“Isn’t that the guy you blew?”
My friend’s casual comment hung in the air for a long moment. I didn’t know how to respond.
“Um… I wouldn’t exactly put it that way,” I said weakly.
We were sitting at a restaurant eating Sunday brunch together, and she was telling a story involving a mutual acquaintance.
“That’s not exactly how it happened,” I tried again hesitantly.
Why is it so hard to label something as assault?
For me it’s because I don’t want to consider myself a victim. Or even a survivor. Thinking about it makes me feel weak and ashamed. I’d honestly rather put it out of my memory, pretend it didn’t happen.
“The guy you blew.”
I mean, that’s true. His penis was in my mouth.
Does it matter that I was so drunk I barely remember it? Does it matter that he pushed my head there? Does it matter that I told him I didn’t want to, fruitlessly offered up excuses, tried pathetically to protest?
I had walked home with him. I had let him take off my bra. Are those steps promises for more?
He didn’t rape me, not in the traditional sense. I blew him.
So was it assault?
Does it matter? My friend at brunch didn’t care.
Funny how it feels like I don’t have the right to decide.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
I am a victim, I am a survivor, but most importantly that is not all that I am. I am also a student, a friend, a daughter, a girlfriend, an animal lover, a Christian, an amateur cook, a Netflix junkie, and an advocate for equal rights for all people.
I still jump when someone touches me, I still just generally hate being touched at all. I still can’t sleep through an entire night without medication or a nightmare. I never take my eyes off of a drink—even in casual situations. I still cry. I still have flashbacks daily. And I still can’t bring myself to tell those closest to me what happened to me.
The first time I was assaulted was in high school. I went to the police who asked questions like “what were you wearing,” “are you sure you said no,” “are you sure you didn’t imagine this,” “the court process is difficult, are you sure you want to go through with it?” 1. I was 14—why did it matter what I was wearing when a grown man who called himself family decided to touch me? 2. I was legally unable to consent, but, for the record, I did say no. A lot. 3. I am sure that I did not imagine it. I am sure that the memories are as real as the nightmares I still have to this day are. 4. Is a scared and traumatized 14 year old girl even able to adequately make the decision to or not to press charges?
He was found guilty, but he never saw the inside of a jail cell or did any type of community service.
The second time I was raped was in college. I was at a party and I was drugged. It wasn’t even until one of my friends posted a picture with a year later that I was able to put a name to the face. I spent months in my room crying after that. I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t focus on anything. The night of being choked and hit and held down by a strange man just kept replaying in my head. Memories I had spent a year repressing all flooded back at once—all because he had a name.
At some point we, as an entire society, as people of all gender identities, must stand up and admit that gender based violence does exist and that gender inequality is prevalent. Yes, women can vote now, but they still cannot walk on the streets at night or leave their drink unattended. A serial killer and serial rapist, Ted Bundy, said that, to him, violence wasn’t about violence, it was about control. And that’s what is happening to someone when they are being assaulted—someone taking control.
We are asking why women stay rather than why their partners hit them. We are asking why someone was out alone rather than why did someone take advantage of that situation. We are asking why a woman chose to wear revealing clothing rather than why did someone force her to take that clothing off. What does it say about society when it is the victim’s morals that are questioned? Why is it when nobody is found guilty that society looks at the victim and says “well it must not have happened then?” If someone breaks into your home, and the perpetrator is never found, does that mean you staged the whole thing? Why does it matter if you previously consented to sex with that person or if you have a history of sleeping with people? What if that person that broke into your home said “well she/he let me into her home before and she/he has a history of hosting gatherings so I thought it was okay to enter without her/his permission?” We have to stop blaming the victims, starting holding the perpetrators accountable, and attack the problem at its root. We need to change the questions we are asking because we currently aren’t getting to get right answers, and we have to work together as a society to do so.
I still jump when someone touches me, I still just generally hate being touched at all. I still can’t sleep through an entire night without medication or a nightmare. I never take my eyes off of a drink—even in casual situations. I still cry. I still have flashbacks daily. And I still can’t bring myself to tell those closest to me what happened to me.
The first time I was assaulted was in high school. I went to the police who asked questions like “what were you wearing,” “are you sure you said no,” “are you sure you didn’t imagine this,” “the court process is difficult, are you sure you want to go through with it?” 1. I was 14—why did it matter what I was wearing when a grown man who called himself family decided to touch me? 2. I was legally unable to consent, but, for the record, I did say no. A lot. 3. I am sure that I did not imagine it. I am sure that the memories are as real as the nightmares I still have to this day are. 4. Is a scared and traumatized 14 year old girl even able to adequately make the decision to or not to press charges?
