Abuse

Becs

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I used a male dominated forum connected to the sport I love. A man has started his own personal hate campaign against me for no apparent reason. I don’t know who he is or why he is doing this to me. When I post, he gives his opinion on personal things in my life. He says I am worthless, my job is meaningless and basically follows me around belittling what I post and trying to make others believe that I’m selfish, uncaring etc. The forum owner refuses to do anything as the man is just expressing his opinions. I’ve been given the option of putting up with it or leaving the forum. It’s disgusting that women are expected to accept that being verbally attacked by a man is a normal experience that we have to put up with.

Charlotte

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This is a letter I wrote to the person I consideed my ‘boyfriend’ aged 12-13. I will never have the courage to send this personally. Hi! I don’t want to have a conversation with you. I don’t want a response nor your thoughts on the matter. I would like to let you know that I think back to the time I knew you often, despite being 28 now. It makes me feel sick and desperately sad. I want you to know that I have a deep rooted aversion to going to the south west where I grew up because of my early adolescence. On the only occasion I could bring myself to visit Devon/Cornwall when I was 20 I arrived in Plymouth and felt sick with anxiety. Why did you and your friends feel it was OK to hang out with children? I look back at pictures of myself at that age and I was a child who had not even reached 5 feet tall. Did you know I hadn’t even started puberty yet? We had absolutely nothing in common whatsoever. Your music taste was awful. You broke things off with me just before you turned 16 because you would have been classed as a sex offender in the eyes of the law. I was alienated by the girls in my class and as a result found it difficult thereafter to make friends or trust people. My virginity was taken painfully and forcefully by you in a small, secluded cave on the Plymouth seafront. I hadn’t started my period yet but my young and naive self went to the sexual health clinic alone in floods of tears explaining my situation to a rather severe middle aged woman who explained that it was impossible for me to get pregnant. You undoubtedly ruined my adolescence and, as such, had a profoundly negative effect on my early adulthood too. I will never have fond memories of coming of age because of you. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to make it better. Perhaps if you ever have children of your own you can protect your daughter or teach your son not to prey on pre-pubescent teenagers like you did. Just a thought.

Cristina Berenguer

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My (now ex-)boyfriend used to treat me like a piece of shit while claiming that he was “a feminist” and saying that he couldn’t stand women being treated in the way they are. He was always sharing feminist videos on his social media. We had an open relationship because he had asked me to (while he always was saying it was because I would not be able to have a closed relationship – aka slut-shaming me). When we were with our friends he made me look like I was the one bossing him around, him being innocent and this poor boy who was always behind me, doing whatever I wanted. He tried to get in bed with friends of mine, while I was in the same room. He raped me through coercion multiple times – including the first time we had “sex”-, he told me my English (which is not our first language) was bad, he told a friend of mine that he was only a 5% sexually satisfied with me. He was obsessed with anal sex and he always wanted to try it with me, when he very well knew I hated it and it hurt a lot for me. In a nutshell, he disturbed my sexual life to a point where I would start crying in the middle of doing it. Still now, sometimes, I can’t have sex with my couple because I can’t stop thinking of that. Never respected my boundaries, gaslighted me and treated me like I was ugly and stupid. Now I have a masters’ degree in Plant Biotechnology and I will start my PhD this year.

