This isn't an easy story to tell, but I've been up all night thinking about why the stories linking sexual predator Matt Lauer to alleged sexism toward Hillary at a political forum 14 months ago were resurrected yesterday, and why they bothered me so much I felt compelled to write about it. And last night, a nasty twitter exchange with a Clinton supporter made me understand why. Because 35 years ago I was raped.

Since February 13, 2015, I stepped out from behind my online moniker in a post at Daily Kos that I republished here at Caucus99. Besides my real name, I revealed a lot of personal information about myself, including referencing a diary at Daily Kos (posted in 2011 and now archived at my Medium site) in which I came out as bi-sexual. What I chose not to mention, however, is that in my early twenties I was raped. Until today, I have never felt compelled to go public about what is a very private and painful memory. But that changed yesterday.

My life at the time was a mess. My second marriage had collapsed after my ex-wife, who had encouraged the exploration of my sexuality, left me for an older man with a high paying job. I worked at a dead end job and was extremely depressed. I used the gay club scene in Denver and abused numerous recreational drugs (abusing recreational drugs (marijuana, nitrous oxide, amyl nitrite, amphetamines and Quaaludes, among others) to escape my feelings of worthlessness and despair.

I've often found it hard to describe why I found the gay scene of the early eighties so appealing. However, as a severely shy person with low self-esteem, gay clubs were a revelation for me. In gay slang, I would be called today a "twink." I was very slender at 5'11 and 145 pounds and was often mistaken for a underage teenager. At a gay club, I didn't have to pretend to be masculine, or display macho behaviors. I could express the effeminate traits that I suppressed during my "normal" life without fear of being derided or shunned.

And to accentuate my effeminate appearance, I wore makeup, women's perfume, jewelry, curled my hair and dressed in camisoles or silk blouses and wore tight jeans. Instead of being seen as perverse or immoral, this was accepted behavior among the gay community. Going to a gay club allowed me the liberty of not having to find a partner and face rejection. Instead, many gay men found me attractive. I was an object of desire for the first time in my life. Men pursued me. I could choose whether I wanted to dance with them, accept a drink from them or have a sexual encounter with them.

I was also incredibly naive.

Many parents go to great lengths to warn our daughter girls and young women of the dangers of sexually aggressive men. Wrongly or rightly, we frequently micromanage our daughter's appearance, impose greater restrictions on their relationships and generally express mote concern for the risk that they may suffer sexual abuse or assault. Those efforts often fail or prove counter-productive, but many of us still tend to go feel the need to "protect the girls." We constantly warn them of the possibility of rape and other forms of sexual assault.

With boys, on the other hand, it is usually the exact opposite. Parents hardly ever warn our sons that they also may become the victims of sexual predators. I know in my youth I did not expect that I could be sexually assaulted by gay men. That they too, might might force themselves on me and not take no for an answer. So when it happened, I was completely unprepared.

It was an evening in late Fall. Lacking a car, I took a cab to the club. I danced with a number of men, got more than a little drunk, and made generous use of "poppers" and other drugs provided by my dance partners. At one point in the evening, I noticed a large man, over six feet tall and weighing more than 250 pounds, standing with a female companion. eyeing me intently. During a break in the music, they came over and asked if I would have a drink with them. I said, sure why not. That was what I was there for, anyway. It was just a drink after all.

We sat and chatted for a bit. The man did all the talking. He kept saying how pretty I was. Not uncommon, but something seemed a little off about him and her. When I asked the them about their relationship, the man said they were just friends that liked to have threesomes together sometimes. He asked me if I was interested. I wasn't attracted to either one. However, not wanting to create any hard feelings, I made excuses, said that I had too much to drink, and had to work in the morning. I thanked them for the offer, but essentially I tried to convey in the nicest way possible that I wasn't interested. The man protested for a while, so I said my goodbyes and left them.

Shortly thereafter, I walked out the door of the club, but found no cabs waiting for fares. I wasn't comfortable standing around with the usual Denver cops who always seemed to be around the entrance, so I went back inside and asked the bartender if he could call a me a taxi. That's when he said the police had been cracking down on cabs parking near the club, and many of the cab companies just refused to pick people up there. If I wanted one, I would have to go downtown, a walk of about six blocks. He asked me if I'd come with anyone, and when I said no, that I was alone, he said he'd try to find someone who would escort me. The gist? He didn't think it was safe for someone looking like me to make that trek alone.

