jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- She wasn't drunk. And she was among friends.
But five years ago Stephanie Carver was raped by a guy she considered a friend.
"We'd been through thick and thin together," Carver said.
But that so-called friend slipped something into Carver's drink.
If Carver recalled correctly, she was drinking Sprite that night, and she stepped away from her beverage to mix and mingle a little bit at the dinner party. Carver returned and sipped some more.
Then she blacked out. And she was raped.
"I was a victim of date rape," said Carver, 36.
Carver's friend -- so-called -- who raped her is in prison, she said. She wasn't his only victim but was bold enough to ask to be tested for date-rape drugs. Carver was able to put together the pieces about her attacker after talking with friends who were at the dinner party.
But that didn't stop critics -- including church members -- from treating her like she consented to the sex, said Carver, who believes her healing came when she began helping other rape victims, which these days has her speaking out against the crime.
Her message, unfortunately, is sorely needed, other advocates said.
"Assuredly, it is an issue," said Aurelia Sands-Belle, executive director of the Durham Crisis Response Center. "It is an issue we should be talking about."
The rap on date rape
More than half of all rapes occur between people who know each other, said Leslie Muir, a sexual-assault crisis intervention specialist with the Durham Crisis Response Center. College-age women often are the victims, she said.
And the term "date rape" shouldn't be confined to things going wrong during a one-on-one evening out, Muir said. Date rape can and does stem from group outings, she said. It's what happened to Carver.
"Be wise, watchful, careful to trust," Carver said. "You can't even trust people that you know."
Carver runs her own printing business, and she does event planning. But her work to whip date rape consumes her, too, "because of what I've seen, because of what I know and because of what I've experienced," she explained.
Taking her ministry into Durham Public Schools is a goal for Carver. Right now she works with an adoption agency and pregnancy-support counselors to steer rape victims away from abortion or leaving their babies on stoops, Carver said.
Happy new year?
With both New Year's Day and the holiday's accompanying parties approaching, folks need to be mindful of their surroundings, whether in home settings or out on the town, whether they drink alcoholic beverages or not, according to Carver and Muir.
"Date-rape drugs can go in any drink," Muir said of the colorless, tasteless and odorless inhibitors.
But spiked drinks aside, "the number-one date-rape drug is alcohol," Muir said. People simply getting intoxicated from alcohol alone can lead to rapes, she said.
Date rape is not just an issue for women, Muir said. Men tend to believe they'd have the upper hand with an aggressive woman. But if a man's drink is spiked, then he can become inhibited to where a woman easily can handle him, Muir said.
And the whole matter of males generally being bigger and stronger than women is more or less is moot when a man is the aggressor against another man. It can happen, Muir explained.
Along that same line of thought, Muir tell women to protect themselves from date rape by taking self-defense classes, because karate moves won't do them much good if they've been inhibited by a date-rape drug, she said.
