Chapter 1: What content warnings should listeners be aware of?
Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. This season discusses sexual, physical and psychological violence. Please consume the following episodes with care. For a full content warning, sources and resources for each individual episode, please visit the episode notes.
Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of broken cycle media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Thank you so much for listening. In our fourth and second-to-last chapter of season 25, we meet survivor Allegra.
Allegra was a ballet major and member of Greek life at Western University when she was sexually assaulted. Multiple studies and surveys have found that Greek-affiliated students often experience higher rates of sexual assault or harassment than non-affiliated students.
For example, a large 2009 survey of undergraduate women at a public mid-size university reported that sorority members experienced sexual assault during college at about four times the rate of non-sorority women.
Relatedly, as a 2005 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence highlights, men in fraternities are roughly three times more likely to commit sexual assault than non-fraternity men. Also eye-opening is the fact that fraternity houses themselves are frequent sites of assault. In the same 2009 survey, more than one-third of the rapes reported occurred in fraternity houses.
In 2016, the trial of Brock Turner drew national attention after he sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, following a fraternity party at Stanford University. Two graduate students intervened and held Turner until police arrived. He was later convicted on three felony counts, but what followed shocked many.
Despite the severity of the crime, Turner was sentenced to just six months in county jail. He served three. During sentencing, much of the public conversation and even the court proceedings focused not on the survivor, but on Turner himself. His father described the assault as, quote, 20 minutes of action, end quote, and warned that his son's life had already been deeply impacted.
The judge cited concerns about the impact a longer sentence would have on Turner, a promising young athlete. This response is what some experts refer to as hympathy, a cultural tendency to extend disproportionate sympathy towards male perpetrators of violence, particularly when they are seen as young, successful, or having a bright future.
Meanwhile, the survivor, who later became known to the public as Emily Doe, delivered a powerful victim impact statement that was read by millions around the world. Her words shifted the national conversation, drawing attention back to the realities of sexual violence and the harm survivors endure, not just in the assault itself, but in the systems that respond to it.
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Chapter 2: Who is Allegra and what is her story?
Oh, absolutely. There was a lot going on behind the scenes, administratively and with different people that I just had no concept of, because it was so nefarious and underhanded that it never really occurred to me that people would move in those ways.
What were you excited about thinking about college? What were your sort of like hopes that the experience would be?
Well, I wanted to become a professional ballerina. Many dancers opt not to go to college at all because of the limited time that we do have in the profession. Our bodies only last so long. But my parents were very passionate about education, and I am glad that they instilled that in me and made me go because I use my education and what I learned in college on a daily basis.
I became interested in Western University because they had a great ballet program and I could receive a BFA in ballet specifically. That was really attractive. Western University was far enough away that I could get some independence. It was not in the same state, but it was close enough that if I needed something or if an emergency happened, I could get home quickly or my family could get to me.
Western University, that's also a pseudonym for the college in the book and a pseudonym we'll be using in the episode.
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Chapter 3: What statistics exist regarding sexual assault in Greek life?
How were you feeling about living away from home? four weeks, five weeks, six weeks. I had been away from home before. And as an only child with older parents, I just felt a lot of pressure and scrutiny and focus on me all the time, which I do appreciate all the resources that went to me and all the activities that I was able to do as a result of being an only child.
But I needed the space to develop my own sense of self a little bit more. And not be so defined by what they wanted me to do, what they wanted me to be. I was definitely eager to forge my own path and not be so supervised all the time.
The girl that I roomed with was from the island of Tonga, the area of the United States that Western University is located in, is very connected to the church of Tonga. Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS. A lot of missionary work is done in Tonga and in that geographical region. Tonga is just something I had no concept for.
Like we didn't really even do beach vacations when I was growing up. So I was like, wow, that's really cool.
How did you get involved with Greek life and what would you say your experience was like overall?
