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I was sexually assaulted at 7 and raped at 16: Padma Lakshmi

I was sexually assaulted at 7 and raped at 16: Padma Lakshmi

The author shares her #MeToo story in solidarity with Brett Kavanaugh's accusers
26 Sep, 2018

American author and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi opened up about her sexual assault to explain why women choose to remain silent about their ordeal.

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Lakshmi details her being sexual assaulted at the age of 7 and raped by her then boyfriend at 16.

"When I was 16 years old, I started dating a guy I met at the Puente Hills Mall in a Los Angeles suburb. He was in college, and I thought he was charming and handsome. He was 23," wrote the author.

She recounts the horrific incident in her article. "When we went out, he would park the car and come in and sit on our couch and talk to my mother. He never brought me home late on a school night. We were intimate to a point, but he knew that I was a virgin and that I was unsure of when I would be ready to have sex."

"On New Year’s Eve, just a few months after we first started dating, he raped me."

"The two of us had gone to a couple of parties. Afterward, we went to his apartment. While we were talking, I was so tired that I lay on the bed and fell asleep."

"The next thing I remember is waking up to a very sharp stabbing pain like a knife blade between my legs. He was on top of me. I asked, “What are you doing?” He said, “It will only hurt for a while.” “Please don’t do this,” I screamed.

"The pain was excruciating, and as he continued, my tears felt like fear."

"Afterward, he said, “I thought it would hurt less if you were asleep.” Then he drove me home."

"I didn’t report it. Not to my mother, not to my friends and certainly not to the police. At first I was in shock."

This ordeal haunted her for years to come, and she wrote that the reason she never spoke up about it or even reported it because of the culture of silence associated with sexual assault/rape/harassment. The blame lies on the women.

"I don’t think I classified it as rape — or even sex — in my head. Soon I began to feel that it was my fault. We had no language in the 1980s for date rape. I imagined that adults would say: “What the hell were you doing in his apartment? Why were you dating someone so much older?”"

"You may want to know if I had been drinking on the night of my rape. It doesn’t matter, but I was not drunk. Maybe you will want to know what I was wearing or if I had been ambiguous about my desires. It still doesn’t matter, but I was wearing a long-sleeved, black Betsey Johnson maxi dress that revealed only my shoulders," explained Lakshmi.

And this went back to her childhood years when she was "cast out" for speaking up about being sexually assaulted by a relative.

"When I was 7 years old, my stepfather’s relative touched me between my legs and put my hand on his erect penis. Shortly after I told my mother and stepfather, they sent me to India for a year to live with my grandparents. The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out."

Read the full article here.

Comments

Suraj71 Sep 26, 2018 11:38am
Even men are assaulted by relatives in their childhood. Delhi police visited schools to know about child abuse and they registered 1000 cases only in a single school visit.
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Umar Bin Ayaz Sep 26, 2018 12:00pm
Rape is an insult to manlihood. Real men don't rape. And we don't have "Real men" much around us. We never will. But its more complicated than just that, people report rape, date rape and even marital rape. Who would you blame for marital rape? Won't you blame the parents of the girl? At the end of the day, girls get physically and mentally assaulted, whoever we blame. And I don't think we are going to find a solution anytime soon.
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Khaled Sep 26, 2018 12:11pm
Sad & unfortunate.
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Changez Khan Sep 26, 2018 01:48pm
Rape is a norm in India.
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RationalBabu Sep 26, 2018 05:15pm
@Changez Khan: Nowhere in the world is rape a norm. Your obvious hatred for India has clouded your mind!
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MG Sep 26, 2018 05:37pm
@Changez Khan Trust you don't read such news from Pakistan. Have you heard a town named Kasur?
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Yours Truly Sep 27, 2018 12:36pm
@Changez Khan, I do not intend to draw a parallel, but remember Malik Ahmed Saeed, a Punjab minister of PML? And the video of 280 children who were raped and filmed by him and his goons? And the videos then sold in the international market? Or Mukhtaran Bibi? Not your finest hour though.
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Parth Sep 27, 2018 05:44pm
I was buggered by our domestic servant boy, when I was seven. I was molested by a holy man at age ten. I was only sixteen when the same holy man passionately kissed my mouth and used his power of influence over me and made me have oral and intra femoral sex with him saying it is a divine act. I swear by this but not many of you will believe this because it is coming from a commoner and not from a celebrity.
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Jonathan Menezes Sep 28, 2018 06:21am
Rape is Rape it happens in India and Pakistan and both countries are male dominated in the Court system so therefore the victims are afraid to complain. In America its the same but now with the #MEtoo movement more women are energized to tell their story.
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