Today I am speaking at a class because my New York Times essay, “Defriending My Rapist,” is a required reading for the Victimology course at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY).
The course is led by Jan Yager, a professor at the Department of Sociology. Yager has an MA in criminal justice and a PhD in sociology and is the author of a book on crime victims, which has recently been released by amazon as a Kindle title with a new introduction, updated bibliography, and resources.
Dr. Yager’s classic study on crime victims, the book VICTIMS, is now available on Kindle with a new introduction.
She is the author of 35 award-winning books published by Scribner’s, Wiley, Doubleday, Facts on File, Simon & Schuster, Hannacroix Creek Books, and Prentice-Hall, translated into 32 languages, and 250+ articles in Parade, The New York Times, Redbook, Glamour, consumeraffairs.com, and other publications.
Yager is regularly quoted in the media and interviewed on TV/cable and radio programs including the Today Show, Good Morning, America, The View, Oprah, The New York Times, National Public Radio, BBC radio and more.
Excerpt from my essay:
Facebook suggested I friend him. I guess our social networks overlapped. I guided the mouse toward his photo, and the little pointed hand hovered over his face. Fear and anger swelled up but curiosity won out and I clicked “Add Friend.” He accepted within minutes. Stunned, I wondered if he had forgotten raping me, or if he thought I had.
At 13, I was a lonely upper-middle-class Jewish nerd living on Long Island, in search of a tougher persona. He was part of an edgy crowd that hung out in a parking lot behind the school, sprawling over the cement steps like bored cats on a sofa. It was 1973, and the boys wore black leather jackets, smoked Marlboros and stashed pints of Tango and Thunderbird in their back pockets. One afternoon, making sure my long brown hair covered the blemish on my cheek, I went over and said, “Hi.”
That was really all it took. A few offered nods. One of the girls asked if I wanted to come out with them that night to the cemetery.