Standing against silence

T-shirts clothes-pinned to a rope hung between trees Thursday night in Dunn Meadow, boasting messages from rape and sexual assault survivors.\n"You can take my virginity, but not my spirit," one of them said. \nMore than 100 students and community members turned out for the annual "Take Back the Night" march and vigil, a night of remembrance and support for sexual assault victims.\nThe most emotional part of the night was the "Speak Out" finale, an open-mic forum where survivors and supporters were encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences with sexual assault on the southeast corner of the Courthouse Square.\nOne survivor, an IU senior, recounted her experience at an out-of-town party a few years ago. The crowd of people at the party weren't the normal type of people she'd hang out with. She had a few drinks and went to bed in the house. A stranger came into the room in the middle of the night and raped her. She woke up in the middle of it.\nRapes by strangers make up only a small portion of sexual assaults, according to the Campus Outreach Services Web site, www.campusoutreachservices.com. Eighty-five percent of rape victims were raped by someone they know, according to the site.\nDealing with the aftermath from sexual assault, rape and violence against women was the important topic addressed at the vigil and march.The Bloomington Feminist Choir opened the night, singing songs of support, some written by choir members.\nCollen Yeakel, one of three speakers at the event, is an On-Scene Advocate and Crisis Intervention Services coordinator for the Middleway House, a local organization that helps battered women and children. She said the social stigma with rape and sexual assault is an issue the crowd needed to hear about.\n"These are crimes that are shrouded in secrecy," Yeakel said. "We're not allowed to talk about sex or male privilege, but to expose it like this at night and talk about the vulnerability women suffer as victims of sexual assault allows us to help create an essential situation where victims don't feel ashamed or like their experience is a secret."\nAfter the speakers in Dunn Meadow, the crowd rallied together for a vocal candlelit march through campus and part of Bloomington. The route took participants past Ballantine Hall, down Third Street, up Indiana Avenue to Kirkwood Avenue and then on to the steps of the courthouse. From the intersection of Third and Indiana to the Sample Gates at Kirkwood, the crowd marched in silence for two blocks as a way to remember the victims who did not speak out about their experience and those who did not survive, said Stacey McDaris, one of the event coordinators. \n"The silence is to remember the victims of sexual assault and the lives that have been lost," McDaris said. "It's very powerful because it reminds everyone they are forever silent and we take on the silence that is there. It is our responsibility to be loud and be vocal about what is going on in the community. There are people that are silent and we have to speak up for them."\n-- Contact staff writer Julia Blanford at jblanfor@indiana.edu.