Well, I went through recruitment in the fall of 2015. So my freshman semester, right when I came onto campus, my mom and my cousin were involved in Greek life. Over the years, I'd met a bunch of their friends from Greek life that had become lifelong friends. I just admired those close bonds and wanted that for myself. Initially, I was not happy with the house that I got into.
But it's so funny how things work out in that way. If recruitment is done right, it should be about the shared values that you hold with your sisters and identifying that through the recruitment process and looking back now as an alumni going through all four years of active life in a sorority. It was very positive for me and was a thousand percent where I was meant to be.
When did you initially meet Justin? We matched on Tinder the spring of 2017. I don't even remember his Tinder profile, but I think I thought he was handsome. We ended up connecting on Instagram as well and following one another and then doing some DMs. There was a chapter of his legacy fraternity at Western University. And so he was in the process of trying to join that chapter. Wow.
Legacy means that your father, grandfather, brother, in the case of a fraternity, were in this Greek organization, which isn't something that's widely used anymore due to the DE&I initiatives that we've implemented in Greek life, which I think is a good thing. But at that time, legacy was very important to us. I was planning on staying for the summer.
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Chapter 4: What was the Brock Turner case and its implications?
And we kind of waved at each other. This is the first time I'm ever laying eyes on this person in person. I've never seen him before in my life other than a Tinder profile and his Instagram profile. We approached each other and said, you know, it's nice to meet you in person and stuck up a conversation.
How would you describe him to a stranger, his personality, his appearance?
Tall and handsome, I guess is how I would say it. A nice tan, dark hair, very tall, over six foot. I'm not sure his exact height. I'm 5'6", but very petite. So he towered over me, even though he wasn't doing his sport of choice anymore through the school. He was still quite athletic in build. He worked out, clearly. Very charming, but also kind of unassuming.
He didn't rush up or shout to me across the room. He let me make my way over to him. So I guess cool, calm, and collected. If you're cynical, looking back now, maybe calculated. We met in that kitchen living room area and then went our separate ways.
How were you feeling about that night in general? What were your expectations of the night? What were you hoping would happen?
At the time, I was on with my on and off again boyfriend. So I was interested in getting to know him as a friend first and maybe seeing if there was dating potential. But I was not looking to hook up in any way. I was having a good night. My friends were there. All my pledge sisters were there. My big sister was there. We were having fun and being social.
At some point, we made our way outside of the house into the driveway area where there were a lot of people. I was talking with other friends. And then we came back together outside. And if you took me to that property today, I could show you the exact spot in that driveway where I told him that I did not want to have sex. I didn't want to really do anything.
Because in the back of my mind, I still had that on and off again feeling. relationship that i did want to respect he said that he understood and invited me back to his house which was up the hill a little bit just to talk and get to know each other better he kept it very casual very cool so i didn't really suspect that there was an ulterior motive So we left the party together.
I had left my car parked by the satellite house and we walked to his house up the hill. I remember I had these wedge heels on. So he offered to give me a piggyback ride up the hill so that I wouldn't have to hike it in my little heels. And I accepted and I thought that was kind of fun and playful. I was very unassuming of what was to come. because of the way that he was acting.
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Chapter 5: How does hympathy affect perceptions of sexual violence?
When we got to his room, I was like, oh, this is not a room. This is a closet. It didn't even have a lock or a doorknob. It was a sliding door. So he slides it open and we go in there and there is nowhere to sit. One of those cheap wall or door mirrors that you get at Walmart or Target. Fair College dorm is on the wall. A dresser is next to that. And his bed takes up the whole room.
And that's it. That was the first time the hairs on the back of my neck kind of stood up. My first inkling of like, maybe I'm not okay here. I had that sense of feeling trapped. And knowing what I know now about Justin, I feel like that was by design. But nothing has happened and he's been so conversational and fun and playful. So I kind of pushed past that first little red flag.
We sit down on the bed and we start talking and then he starts to make his move. He started kissing me and filling me up, which I was fine with. A kiss is not sex. That wasn't pushing my limits at all. But then as he started to undress me, it was clear that he was looking for something more. And eventually he wore me down into allowing him to perform oral sex on me.
