One morning, when I was in my early twenties, I left my apartment for the bus stop. I was living on Chicago's North Side, headed to a temp job downtown. A block and a half from my bus stop, a man approached me from behind and tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around. He was in his thirties, overweight, short blond hair, mustache, jeans and a T-shirt. He had a beer can in his hand and smelled like he'd been drinking.

He grabbed my breast roughly, yanked my nipple, and said, "I was going to rape you—(****) that sweet ass." I stood for some seconds—dumbstruck, then scared. "I was going to drag you in that alley over there," he continued, pointing over my shoulder. "You're lucky there are too many people around." He stared at me another moment, then turned and walked away.

My first instinct was to flee, so I turned around and walked briskly to my bus stop. My second instinct was shame. I looked for witnesses as I walked, but not to corroborate a police report. I was worried someone saw the humiliating thing that just happened to me. All I wanted was to get on the bus, get to work, and, as impossible as it seemed, to forget it happened. Calling the police never occurred to me.

Never occurred to me.

When I got to the temp job, I excused myself to the restroom and sobbed. A few minutes later, I pulled myself together and went back to work. According to Donald Trump, if it had been a real attack, I would have called the police and filed a report. Getting on the bus and reporting for work somehow counts against me. Senator Chuck Grassley would question my ability to remember a 30-year-old event. He seems to disagree with me and every other woman sharing her story on Twitter under the hashtag #WhyIDidn'tReport. I, for one, remember the feeling of those fingers on my breast—the threat, humiliation, indignity, and fear—in excruciating detail. You just do. That's why I believe Christine Blasey Ford's description of what happened to her at that party in high school 36 years ago, where she said Brett Kavanaugh pinned her down on a bed, covered her mouth to keep her from screaming and tried to take her clothes off. Kavanaugh strongly denies the allegations. Since Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, have become public, four people have been identified as being at the party. None remembers the incident, or the party. Of course they don't. It was 36 years ago, and they were not the one allegedly assaulted. There is a new standard. And yes, this new standard may indeed preclude an entire generation of men from judgeships, elected office, and running Fortune 500 companies. I don't remember every walk to the bus stop in my twenties. I just remember the one where a man threatened to rape me. On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham said, "I'm just being honest. Unless there's something more, no, I'm not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh's life over this." Maybe Senator Graham doesn't believe Ford and thinks the attack didn't happen. My read on his comment is that events that allegedly happened 36 years ago when a man was 17 and drunk should not affect what is an otherwise successful career. If so, Senator Graham is not alone in his sentiment. Other members of Congress and plenty of pundits (male and female) have expressed it: We don't know if it happened, but, even if it did, should it really be disqualifying? "I'm thinking, is there any man in this room that wouldn't be subjected to such an allegation? A false allegation?," argued Congressman Steve King . "If that's the new standard, no man will ever qualify for the Supreme Court again." Congressman King, if a man commits sexual assault when he is 17, whether drunk or not, he should not be allowed to, for example, serve a lifetime appointment in the highest court of the land. Period.