Stories about the alleged gang rape at Cornell University have the country talking about campus sexual assault. It’s at this moment in time that a University of Tulsa graduate is releasing a memoir about her own rape.
Almost thirty years ago, a 19-year-old University of Tulsa student was kidnapped by knifepoint from a local car wash. She was taken to a second location, raped and physically assaulted by a man with a record of having been convicted of the same crime before.
Rhiannon Thoreson survived that horrific ordeal and is now a practicing lawyer in Tulsa who advocates for survivors just like her. But, Thoreson says, she is only one person. One survivor. She says the issue is systemic, and, with recent events at Cornell University making headlines, so much needs to change.
“It feels like this humongous problem," said Thoreson. "And it is, it is a humongous problem. And there's a, I think for me and for other people that work in this area, we want to tackle all of it all at once, but we can't.”
Thoreson relives her ordeal in a book that took her six years to write. Now finished, she hopes it becomes a source for other survivors to feel less alone.
To Thoreson, although there are many experts voices out there who have the education and knowledge of a survivor – they may not have the experience as one.
“And it's the survivor's voices that need to be heard, I think, the most,” said Thoreson.
Thoreson’s memoir “My Beauty from Ashes: Enduring the Fire, Becoming the Light” releases Oct. 15.