When he returned, it was with the couple I'd just left. The bartender said he knew them, and they were happy to help me out. Okay, I thought, sure. We went to the woman's car. She drove. The man got in the back seat with me, and crowded next to me. I was uncomfortable but didn't want to make a fuss. Halfway to my studio apartment in the Congress Park area, he started kissing me, grabbing my face and turning it toward him. I told him to stop, and after I pushed him away, he did, mumbling something I can't recall. His breath stunk from alcohol. I was concerned, but figured he'd just had too much to drink.

When we arrived at my address, he insisted on walking me up to my apartment. Wouldn't let me out until I agreed. Now I was starting to get afraid. I asked the woman to join us, but he said she needed to stay with the car. As we walked up the stairs to my studio, he kept his hands on me at all times. At the door, I thanked him for the ride and told him goodnight. Again, he demanded a kiss. I relented, after getting him to promise to leave afterward. He finished and took a step back. I opened my door and said good night, but he forced himself inside, literally pushing me with his body. I told him I wanted him to go. That he had promised. That his girlfriend was waiting for him. But he grabbed my hand, and took my keys away. Then he began pushing me toward my mattress that served as my bed in one corner of the floor. Then he said something I'll never forget.

"You're pretty. I wanna fuck you."

By this time, he had grabbed both my arms and was pushing me onto the mattress. I said no, again. I said a lot of things trying to get him to stop. Nothing mattered. He just kept repeating his little mantra, "I wanna fuck you." After forcing me onto the bed, he pulled my jeans off, and then the silk shirt I wore. I didn't resist, I just froze. I don't believe I've ever been more frightened in my life. He pushed me over onto my belly, unzipped his pants, spread my legs and, with the full weight of his body crushing me, he fucked me.

I was too scared to do anything but just lie there and let him do it. The physical pain was awful, but the psychological fear was much worse. Every bad thing you can imagine went through my head. I was convinced he was going to kill me. He was bigger, stronger. It was terrifying. He finished and fell asleep on top of me. I couldn't move. He was too heavy. After about twenty minutes, just as I managed to wiggle my upper half out from under him, he woke up. And then he did it again.

This time when he was done he mashed me into the wall against which my mattress rested. We lay like that for what seemed forever, though it was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes, him snoring, me silently freaking out. I finally manged to get off the bed, and find a robe to cover myself. I may have gone to the bathroom. Why I didn't try to leave I'll never understand. Instead, I went over and woke him up. It took a while. He was groggy, disoriented. I told him thanks for the wonderful time (yes, I remember saying that) but he needed to go now. I just kept saying he needed to go now, as I helped him pull up his pants, and walked him to my door. I remember waving after him as he stumbled down the stairs. Then when he was far enough away, I locked myself in, sat on the toilet and bawled my eyes out.

The next day I moved out of that apartment and went back to living with my parents. After that I rarely went to a gay club again. I never explained why to anyone.

I'd worked as a counselor at a group home for adolescent girls, many of who had been sexually abused by their fathers or uncles or whomever. I thought I understood how rape victims felt, thought I knew the emotional issues they faced, but I didn't, not deep down in my gut. Now I did.

Did I ever report the rape to the police? No. I had no expectations the Denver police would do anything. After all, I was just a little faggot to them. I had no physical scars to show that I'd been raped, other than some bleeding from my anus, and I doubted they would even bother looking for the guy. But I was also afraid. Afraid they might find him, or that he might find me. Better to stay quiet. Safer.

And I was ashamed. I blamed myself for what my rapist had done to me. You can't imagine how often the words, "if I'd only done this ..." reverberated through my head. Worse, I was ashamed that I hadn't fought back. I mean, that's what everyone says you;'e supposed to do. Even though from my own work with those teen girls who'd been raped I knew that most victims usually don;t resist, I still felt I should have done more. I was raised as most boys are in America. Someone tries to hurt you, you fight back. You stand your ground. Only cowards give up, give in. And I hadn't done that. I'd failed as a man.

So I repressed the memory of that night as best I could. And when I couldn't, I told myself the story that it hadn't really been all that bad. That I handled it the best way possible. I survived, right? Became a successful attorney. Had a family who loved me. But despite the passage of time, even years, some wounds never really heal. I found that out yesterday.

