SALT LAKE CITY — When sexual assault survivor Alli Fields told her friends what had just happened to her, she said their reaction downplayed the gravity of the situation. They thought it just sounded like a bad date.
"There was no, 'You have to report that, you've got to tell somebody, that's not OK,'" Fields recalled.
It wasn't until she talked to a male friend that she realized what happened was rape and was not simply "a really crappy date."
"That was the first time that somebody had told me what had happened to me. And I think it's ridiculous that I didn't even understand that, because we don't talk about it," Fields said Wednesday as she, other survivors, local leaders and prevention advocates met at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault building in Salt Lake City to mark "Denim Day."