He was found guilty, but he never saw the inside of a jail cell or did any type of community service.
The second time I was raped was in college. I was at a party and I was drugged. It wasn’t even until one of my friends posted a picture with a year later that I was able to put a name to the face. I spent months in my room crying after that. I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t focus on anything. The night of being choked and hit and held down by a strange man just kept replaying in my head. Memories I had spent a year repressing all flooded back at once—all because he had a name.
At some point we, as an entire society, as people of all gender identities, must stand up and admit that gender based violence does exist and that gender inequality is prevalent. Yes, women can vote now, but they still cannot walk on the streets at night or leave their drink unattended. A serial killer and serial rapist, Ted Bundy, said that, to him, violence wasn’t about violence, it was about control. And that’s what is happening to someone when they are being assaulted—someone taking control.
We are asking why women stay rather than why their partners hit them. We are asking why someone was out alone rather than why did someone take advantage of that situation. We are asking why a woman chose to wear revealing clothing rather than why did someone force her to take that clothing off. What does it say about society when it is the victim’s morals that are questioned? Why is it when nobody is found guilty that society looks at the victim and says “well it must not have happened then?” If someone breaks into your home, and the perpetrator is never found, does that mean you staged the whole thing? Why does it matter if you previously consented to sex with that person or if you have a history of sleeping with people? What if that person that broke into your home said “well she/he let me into her home before and she/he has a history of hosting gatherings so I thought it was okay to enter without her/his permission?” We have to stop blaming the victims, starting holding the perpetrators accountable, and attack the problem at its root. We need to change the questions we are asking because we currently aren’t getting to get right answers, and we have to work together as a society to do so.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
“You can go back home if you want. But if you do, then I’ll tell my parents everything we’ve already done. I’ll tell them it was your idea.”
---
How an eleven year-old child ever learned to manipulate that well, I will never know. My parents always told me K* (the neighbors’ daughter) was “bossy,” and that I shouldn’t listen to her if she told me to do something I didn’t want to do. They gave their advice like it was easy to follow. But then again, they probably never imagined she could corner me as expertly as she did; that she could violate my body and make me feel like it was my fault. They probably thought she was, at worst, making me give her my ice cream money or something.
K always knew the exact words that would keep me trapped in her bedroom with its pink walls and Britney Spears posters, a torturous cell of shame with a candy-sweet exterior. I can only guess that she modeled her threat on a similar one that someone else once delivered to her when she was my age, or younger even. Abuse is, after all, a pain that is transmitted like disease; you have to have gotten it in some way or another in order to give it.
At the time, I was eight years old, standing barefoot on the plush carpet of K’s bedroom, staring blankly at her butterfly comforter on top of which the “dating game” almost always took place. She made me be “the boy” every time, which even then I found ironic, because the game hinged on revealing, using, and abusing the body parts that distinguished me as a girl child. I think, perhaps, the first time we “played the game,” I was excited, filled with a child’s curiosity; I had never been allowed to see another person’s body freed from clothing before and she told me she would show me how to kiss. I knew from enough movies and television that it was best to learn how to kiss as quickly as possible, so I figured it was a fair offer to take up, and I agreed. I saw it as a learning experience that would put me ahead. I never imagined that her kisses and her touch, the oppressive weight of which I endured for three years, would be the first and last ones that my body would feel for the next ten years. I never thought I would have to be asking myself, at the age of nineteen, whether or not it was her fault or mine that I consistently push away all the men who interest me, even the ones I want so much to touch, and kiss, and love. Am I afraid that some of the pain she gave to me will rub off on them? Or am I afraid that they might still smell the scent of her on me, like fruit body spray, sweat, and shame?
I have done a decade of hard work to recover the few memories I have from those years, and I am sure there are still many locked away in the deep recesses of my mind. Yet, every time I bring a new one up and attempt to dust it off, I feel stronger and stronger for having survived and inspired to be an ally for other survivors. Because I have felt the pain of sexual trauma and emotional abuse on my own body, mind, and spirit, I know the importance of stopping their infectious spread by giving people an alternative model for processing their own trauma. Survivors need to know that asking others to help you hold your pain is not the same as passing it on to them. Speaking out, letting others know what happened to me has become the key to my own freedom that I was not able to access at the age of eight. I hope my abuser has found a better way to deal with her pain by now, wherever she may be.
(*Name has been changed to protect the anonymity of my testimonial)
---
How an eleven year-old child ever learned to manipulate that well, I will never know. My parents always told me K* (the neighbors’ daughter) was “bossy,” and that I shouldn’t listen to her if she told me to do something I didn’t want to do. They gave their advice like it was easy to follow. But then again, they probably never imagined she could corner me as expertly as she did; that she could violate my body and make me feel like it was my fault. They probably thought she was, at worst, making me give her my ice cream money or something.
