Dear Brock Turner,

You don't know me, but I know you. I know that you made the biggest mistake of your life that you can never go back and change, and I am not sorry for you for that because you feel zero remorse for your actions. You made a decision and you've yet to apologize for what you did to a young woman one night at a party. You raped her. You humped and mounted onto her unconscious body. You put your fingers and foreign objects inside of her, and when you were caught, you ran until tackled. You will forever be known as the student from Stanford who raped a women. You will simply be remembered for that and maybe people will mention that you also swam pretty good. You're lucky, ya know? You got six months in a jail rather than 14 years at a prison. And if you're good there, you can be out in three months. Before you were a college swimmer at Stanford, but now your face is recognized everywhere because you're a rapist who blamed your actions on alcohol. Honestly, if I saw you I'd want to spit on you in the streets. I might be a little less angered if you felt any sort of guilt for what you did, but clearly you don't. You're a sorry excuse of a man. You're simply a male mammal that wanted sexual dominant pleasure and the only form you were able to get was to rape an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.

Did you know that one in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, 80 percent of those by someone in which they know? And one in four girls will be sexual abused in their lifetime? It doesn't matter if they're someone's mom or sister or daughter–they're someone. This shouldn't even be a statistic. And the fact that it is is sad.

Rape is one of the most cruel is disgusting things you can do to another human. You know this of course because you've done it.

Since you have no idea what it's like to be a woman in this world today, I'm going to tell you. So listen closely while I inform you.

We wake up each day and look into the mirror trying to perfect each part of our body and face. We know that no matter what we wear or how our hair is or what makeup we do or do not have on, we'll be judged. If we wear too much clothing, we're prude. If we wear too little clothing, we're "asking for it". If we study at school and don't party, we're a nerd and boring. If we don't try, we're dumb. If we're powerful and successful in the work place, we're a bitch. If we're a stay at home mom, we're useless to this world and contribute nothing. Sometimes being a woman feels like a lose-lose situation. And the biggest lose-lose of all is when a woman is raped and instead of people believing her, they'll doubt her plea and assume she's lying. Our justice systems fail women every day when all they want is for their rapist to be accountable for what they did.

When we're nine-years-old in the fourth grade, we're sat down in a classroom surrounded by all of our female teachers and we're taught about our privates. That's right–privates. They're private because they belong to us: they're a part of us and something only we can give someone else permission to look at or touch. We learn for the first time about our vaginas and uteruses and how they'll develop and how one day we'll go to the bathroom to wipe and find a stream of blood between our legs. We asked questions and were nervous for what was to happen to our bodies. This was even something natural, but inevitable and a change we would soon experience.

Entering middle school we would develop breasts and maybe bigger butts and thighs. We would get our periods. Our hips would widen and we would mature physically. Boys' raging hormones would then begin as they hit puberty and each day a girl somewhere at school would be sexually harassed by a boy. They'd touch our hair or shoulders or call us names. We'd begin to hear music reference women's bodies more often than not: talking about our tits and asses and pussies. Pussy: a modern term for a woman's vagina. Boys will walk around saying "let's go get some pussy", as if that's all woman are in today's world–a pussy. We're not even talked about as human beings, but something that can sexually please a man. We don't walk around saying "let's go get some dick", because we don't think with our genitals.

As we adult into high school, many of us will begin to see a gynecologist. We'll walk into a doctors office and on the walls we'll see diagrams of breasts and vaginas and the uterus and babies developing. A doctor will come in and ask a series of questions regarding diseases, medications, period cycles, hormones, and sexual activity among other things like asking how your day or summer was as they feel up your boob for lumps. They'll tell you to undress completely and leave you with an awkward oversized napkin and a robe that opens in the front so they can examine you. When they get back to the room you'll be asked to lay down and then rest your feet on stirrups. You'll be asked to spread your legs as the doctor slides on latex gloves and puts a cold lubricant on their fingers. They'll then enter you until you feel pressure. They'll examine your boobs and other areas of the body to make sure you're developing correctly. This can be mortifying, especially if no one else besides yourself has ever seen your vagina or breasts before. At eighteen years old, we're presenting ourself to a doctor completely naked and it's nerve-racking.

So now we're in college, and we go to parties. We've been around boys our entire lives dealing with some of their actions and many immature males who only want to get into our pants. But by now, they're stronger. Their muscles are fully developed–if not getting bigger, and they're more masculine and full of testosterone than ever before. And now is when we have to especially be on the look out for not only our friends, but ourselves to make sure we don't get drugged and raped at a party, sober or not. We hear about people we know being raped. We hear about a girl at a party with her sister who was brought out to an ally behind a dumpster and raped by a male while she was half-naked and unconscious. Sound familiar?

We're forced to grow up so quickly in this world because society sets huge standards on us to be beautiful every moment of every day. We have to learn what rape is because it is so evident in this world. We lose our innocence so quickly and if we're not perfect, we're worthless.