I acquiesced because he seemed into it and not because that was something that I actually wanted or was enthusiastic about. If it's not an enthusiastic yes, you shouldn't be doing it. I didn't want to disappoint him. So I was like, OK, I'll just fake my way through it and then be on my merry way. I don't think I was super comfortable with what was happening there.
But I definitely at that time period had a problem with people pleasing in my personal life as well as professional. I think the combination of being an only child to older, stricter, more traditional parents who expected a lot out of me and whom I did not receive enough.
praise, validation, and affirmation from frequently, if at all, then created a situation in my personal life where I craved those things and was looking for it from all the wrong people and all the wrong places. And then you compound that with the ballet industry where it's easy to live and breathe for what my professors thought of me
It's easy to see how that would become my paradigm through which I filtered everything in my life through. Did you have a lot of dating experience prior to college? No, not a whole ton. I had only really ever had one boyfriend prior to college. A lot of confusing things, relationship adjacent, but never a relationship.
I was still figuring out this is what I want, this is what I like, and the things that I didn't want and didn't like. If I could go back, I think I would do almost everything when it comes to my dating life in early college differently. I definitely think I walked into a situation where maybe there was an opportunity for me at the beginning.
If I had said, I don't want to sit on your bed, let's go back up to the couches. Maybe something could have been different. There is that guilt there, but that's normal. We're always our hardest critics, I guess. I don't blame other women if I heard my situation on a different person. I would say you couldn't have known. It's not your fault.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Allegra face in the Title IX process?
closet out of that house and back to home i think he asked for me to perform oral sex on him and obviously when that level of violence has already been perpetrated against you i said yes as a means of survival but i don't want anyone to perceive that as actual consent
Because that was a yes under duress because I thought it would keep me alive, not because I had any interest in what was happening. And so I ended up performing oral sex on him. He raped me again. We put our clothes on and he had the flashlight on his phone pulled up. And I kind of felt like maybe he was taking pictures of me or something. I don't know why I felt that.
I don't think that was the case, though, in the end. We both got dressed. My car was still parked blocks away and down a hill. So he drove me to my car and said something about like, we should go out sometime or we should do that again. Something to that effect. I just was like, yeah, sure. Got in my car, drove home.
to my on-campus apartment and showered, which I guess I'll just put out as a PSA is if you've been sexually assaulted, it's really best to try to preserve that evidence, that DNA, and go to the hospital and get an exam done as soon as possible. I was not really educated about those things at the time and obviously in shock and not really processing things.
I think it's really hard to take ownership of a word like rape and sexual assault. I think it's worth mentioning that my freshman year, I had experienced abuse. sexual assault with a photographer that had worked with other dancers at my university so I thought he was a safe person and he was not and he came on to me during the photo shoot and
offered me alcohol as a 18-year-old, and just things that shouldn't have happened. After I'd come to terms with what had happened to me, I went to the department heads and said, hey, this happened to me. Would you be willing to put out something to the other dancers saying, don't work with this guy, he's not safe? And they didn't want to do that because they were worried about defamation.
I had felt very powerless and like I just had no options and no way of proving that experience. I had told Justin about that situation. So he knew in that way that I was vulnerable. To call it what it was, was very challenging for me in that moment. I was very much resisting that because at the time, this was a person that I presumed was going to get into his legacy fraternity.
Greek life meant a lot to me at that time, and it still does. So just knowing that he was going to be a part of that environment, I didn't even know how to go about navigating that. And then he texted me. I hadn't even really decided how I felt or hadn't come to terms with labeling what had happened to me with the correct term. And he's texting me wanting to go out again in air quotes.
We didn't go out the first time. I had a fawning response, which still to this day is one of the hardest aspects of my experience for me. And I can give myself a little bit more grace about it now because I don't think I gave enough credit to how scary and how life-threatening of a situation I was in.
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Chapter 7: How did Allegra's experience with the legal system unfold?
