“The first person to tell me I was gang-raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact,” novelist Jessica Knoll wrote in an essay for Lena Dunham and JenniKonner’s newsletter, Lenny Letter.It’s a heartrending statement, one that makes our culture’s tendency to ignore or undermine rape victims clear. As a consequence, repressed emotions, shame and denial are common responses to the crime. Understanding what happened to oneself as rape can be harrowing or impossible when similar acts aren’t publicly discussed as such; it’s no wonder Knoll was unsure. But, the recent groundswell of women publicly announcing that they were sexually assaulted gave her confidence. What happened to her was rape, even if her peers at the time refused to label it assuch.

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