the school's social history. In 1819, Thomas Jefferson founded UVA, and is still a celebrated figure on-campus. However, he had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings, who he enslaved, while writing about the "inferiority" of Black people. Tolentino writes that the appearances vs. reality dynamic has been uncomfortable at UVA from start. Early students, "drawn from the Southern slave-owning class, were uncontrollable" (223). Their bad behavior was hidden under the honor code, but administrators nevertheless feared the bad publicity that student violence could bring the school. UVA went coed in 1970. Before then, a well-connected girl had been gang-raped in 1954, leading to the expulsion or suspension of her twelve attackers. The students were furious at this and successfully fought to change the student government. Tolentino states that the school can't have a real concept of itself until it admits to the truth of its past.

Since Jackie's story came out, Tolentino writes, Erdely's goals have been realized: there has been more reporting and public effects about sexual assault. Tolentino questions whether later work in pursuing offenders would have been so strong without the mistakes Erdely made. Tolentino recalls how a young woman, under the pseudonym Frances, wrote to Tolentino during her first month at UVA after being attacked. Her attacker was suspended that week. However, months later, Frances' attacker was found not guilty due to some alleged incongruities in reporting and returned to campus. Despite the big changes in our social understanding of such attacks, Tolentino writes, rape is a crime that tends towards a stance of blaming the victim.

Online, Tolentino finds Jackie's old wedding registry. She pictures Jackie's house containing the objects listed in the registry. Since the original story, she has read online attacks against Jackie and the reporter and felt resentment towards them herself. However, she notes that this is a displacement of anger, and that what she is really mad about is sexual assault. She returns to Schambelen again to suggest that Jackie may have been pointing out what the price of the social structures holding up the school truly was.

In this context, Tolentino considers her time in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, when the country was experiencing violence and genocide. When her host father kissed her, Tolentino reported it to an administrator, who said she was looking for an excuse to leave the village. In this incident, Tolentino came up against her individual inability to do anything about the system. She then became unsure about the dangers of any given situations she faced while serving. In retrospect, Tolentino writes, she wishes she had known her story didn't have to be perfect, and in fact could never be perfect. Then, she might have seen the truth.