So then we find someone who makes us feel worthy. We fall in love and are vulnerable and share parts of ourselves we've never shared with another human before. We trust another man for the first time and tell them things we don't tell anyone. We one day decide to make love, when we're both ready. We are intimate with someone else, but we give them full permission. Sex is willingly shared between two people. Sex is not taking an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and humping her half-naked-body and sticking foreign objects inside of her until she bleeds and thrusting against her as she lay on pine needles with her underwear thrown, bra removed and dress hiked over her head.

That is rape. And that is what you did to a woman one January night in 2015.

You have forever changed her and the way she looks at the world and herself. She no longer feels like her body is her own and something she can intimately share with another human, like her boyfriend, because you raped her. You took something that was hers for your own guilty and selfish pleasure. You wanted to get laid one night at a party and chose someone who couldn't even walk, stand, or speak. There's a reason rape scenes are often in scary movies and why rapists are looked at as predators. What you did was one of the most horrific things a human can do. The woman you raped doesn't have a name in news stories: she is simply a victim because of you. You've given her a different identity. You've taken part of her without permission.

There is no such thing as consensual sex. If sex is not consensual, it's rape. You raped an unconscious woman who couldn't fend for herself. You say she said yes, and that it wasn't rape. You blame what you father called "20 minutes of action" on alcohol. And we all know what that "20 minutes" is: rape.

For you to think that what happened that night was because of alcohol blows my mind. Alcohol does not make you do things. Alcohol does not make you drive a car after you've been out drinking. Alcohol does not make you hit a woman. Alcohol doesn't do anything except for hinder your mental abilities and motor skills. Alcohol is not the reason you raped someone. You are the reason you raped a woman.

To hear you blame drinking for your actions makes me sick. To hear what your father wrote to a judge makes me sick. To imagine what the woman went through the morning she woke up in a hospital gurney after being raped by you, makes me sick. To know that you only have to be in jail for a possible three months, or twelve weeks to really put it in perspective, makes me infuriated along with over half of America. I have absolutely no respect for you as a human or the "father" that raised you. You both have a sick idea human decency and respect for women. You have failed to take responsibility for your own actions.

But not just your own actions. Actions that were wrong. If you won a gold medal at the olympics, you'd take pride in yourself and say that it was only you that got you there. You wouldn't say that the protein drinks you had or the foods you ate or the workout machines or the pools are what got you to win that medal, you'd say it was all you. But now that you've raped someone and you've done something bad for the "first time in your 20 years of life", you blame alcohol.

Ha. Makes sense.

Shame on you for what you've done. Shame on your father. Shame on the judge that sentenced you for only six months after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault.

This story is making history and won't go away any time soon. This justice system has failed the woman you raped. They've lost part of my trust and I know many others. People wonder why women don't immediately go to the police or authorities after they've been assaulted: it's because they disbelieve them. It's because people like you win. You belong in prison and instead you're in jail. That judge didn't want you to go to prison because it might have a severe impact on you. And you know what often happens in prisons? Rape. Did you ever think about that? Maybe that judge was saving you from a severe experience like the one you acted out on a poor unconscious woman behind a dumpster. I just can't stop emphasizing how disgusting that is. To me you are trash and belong in a dumpster.

This world is outraged by what you've done because it is wrong, and although I'm sure you know it, you will not admit to it. You blame alcohol for what you've done. Your life will never be the same. I can't imagine someone marrying you or hiring you for a job. You did this all to yourself, and for that I am not sorry. I am sorry for the woman you raped, her life has also been forever change, but by actions you chose, not her.The decisions that night were not her own and she was not raped because she was intoxicated. You did not rape her because she was intoxicated. You raped her because you raped her.

There is no excuse for rape.

You should be held accountable for your actions and I don't believe your sentencing was near enough. But maybe the rest of your life will be miserable and you'll spend it wishing you were in prison. Who knows, but at this point I don't care for you. I only hope that woman you raped can somehow learn to be intimate again. I hope she can feel like she belongs in her own body. I hope she can learn not to fear going to a party again. I know she's already spread awareness of what happened that night and I hope that it will allow others who have been raped to speak out.

It's time to stop joking about rape and saying things like "it's not rape if they liked it". It's time to stop making women's bodies objects and using them in music and advertisements. It's time to stop catcalling us when we're walking across campus in a sweatshirt at 10 p.m. to go get food. It's time to believe the women and young girls, and even boys and men, who have been raped. It's time to take rape more seriously in this country–it's been time for a long time and I'm tired of hearing rapists get away with their actions.

The sad thing is, rape happens every day. So many people get away with it. Some rapists get 30 days in jail, some get 150 years, and some get nothing because they were able to get away with it. I'm not okay living in a world like that.

I don't wish that you'd die or go to hell. I just hope that one day you'll fess up for what you did that night. I hope that you can learn to take responsibility for all of your actions: good and bad. I hope people learn from your mistake and that boys growing up learn what not to do. I hope that what you've done sparks a generation that respects women again and who will fight for the opposite sex when we're not believed. I hope you think long and hard about what you've done to this woman.

Stop pitying yourself. This was all your own doing. Stop blaming alcohol and start blaming yourself.

I do not feel sorry for you, and neither should you. Take a long time to ponder that.

Sincerely,

Anyone who knows what you've done despite your attempt to deny it.