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Body and the blood
A friend of a friend raped me when I was 15 years old. We'd been at the same party earlier in the night.
We were getting along well chatting and later on he asked my friend, her boyfriend and I if we wanted to come back to his house – they had a spa and his parents were away at the time. We all went back to his house and after a while my friend and her boyfriend decided to go home. He told me I could stay there which I wanted to as I lived quite far away and at this point it was very late in the night.
I'd never had sex before and made it very clear to him that this was not on the cards at all. I told him I had my period at the time, so I wouldn't be having sex with him
.
He didn't listen though.
He dropped me home the next morning; laughing as he said, "have a nice life" when I got out of his car.
I went inside my house and sat in front of a mirror, staring at my reflection and began sobbing uncontrollably. I remember feeling so confused by this, why was I crying? I'd just had sex for the first time and that was meant to be great, right? So why didn't I feel great?
I knew in my gut that I had just been raped but I tried to suppress this and dismiss it for a few months. If I didn't acknowledge that anything was wrong, maybe nothing was? My closest friend knew that something wasn't right about the situation and after talking with her at length about it I was able to express and accept that I had been raped. Coming to terms with this was incredibly daunting
If that wasn't traumatic enough to deal with, it also triggered past trauma from my childhood. Being raped at 17 brought the previous abuse I'd tried to bury all back to the surface again.
First there was immense grief. Then the rage came flooding in. I began to hear of things that he had passed on to his friends. According to the bro-code, I had given him sexual favours in exchange for an Up&Go drink. He also shared intimate details about my body which became common knowledge to others at his all-boys high school. Two of his close friends sat and joked about this in front of my friends.
My rape had become an anecdote to them, reduced to a piece of banter to joke about with the lads and to gloat in front of other women how their mates treated people. Just your classic 'locker room' chat as President Trump would say, completely harmless. After all, what is it we are told? Boys will be boys
By now I was in complete disbelief, it started to become very clear to me that he had no idea the implications his actions were having on me.
So there I was, a 15 year old rape survivor finding myself feeling a responsibility to educate my 20 year old rapist on what rape was, what consent was and how he could NEVER treat another woman the way he had treated me.
But why the fuck had nobody else already taught him this? Was it his parents' fault? Was it his schools'? Somebody needed to be held accountable and I knew sure as hell it wasn't my fault.
But why the fuck had nobody else already taught him this? Was it his parents' fault? Was it his schools'? Somebody needed to be held accountable and I knew sure as hell it wasn't my fault.
I decided that the best course of action was to send him a lengthy message outlining the effect his actions had on me. He obviously just didn't understand what happened and surely if I explained the situation he would get it and apologise. At this stage I was still holding on to the belief that he was simply a 'nice guy' who made a mistake. I wonder how many times since I've heard those words. "Oh but he's such a nice guy though?" "His family are really good friends with my family!"
Let me shatter the bubble you are living in – 'nice guys' do bad things sometimes. They are now no longer the nice guys you once believed them to be. If you are not judged on how you treat other human beings, what exactly is the basis of your character judgement
He never responded to my message. Nothing has ever screamed guilt to me more than the 'seen' icon at the bottom of that message. Nothing has screamed guilt to me more than him subsequently blocking me on social
© AR
#writco #society #evil
We were getting along well chatting and later on he asked my friend, her boyfriend and I if we wanted to come back to his house – they had a spa and his parents were away at the time. We all went back to his house and after a while my friend and her boyfriend decided to go home. He told me I could stay there which I wanted to as I lived quite far away and at this point it was very late in the night.
I'd never had sex before and made it very clear to him that this was not on the cards at all. I told him I had my period at the time, so I wouldn't be having sex with him
.
He didn't listen though.
He dropped me home the next morning; laughing as he said, "have a nice life" when I got out of his car.
I went inside my house and sat in front of a mirror, staring at my reflection and began sobbing uncontrollably. I remember feeling so confused by this, why was I crying? I'd just had sex for the first time and that was meant to be great, right? So why didn't I feel great?
I knew in my gut that I had just been raped but I tried to suppress this and dismiss it for a few months. If I didn't acknowledge that anything was wrong, maybe nothing was? My closest friend knew that something wasn't right about the situation and after talking with her at length about it I was able to express and accept that I had been raped. Coming to terms with this was incredibly daunting
If that wasn't traumatic enough to deal with, it also triggered past trauma from my childhood. Being raped at 17 brought the previous abuse I'd tried to bury all back to the surface again.
First there was immense grief. Then the rage came flooding in. I began to hear of things that he had passed on to his friends. According to the bro-code, I had given him sexual favours in exchange for an Up&Go drink. He also shared intimate details about my body which became common knowledge to others at his all-boys high school. Two of his close friends sat and joked about this in front of my friends.
My rape had become an anecdote to them, reduced to a piece of banter to joke about with the lads and to gloat in front of other women how their mates treated people. Just your classic 'locker room' chat as President Trump would say, completely harmless. After all, what is it we are told? Boys will be boys
By now I was in complete disbelief, it started to become very clear to me that he had no idea the implications his actions were having on me.
So there I was, a 15 year old rape survivor finding myself feeling a responsibility to educate my 20 year old rapist on what rape was, what consent was and how he could NEVER treat another woman the way he had treated me.
But why the fuck had nobody else already taught him this? Was it his parents' fault? Was it his schools'? Somebody needed to be held accountable and I knew sure as hell it wasn't my fault.
But why the fuck had nobody else already taught him this? Was it his parents' fault? Was it his schools'? Somebody needed to be held accountable and I knew sure as hell it wasn't my fault.
I decided that the best course of action was to send him a lengthy message outlining the effect his actions had on me. He obviously just didn't understand what happened and surely if I explained the situation he would get it and apologise. At this stage I was still holding on to the belief that he was simply a 'nice guy' who made a mistake. I wonder how many times since I've heard those words. "Oh but he's such a nice guy though?" "His family are really good friends with my family!"
Let me shatter the bubble you are living in – 'nice guys' do bad things sometimes. They are now no longer the nice guys you once believed them to be. If you are not judged on how you treat other human beings, what exactly is the basis of your character judgement
He never responded to my message. Nothing has ever screamed guilt to me more than the 'seen' icon at the bottom of that message. Nothing has screamed guilt to me more than him subsequently blocking me on social
© AR
#writco #society #evil
