Teen rapist and his victim tell their story on stage together
Many rape victims would struggle to tell their story in public.
But one woman has stood upon a stage to do just that – with the man who raped her standing by her side.
Thordis Elva was just 16 when her new boyfriend took advantage of her and raped her after a school dance in her native Iceland.
Her 18-year-old boyfriend Tom Strange, an Australian high school student in the tiny island nation on exchange, had only been dating Ms Elva for a month.
They went to the dance together where Ms Elva tried rum for the first time. Later that night Mr Stranger took advantage of his intoxicated young girlfriend.
"It was like a fairy tale, his strong arms around me, laying me in the safety of my bed," Ms Elva said during a TED Women talk.
"But the gratitude that I felt towards him soon turned to horror as he proceeded to take off my clothes and get on top of me.
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"My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding. I thought I'd be severed in two.
"In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock. And ever since that night, I've known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours."
Her attacker then proceeds to tell his story, a story with two sides they pieced together over the two decades of talking and seeking healing, forgiveness and understanding.
"I have vague memories of the next day," he says.
"The after effects of drinking, a certain hollowness that I tried to stifle. Nothing more.
"But I didn't show up at Thordis's door. It is important to now state that I didn't see my deed for what it was.
"The word 'rape' didn't echo around my mind as it should've, and I wasn't crucifying myself with memories of the night before.
"To be honest, I repudiated the entire act in the days afterwards and when I was committing it. I disavowed the truth by convincing myself it was sex and not rape.
"And this is a lie I've felt spine-bending guilt for."
Over the years since the rape, Ms Elva recalls how she struggled in coming to terms with what happened to her.
Like many victims of rape and sexual assault, she blamed herself.
"Despite limping for days and crying for weeks, this incident didn't fit my ideas about rape like I'd seen on TV," she said on the TED stage.
"So I told myself it was pointless to address what had happened. And besides, it had to have been my fault, somehow.
"I was raised in a world where girls are taught that they get raped for a reason", she says. "Their skirt was too short, their smile was too wide, their breath smelled of alcohol.
"And I was guilty of all of those things, so the shame had to be mine. It took me years to realize that only one thing could have stopped me from being raped that night, and it wasn't my skirt, it wasn't my smile, it wasn't my childish trust.
"The only thing that could've stopped me from being raped that night is the man who raped me — had he stopped himself."
After Mr Stranger left Iceland Ms Elva ruminated over the assault for years before deciding to contact her attacker when she was 25 and "headed for a nervous breakdown".
She wrote him a letter, beginning an eight-year correspondence that culminated in a face-to-face meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
The confrontation with his adolescent girlfriend, his victim, led Mr Strange to realise what happened was a "self-centred taking".
"Saying to Thordis that I raped her changed my accord with myself, as well as with her," he said.
"But most importantly, the blame transferred from Thordis to me.
"Far too often, the responsibility is attributed to female survivors of sexual violence, and not to the males who enact it."
Twenty years on, Ms Elva and Mr Stranger have written a book titled South of Forgiveness to be released later in the year.
If you or someone you know is suffering from sexual or domestic abuse, don't suffer in silence, call 1800 RESPECT any time of day or night.
Adults Surviving Child Abuse: 1300 657 380
Survivors and Mates Support Network: 02 8355 3711
Bravehearts: 1800 272 831
