Dear Brock Turner,
You don't know me, and I may not know you, but I, like the rest of the world, know what you've done recently, and I think that says enough of who you are as a person.
For me, the worst part is that the woman you attacked will only be known as one thing: Brock Turner's victim. While I have the utmost respect and understanding for her desire to remain anonymous, it still breaks my heart to think she will only ever have this title in the eye of the masses.
As for you, we know your name. You will never be able to live this down. It will follow you. So while the judge, who we'll get to later, may have decided you're too fragile and important to spend any respectable amount of time in jail for what you did, every single person who follows the news, even ESPN, will know who you are and what you have done. No one cares how fast you can swim, Brock, because right now that doesn't even matter. You will never be able to out swim this.
Your father and the judge who sentenced you think you shouldn't have to live with your "20 minutes of indiscretion," and this thought makes me sick. My grandfather was a judge in my hometown, and even though I didn't know him, I have only ever heard that he was incredibly fair when it came to his job. Your swim times shouldn't have mattered. Only the judge cared that you were apparently headed for the Olympics. You were not forced to assault anyone. You chose your course, and you should be held accountable for your actions, just like any other human being who has made mistakes.
If anything reports have said are true and you really are having trouble eating, sleeping and doing other activities, then good. You have said that you wish you could take back your actions of that night. I'm sure this is a bad attitude for me to have, but I also believe it's incredibly valid. As a college-aged woman, or even just a woman, in a world where someone with a reputation gets away with assault with just a slap on the wrist, I am now terrified to do anything after dark while I'm on campus for fear of men like you: Men who see a woman in need of help and decide to do the opposite. I go to a school where the young men, at least the ones I know, are pretty decent human beings, but you just go to show that no one is what they seem.
You blame your actions on the "party scene" at your school. I would like to point one thing out to you: You're the one who chose to go out to that party, you're the one who drank too much, you're the one who attacked an innocent woman. To paraphrase the letter your victim wrote you, "You didn't know her, but you were inside her." You, Brock, not the party culture at Stanford.
A back rub does not equal consent. Unconsciousness does not mean it is OK to come on to a woman. You can hire as many lawyers and spend as much time out of the media as you want, but that does not mean that this will not follow you for the rest of your life. The judge may have only sentenced you to six months in jail to protect you, but the aftermath you will face is not something from which you can be protected. This will still follow you for the rest of you life. You only speak about yourself in your responses to the media, and so does your father, but you never seem to understand that those 20 minutes also affected the young woman whose life is also forever changed because of that night. No matter what people may say about you being a good swimmer who made one poor life decision, you're simply one thing: a rapist. Someone who saw a woman in need of help and decided to do the opposite. Blame whoever you want, Brock, but when all is said and done, there is only one person who is interred in all of the excuses, and that is you.
I sincerely hope you can come to terms with what you have done and come to live with whatever you may face because that's what a decent human does.
Hannah
