Lilly Jay met Joe Biden as a student in 2014 and sorted out his own complicated feelings about it.

"Now, I thought to myself, I thought, what does the breath of a vice president – coffee look like." An interesting fact was revealed during a surreal day. At that time, I did not think that he should perhaps not have been close enough to me so that I could feel him at all. It was September 19, 2014 and I had just introduced Vice President Joe Biden to an event at the White House. As a sexual assault victim in college, I was asked to participate in Biden at an event for It's On Us, a new White House initiative to address the problem of sexual violence on the campus. I hoped to produce a happy ending to an incident that had deeply disrupted me at the age of 18. My mother and my father were there. My brothers and the boyfriend I would marry later were all watching live. I was at the White House and I had the last word.

When I entered the East Room to deliver my speech, the crowd cheered as if I were some sort of composite of all the young women and men who had been hurt in the same way during their university studies. How strange to be applauded for continuing right after a traumatic event! I did not know that there were other options. My remarks called on college administrations, faculty and students not to rely on survivors to do the difficult job of creating the necessary changes, but rather to take responsibility for their own communities. I've introduced Biden as an ally. When he arrived on the scene, he leaned over and gave me scented words of encouragement to the cafe. Then he held my hand and pointed at me while he was saying something to the crowd.

Holding the Vice President's hand was a bit strange: what was the last time I held someone's hand? But I did not experience it as intrusive or disturbing. I later remember being disappointed that most of the press photos of me that day captured some physical contact with the vice president or president. I could have sworn that there was a moment when I was standing alone. But most of all, I tried not to think about my day at the White House. It was supposed to be my lemonade lemonade, a cornerstone of an experience I would forget earlier.

While reading the stories of Lucy Flores and Sofie Karasek last week about their interactions with Biden, a knot deepened in my stomach. In a very small dose, I experienced the kind of doubt, the nauseated feeling of having been fooled, which I felt so strongly before as a survivor. I think Flores and Karasek, and I think they felt humiliated and anxious about Biden's physical contact. That's me who doubted it. The feeling of questioning my own experience was familiar. Why was not I more aware of Biden's contact with me? Why does not it seem to me disturbed? Why had I so quickly discredited my boredom of having to hold her hand as if I were a little girl?

Biden had asked me that day: "Can I hold your hand?" I do not know what I would have I said.

I am reluctant to summarize definitively what Biden made me feel that day as it seems irrelevant. As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I am aware, both emotionally and intellectually, of people's lack of ambiguity. This takes up too much space in our minds, so we seek to resolve the contradiction. For every person who felt comforted by Biden's touch, there might be someone who felt uncomfortable with it. Is someone an account? Are we waiting for some kind of big deal to fix that? Here's what I'm going to say: That day, Biden's actions towards me were more paternalistic than predatory; he did not take anything prurient to hold my hand I think he believes, as the waiter who recently muffled my arm during dinner, that certain types of contact are friendly and paternal. But none of these men are my father and there are many ways to be friendly.

Biden can not know, or anyone else, what a contact of any kind could mean to another person. S & # 39; s commitment to ask before touching is a directive so simple that it could work well. And he asked me that day: "Can I hold your hand?" I do not know what I would have said. I was so electric with nerves, I may have said yes and I have received his hand in mine warmly. I was also so seduced by the opportunity to state publicly that I was independent, uninterrupted and whole that I may have declined. It's hard to imagine what I wanted at the time, but I know I would have appreciated the opportunity to decide for myself. Biden grasping me by the hand was a small border crossing that seemed to reflect a kind of inability to imagine another person's point of view more than anything else. I do not think that he thought that as a young woman – a survivor of sexual abuse who had just talked about this experience in perhaps the most public forum where she was – I did not want to or did not need a hand.

My feeling that Biden, who is known for his empathy, actually has a limited ability to understand how others might feel growing up as I watched him. joke about the issue and avoid excuses. Only until the video "Sorry no sorry" and his jokes about seeking permission before touching people, lead me to understand that I realized that I had privately supported Biden. Even now, I again wanting to regain the comforting belief that the man standing next to me to talk about the importance of reducing sexual assault on campus is a good person with the opportunity to succeed in 2020. But his failure to recognize the distress that 'he caused women are not as open to interpretation as his touching. Some people enjoy embracing strangers and others do not, but I do not know of anyone who does not like to be apologized for when they are hurt or whose experience is turned into a joke. I was ready to reserve my judgment and accept the ambiguity of Biden's physical contact – to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I do not know how much longer I can leave him the space to do what is right and admit his mistakes.