He was talking about the fact that we had gotten together and framing it as like this wonderful hookup to people. The rumor mill was starting. Sorority sisters were saying like, hey, what happened between you and Justin? We're hearing stuff. People pointing out that doesn't really sound like something that you would consent to. Are you sure that you are okay? We're talking 2017.
So like Fifty Shades of Grey was big at this time. I feel like he was trying to portray it that we had kinky sex. And that was so not what happened. I was being portrayed as someone that was easy and fast. And I did not like that because that's not what had happened. I did not choose to give myself to him. He took it.
I was processing through things with college friends and getting acquainted with the word rape as it relates to what happened to me and trying to be okay with that label. By that Sunday evening, the 28th of May now, I had come to terms with it from processing through with friends and was ready to take steps.
The first person you spoke with that was an authority figure of sorts was someone involved in Greek life?
That's correct. I spoke with the president of Justin's fraternity that he was trying to join because I thought I don't want him in this space. That was my main reason for fawning and trying to appease him in the first place is that I thought I was going to have to And if he gets a spot in this house, their house was down the street on the same street from our house.
You could walk there in about a minute. I was just like, he's going to be close by if I don't do something. In my sorority, we were required to go to other Greek organizations, philanthropy events, like we had to do a certain number of those every semester. So we were all very interconnected and I just didn't want him around or around other women.
And if he got into this fraternity, he would have unlimited access.
When you went and spoke to the president of the fraternity he was trying to join, what was that experience like for you?
He was a pretty sweet guy. He was surprisingly easy to talk to and very gentle with me and basically portrayed to me that this was the final strike in a series of red flags that they had already felt from him.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from Allegra's journey?
She did let me know that if I wanted to open up a criminal investigation, once I opened that box, I couldn't close the lid. which kind of scared me and deterred me from that option, to be honest, because my family lived in a different state. I didn't feel like I had the support and I didn't want the police digging through every aspect of my life.
And I thought that past assault with the photographer, I was worried about being believed and I was worried about that hurting my credibility because that assault was very hard to prove. She gave me her card and then she left. Then the same nurse came in after the police officer left. We had to go through a questionnaire about what happened. And you have that documentation.
It's just like a series of questions. One that stood out to me is, did your perpetrator bathe you, wash you, clean you with anything? Because I answered yes to the strangulation question. We then had to go into a separate questionnaire about strangulation and document all of that.
So then after the questionnaires were done, that's when the physical exam comes, which is the hardest part, in my opinion. It is a bit dehumanizing because your body is a crime scene and the evidence has to be taken off of your body. And that doesn't feel good and there's no way to sugarcoat it. They swab everything. They take pictures of everything.
You had to disclose if you had had any recent consensual sexual activity so that that person's DNA could be eliminated if it did come up. It's definitely not an easy process and it takes a long time and it's uncomfortable and it's sad. But at the end of the day, this is going to give you options.
if you are not sure about the steps forward at that time that's okay but you have evidence collected and you've been given prophylaxis for stis i was given plan b the other thing i thought was interesting which was also mentioned in luna's experience the cart that they use for the rape kit that has all the different tools on it is the same cart they use to deliver babies
I guess it was just poetic in a way or a moment of stark contrast that this cart that's used to bring life into the world, which is usually so happy, is also used for something that's so dark and life altering in a different way. They sent a confidential advocate with the same nurse as well. This advocate happened to be male, which didn't bother me too much.
Or I felt like, well, I can't really ask for a different advocate. So here we go. How long do you think the process took overall? Six plus hours I was there. Anytime an assault is reported by a mandatory reporter at Western University at this time frame, it would trigger an email that gave you all the resources, including the Title IX office, if you wanted to file a complaint.
Somehow that email was in my inbox. that also got sent to me when I reported that photographer. These were not resources that I specifically sought out. They just appeared in my university inbox. And that's one of the big misconceptions that the administration or people had about me, that this was a way for me to get attention or display attention-seeking behavior.
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