K always knew the exact words that would keep me trapped in her bedroom with its pink walls and Britney Spears posters, a torturous cell of shame with a candy-sweet exterior. I can only guess that she modeled her threat on a similar one that someone else once delivered to her when she was my age, or younger even. Abuse is, after all, a pain that is transmitted like disease; you have to have gotten it in some way or another in order to give it.
At the time, I was eight years old, standing barefoot on the plush carpet of K’s bedroom, staring blankly at her butterfly comforter on top of which the “dating game” almost always took place. She made me be “the boy” every time, which even then I found ironic, because the game hinged on revealing, using, and abusing the body parts that distinguished me as a girl child. I think, perhaps, the first time we “played the game,” I was excited, filled with a child’s curiosity; I had never been allowed to see another person’s body freed from clothing before and she told me she would show me how to kiss. I knew from enough movies and television that it was best to learn how to kiss as quickly as possible, so I figured it was a fair offer to take up, and I agreed. I saw it as a learning experience that would put me ahead. I never imagined that her kisses and her touch, the oppressive weight of which I endured for three years, would be the first and last ones that my body would feel for the next ten years. I never thought I would have to be asking myself, at the age of nineteen, whether or not it was her fault or mine that I consistently push away all the men who interest me, even the ones I want so much to touch, and kiss, and love. Am I afraid that some of the pain she gave to me will rub off on them? Or am I afraid that they might still smell the scent of her on me, like fruit body spray, sweat, and shame?
I have done a decade of hard work to recover the few memories I have from those years, and I am sure there are still many locked away in the deep recesses of my mind. Yet, every time I bring a new one up and attempt to dust it off, I feel stronger and stronger for having survived and inspired to be an ally for other survivors. Because I have felt the pain of sexual trauma and emotional abuse on my own body, mind, and spirit, I know the importance of stopping their infectious spread by giving people an alternative model for processing their own trauma. Survivors need to know that asking others to help you hold your pain is not the same as passing it on to them. Speaking out, letting others know what happened to me has become the key to my own freedom that I was not able to access at the age of eight. I hope my abuser has found a better way to deal with her pain by now, wherever she may be.
(*Name has been changed to protect the anonymity of my testimonial)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
I'm not entirely sure if this is considered sexual assault, but it still makes me feel gross.
Last year, I had alcohol/drug-related problem and would frequently black out after a night of substance abuse. But I was careful to make sure I didn't drink at parties or anywhere there were strangers. I figured it would be okay as long as I was in my room, not disturbing anyone or being disturbed by anyone. Some of my unc friends knew about my drug habits, including him.
I don't really remember the circumstances around how this happened. I barely even remember the event. I must have blacked out because I only remember flashes of it. I remember him putting his arm around me, and me pushing it away. I remember wanting to throw up at the look on his face. But when I woke up the next morning, he was gone. Everything seemed normal, so I figured it was a dream.
He texted me a few days later asking if we were okay. I had no idea what he was talking about. He described what had happened. We were both in my bed. He was feeling me up, and apparently I was doing the same to him. I didn't remember any of it.
He says it was consensual, and maybe it was. I'd been high around him before though, and I know the last time that happened, he was adamant that I "couldn't give consent." He said I didn't seem high or blacked out or off to him. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I just forgot. I'm not sure.
But he also knows I'm gay. He knew about my drug habits. I thought he should have realized I would never have wanted that if I weren't incapacitated. I also feel like if I were incapacitated, it should have been fairly obvious.
This year, he lives down the hall from me. Some of my friends think I'm overreacting, and maybe I am. But I can't help but feel betrayed. He was a friend I trusted, and now I get panic attacks whenever I pass by him or see him. And he's probably going to be a doctor one day because he's smart enough to get into a good med school. And it makes me sick knowing the type of power he could have over an unknowing/unwilling patient.
Last year, I had alcohol/drug-related problem and would frequently black out after a night of substance abuse. But I was careful to make sure I didn't drink at parties or anywhere there were strangers. I figured it would be okay as long as I was in my room, not disturbing anyone or being disturbed by anyone. Some of my unc friends knew about my drug habits, including him.
I don't really remember the circumstances around how this happened. I barely even remember the event. I must have blacked out because I only remember flashes of it. I remember him putting his arm around me, and me pushing it away. I remember wanting to throw up at the look on his face. But when I woke up the next morning, he was gone. Everything seemed normal, so I figured it was a dream.