When the Think Progress article came out yesterday tying Matt Lauer's despicable behavior to his alleged sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton at the forum on foreign policy in early September 2016, I was infuriated. How dare they, I thought. These women had suffered a great deal at the hands of a truly awful man. How dare someone use their pain to elevate Hillary to the same status as Lauer's sexual abuse victims.

I confess, I have a bias against Hillary Clinton. I remember when all the sexual abuse and assault claims came out against Bill Clinton. At the time, it felt wrong that the media (other than Fox News) kept attacking and questioning the allegations raised by Paula Jones, Juanita Broadrick and Kathleen Wiley and others. I watched their interviews, read their stories, and they struck me as quite plausible. But I was a Democrat then, and supported Clinton's presidency after 16 years of having a Republican in the Oval Office.

Plus I felt sorry for Hillary. So I ignored what, in a better world, would have driven him from office and landed him in prison for sexual assault. Looking back, I am ashamed that I just shoved my initial feelings about his behavior under the rug. Knowing what I know now that both Bill and Hillary operated a smear machine to attack his "bimbo eruptions" whenever an accuser came forward with allegations of his sexual predation, I despise them both.

So yesterday triggered me. I reacted strongly against what I saw as a false equivalence between Lauer's "tough questioning" of Hillary Clinton and the sexual abuse he imposed on his co-workers. To my view, this was an attempt by Clinton's supporters, with or without her tacit approval, to exploit the pain of those women who'd been victimized by Lauer, a sexual predator much like Bill Clinton, to gain sympathy for her because she had to answer questions from Lauer about her conduct as Secretary of state, questions that were legitimate, and questions for which Lauer had been criticized at the time by many media outlets for being motivated by sexism. Whether his behavior was "sexist" or not (and we all know how carelessly the Clinton campaign unjustifiably threw that accusation at Bernie Sanders and his supporters), I saw these articles as a naked attempt to elevate Lauer's interview of her as equal to the level of suffering his female co-workers endured for years.

Yet it wasn't until I had an interaction with a Clinton supporter last night over this very issue that I was faced with the reason why I felt such extreme animus about this. After someone tweeted out this article from 2016, "How Sexism, Like Matt Lauer’s, Could Imperil the Nation," that I went off.

I thought she was tough? Vetted. She probably signed off on Lauer as interviewer. Hell she may have had the questions in advance for all we know, But yeah, she lost because #MattLauer is sexist. Have you no shame? On a day about Lauer's victims you make it about #HRC? Sad

— Steven Searls (@StevenDBT) November 30, 2017

This led to a series of tweets back and forth between myself and another person to the conversation, which you can choose to read or not. Admittedly, it was not my finest moment, because I continued to engage with a Clinton supporter who didn't accept I had a valid point to make. But I was astonished that people were deliberately distorting my argument. After I was told I was the one who was in the wrong for even bringing this up, I lost it. I tweeted: "You ever been raped? Talk to me after you have. Until then you have no idea what I am talking about and never will." The response to that was: "Fuck off. Fuck you and your obsession. Go fuck yourself." Then I was told that this person had been raped and she or he essentially accused me of being a rapist. Not the best outcome for anyone. Mea culpa.

But if anything, yesterday taught me I'm still not over the trauma I suffered 35 years ago. I don't know what is going on with the "great sex panic of 2017" as some are calling it. Some have suggested its long overdue, others that it is part of a conspiracy to bring down Trump, or eviscerate the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. I'm not that politically astute to be able to discern why, at this particular time, we are seeing so many powerful politicians, media "super stars" and other powerful people brought down by revelations of sexual assault and harassment.

What I do know, is that there are millions of people, children, women and men, who have been sexually assaulted and raped. Most of them were not attacked by famous or powerful people, but all of them deserve to be heard and their claims, when they feel courageous enough to come forward with them, should not be summarily dismissed. I fear, however, that outside of these few high profile cases, nothing much will change. Regular people will continue to be assaulted and their claims denied, disbelieved or worse, they will be blamed for what happened to them. There are so many like Weinstein and Lauer and O'Reilly and Moore, and yes, Trump, out there in the world. Our controlled propaganda outlets (i.e., corporate controlled media) are pulling the curtain back on a few instances of abuse. However, I doubt they are doing it to benefit the innumerable sexual abuse victims in this country, of that I an certain. Meanwhile the wheels of injustice, of inequality, of misery keep grinding down the vast majority of us. I feel we are watching an evil reality show that will not end well.

And that is my last word on that.

Take care,

Steven D