As you may have heard, the congressional hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have been thrown into chaos late in the eleventh hour by shocking allegations of sexual misconduct. The accuser is a certain professor Christine Blasey Ford from Palo Alto, California. According to her, when Kavanaugh was around seventeen (I say “around,” because she doesn’t actually remember the year), he forced himself on her and tried to rape her.
She doesn’t remember where it happened. She doesn’t remember what time of year it happened. She didn’t tell anyone about it, until after she was married and seeing a therapist, and the story she told her therapist is materially different than the story she’s telling now. Also, all of the people she claims were witnesses to this act have vehemently denied, as has the accused.
But that’s not why I’m writing this blog post. I’m writing it because I have a confession to make. I haven’t come out with this story yet, because frankly, I’ve been afraid. But now is the time to come out and say it.
Christine Blasey Ford raped me.
From 2003 to 2005, I served in the California San Jose Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I spent time in Sunnyvale and Cupertino, just a few miles from Palo Alto, that added up to almost a full year. While knocking doors one day, we came across Mrs. Ford and one of her friends. She was just visiting from Palo Alto, but they agreed to take the missionary lessons together. We came back three or four times, and struck up something of a friendship. Then, I was transferred to my next area.
I can’t remember the name of the friend, or where the friend lived. It was somewhere in the area of Sunnyvale or Cupertino. I also don’t remember which year this happened, or what time of year. In the Bay Area, all the seasons kind of blend together.
It was definitely Christine Blasey Ford, though. I remember her quite well.
Fast forward to April 2006. I had just finished my first semester at BYU, and had arranged to take a road trip to the Bay Area with one of my freshman dorm-mates, in order to visit my mission. When we arrived in Concord, I rented a white Ford Taurus from a local Enterpise and drove down the 680 to good old San Jose.
There were so many people from my mission that I wanted to meet, and Mrs. Ford was one of them. I still had her number, so I gave her a call, and we arranged to meet at the In’N’Out in Mountain View, along El Camino Real.
At first, I was happy to see her. She’d listened so intently to the missionary lessons, and I wanted to know what had happened to her after I’d been transferred. I knew that she’d lost contact with the missionaries, but I felt certain that once we were back in touch, her interest in the gospel would quickly be renewed.
While we were eating our burgers, I left to use the bathroom. She must have slipped something in my drink, because my memory gets a little fuzzy after that.
When I came back to myself, I was sitting in the passenger side of my rental. The car was parked in the back of an empty parking lot somewhere in Sunnyvale (I forget exactly where). To my horror, I discovered that my pants were down by my ankles. My crotch was wet and sore.
On the dashboard, I found a note. It said: “Thanks for the blowjob, Elder! <3 <3 Christie.”
I was mortified. I was ashamed. I didn’t know what to do. I was no longer a missionary, so I didn’t have any of that support structure to fall back on. And because I was traveling alone, there was no one I could really tell.
I never saw or heard from Mrs. Ford again.
For the last twelve years, I’ve lived in shameful silence. It just didn’t seem that anything good would come from going public with this. But now, it’s a burden that I can carry no longer. I deserve to be heard. My story needs to be told.
But wait, you say. What’s your evidence that any of this actually happened? How do we know that any of this is true?
I admit, I have no witnesses or evidence to corroborate my story. If pressed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I probably couldn’t do so.
But before you rightfully dismiss everything that I’ve just written about Christine Blasey Ford, consider the following:
First, my story has more specific, verifiable details than Mrs. Ford’s accusations of sexual misconduct against Justice Kavanaugh.
Second, I’m a fiction writer. I tell lies for a living.
Draw your own conclusions, America.