He texted me a few days later asking if we were okay. I had no idea what he was talking about. He described what had happened. We were both in my bed. He was feeling me up, and apparently I was doing the same to him. I didn't remember any of it.
He says it was consensual, and maybe it was. I'd been high around him before though, and I know the last time that happened, he was adamant that I "couldn't give consent." He said I didn't seem high or blacked out or off to him. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I just forgot. I'm not sure.
But he also knows I'm gay. He knew about my drug habits. I thought he should have realized I would never have wanted that if I weren't incapacitated. I also feel like if I were incapacitated, it should have been fairly obvious.
This year, he lives down the hall from me. Some of my friends think I'm overreacting, and maybe I am. But I can't help but feel betrayed. He was a friend I trusted, and now I get panic attacks whenever I pass by him or see him. And he's probably going to be a doctor one day because he's smart enough to get into a good med school. And it makes me sick knowing the type of power he could have over an unknowing/unwilling patient.
I was a junior in high school when it happened. I still don't know if I could call it "violence", because that has a certain connotation. But it was certainly a violation. I was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity- we used to do an event called ShackAThon, where you built a little hut out of cardboard and decorated it and slept in it in a parking lot for a night to raise awareness for the homeless (and money through sponsorships).
He was a really popular kid in school, and he's never really talked to me. That night, he came to hang out in my little box house, and I thought it was weird, but also awesome. I thought he sort of hated me, so feeling like I might actually be "cool" was amazing for my awkward self.
I don't remember how we fell asleep. It must've happened while we were talking late into the night. When I woke up though, he was holding me, and I guessed I was okay with that. Maybe he was interesting me, and who doesn't love cuddling? But then I noticed he wasn't asleep, and his fingers were creeping into my waistband. I wiggled and sort of snorted to make it seem like I was slowly waking up. He moved away. But after I'd lain still for a while and I guess he thought I was asleep again, it continued. I didn't know what to do.
I just stayed awake all night, wiggling as necessary to try to escape, sweating and wondering what I would do if he ignored my "waking" motions. I never said anything though, because I thought that's "just what boys did". What could I expect, anyway? I was sleeping in a tent with him, of course he was going to touch me. (I wish I could go back and tell my 15 year old self that that's now how any of this actually works...)
In a nightclub in Mexico 4 years later...THAT was far more violent. Dancing with a seemingly-kind stranger suddenly turned into him violently shoving his hand up my skirt and into my body, all the while I screamed at him to stop and hit him. He held on to me so tightly that I couldn't get away, and no one could hear my protests over the music. He kept whispering in my ear that I should go back to his place with him. I won't ever be able to thank my best friend enough for finding me in that club and noticing that something was very wrong.
It's weird that I still consider myself lucky. Like I have no reason to complain or to use my experiences as examples of sexism and sexual wrongdoing, because it could have been so much worse. And I don't know how to be there for those who have experienced levels of hell far deeper than those I breached. I feel lost and I feel sorry.
He was a really popular kid in school, and he's never really talked to me. That night, he came to hang out in my little box house, and I thought it was weird, but also awesome. I thought he sort of hated me, so feeling like I might actually be "cool" was amazing for my awkward self.
I don't remember how we fell asleep. It must've happened while we were talking late into the night. When I woke up though, he was holding me, and I guessed I was okay with that. Maybe he was interesting me, and who doesn't love cuddling? But then I noticed he wasn't asleep, and his fingers were creeping into my waistband. I wiggled and sort of snorted to make it seem like I was slowly waking up. He moved away. But after I'd lain still for a while and I guess he thought I was asleep again, it continued. I didn't know what to do.
I just stayed awake all night, wiggling as necessary to try to escape, sweating and wondering what I would do if he ignored my "waking" motions. I never said anything though, because I thought that's "just what boys did". What could I expect, anyway? I was sleeping in a tent with him, of course he was going to touch me. (I wish I could go back and tell my 15 year old self that that's now how any of this actually works...)
In a nightclub in Mexico 4 years later...THAT was far more violent. Dancing with a seemingly-kind stranger suddenly turned into him violently shoving his hand up my skirt and into my body, all the while I screamed at him to stop and hit him. He held on to me so tightly that I couldn't get away, and no one could hear my protests over the music. He kept whispering in my ear that I should go back to his place with him. I won't ever be able to thank my best friend enough for finding me in that club and noticing that something was very wrong.
It's weird that I still consider myself lucky. Like I have no reason to complain or to use my experiences as examples of sexism and sexual wrongdoing, because it could have been so much worse. And I don't know how to be there for those who have experienced levels of hell far deeper than those I breached. I feel lost and I feel sorry.
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