She Was Raped, but She’s No Victim

(Twin Cities) – Every two seconds another American is sexually assaulted… nearly half of victims (44 percent) are under the age of 18… and approximately two-thirds of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim.

Seraphina Nova of the Twin Cities is very familiar with these statistics put out by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). She is not only a victim’s advocate, but a victim herself.

She was just 18 and fresh out of a Baptist and sheltered upbringing when she headed to Los Angeles with her modeling agent for an international modeling conference. “At the first expo-table we approached, sat a 60-something, overweight man flipping through model portfolios. When my agent handed him mine, he threw it back and said, ‘She’s too fat to model.’  At 5’ 10” and 125 pounds, my dream was over, and I locked myself in a bathroom the rest of the day, inconsolable,” said Nova.

That evening, she and her female agent went to the bar for drinks. Nova says she got drunk for the first time in her life and what happened next will stay in her memory forever. “My agent, who had un-invested in me at that point, was getting friendly with one of the other agents, and when I ran to the bar bathroom to be sick, she asked his friend (some guy who was a stranger to both of us and whose name I don’t remember) to take care of me and take me back up to the room so she could leave with her new friend,” she said.

Nova, who was barely coherent at the time, went upstairs with the man. “I remember flashes of him on top of me and feeling like that dream where you can’t punch or scream,” she said. “I fought back, weakly. I woke up with bruises on my face and shoulder, so he fought too. There was blood because I’d never had sex before.”

Nova was too scared and ashamed to tell anyone what had happened for a very long time. The sad thing, her story is not unique. One in three women has a similar story.

As part of the recovery process, Nova decided to write about her experience. On her website,  www.seraphinanova.com, she blogs on the topic of recovery and her work as a spokesperson for positive body image advocacy for women and girls. She has also started blogging about her debut novel, The Salt of the Earth, which documents her journey back to life. It is due out in Spring 2014.

The Salt of the Earth is the tale of Kass, a small town girl with big dreams, who fights through sexual assault, drug addiction and the misery of life on the street. But it is childhood acquaintance Nina who turns Kass’ world upside down and challenges everything she thought she knew. Reviewers say fans of Wally Lamb and Alice Sebold will be enthralled with Nova’s raw and emotional coming-of-age novel. 

More information can be found at www.seraphinanova.com,

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