when nobody helps

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my boyfriend loved me, or i thought he did. we were together for a year and a half. my first relationship. he raped me more times than i can count. i told myself it wasn’t rape, that it was an accident, that he loved me – so it was fine. i sat on the feeling for months. things didn’t feel quite right anymore. he made a group of friends, and told them private sexual information about me without my permission, then asked to send explicit photos of me to the group. i told him no but the more i said no, the more upset he got. he kept trying to pressure me into a foursome with two of his friends – i didn’t know what to do or say, i tried to refuse but he’d cry and argue if i did. i didn’t know what to do. he invited me out for a meal with friends, i thought it would be a normal night – once we’d finished eating, some of his friends left, leaving him and myself alongside the two friends that he wanted me to ‘fuck.’ i was freezing cold, walking around in a jumper at 9pm in september. we walked around the town for a bit, my boyfriend kept grabbing me to the point where i felt claustrophobic, trying to be sexual but actually just frightening me. i agreed to go back to one of their houses just to hang out, i assumed we’d be talking or using our phones. when we got there, my boyfriend blocked off the area with chairs and cornered me on a sofa. he assaulted me, grabbing me and putting his hands under my clothes, not pulling his arm out from my underwear even when i was tugging on it. his friends watched, they did nothing to help me. he dragged me off to his friend’s bedroom and got me down on the bed. i was on my phone, repeatedly turning away and trying to make it clear that i didn’t want to do anything sexual. he tried to take off my jeans. it felt like a year until his friends came back in. they were trying to have sex on the bed next to us. i felt shaken and physically sick. we walked home, he grabbed my arm so hard that fingerprint shaped bruises appeared the following day, and kept asking me ‘why wouldn’t you let me touch you?’ i felt sick to my stomach from that night. the feeling of nausea, losing my appetite and vomiting didn’t stop until over a month after the attack. my boyfriend went out the following day to fuck another girl behind my back – the same girl who sat next to me and watched him assault me, doing nothing. i reached out to her and asked for help, not knowing what went on with her and him – she told me to fuck off. she wasn’t interested in what i had to say. my boyfriend broke up with me the following day so he could date her. and that was it. i have lost all my friends, respect, i can no longer leave the house and had to quit my job. i have been diagnosed with ptsd and can’t function normally. i’ve attempted suicide four times since the attack. i reported the assault to the police, but because of legal issues, they won’t allow me to access therapy. i see a therapist once every fortnight but am not allowed to discuss the assault. i want nothing more than to die. if you see something suspicious, please step in. i wish more than anything that someone would have helped me.

Ella

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I had a huge crush on a “class clown” character in my class from the beginning of secondary school. It soon became obvious to him that this was the case and he began manipulating me, making me think he liked me, making me feel stupid and fat and ugly but wanting more and more attention from him. Eventually, I became involved with one of his friends, who began emotionally abusing me (another story – he’d say he was going to kill himself every day). But the original boy kept coming to my house, began sexually assaulting me, telling me I was disgusting and going to hell because it was cheating because I didn’t tell anyone. He did this until I agreed to break up with my boyfriend and date him. He then continued to abuse me, but me over and over again to “do stuff”, telling me that if I didn’t that he’d tell everyone about my mental health issues. I reported him to the police a year later from a psychiatric unit I was sectioned into after starving myself and self harming. Nothing was done. I was still put back in the same school and classes as him. He tormented me daily, saying I’d ruin his reputation and I was a liar and that if I said anything else he would tell everyone I was crazy and on antidepressants. His friends all bullied me also, one of them spiking my drink and assaulting me at a party. They are all still living in the same town as me, walking the streets, laughing when they see me, passing me at college and work making jokes. Feeding lies into the ears of anyone I get close to. Rape culture and gang culture led these boys to stuck together in a toxic group, ruining my life. I have come out of this looking like the lesser person and he has never been happier or more popular. These boys led me to eating disorders, suicidal ideation, self harm and more. Yet to them, it is all a joke because, to them, women are lesser beings, there only for pleasure and to be used and manipulated to their will.

Stefi

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Working with a “friend” who was one of my friend’s fiancee. He came out telling me that he thinks of me sexually the last 10 years. He told me that he was obsessed about fucking me and he insisted on giving it a try although i was screaming no in his face. He told me that he could rape me if he wanted to. After this incident he started a campaign of slander to all of our common friends and acquaintances about how I was the one who was obsessed with him and how i tried to seduce him while he was an innocent victim. He told everyone all the personal information he new about me and bullied me in several ways: e.g. he took my backpack in front of me scattering all my personal staff on the floor while laughing at my face. He is a sick psychopath, and i wish i had saw all the hints of who he really was on time.

Cassie

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After I was raped during my senior year of high school I was too terrified and ashamed to speak about it. I developed a drug dependency and much later was diagnosed with PTSD. I kept my experience bottled in for nearly two years until during recovery from my addiction I reached out to my mom and told her about my experience. She confessed to me that she too had been raped in her early twenties, and that my grandmother had been the victim of sexual assault and had never spoken about it until my mom reached out to her for support years after her own assault. We all had similar stories. We were afraid of not being believed, or being called a slut, or being re-victimized by the court system if we chose to seek justice. Three generations of women in my family are rape survivors, and none of us felt as though we could come forward for the same reasons. I am of the mind that all women have experienced sexism in one way or another; and the idea that women should keep their complaints about everyday sexism to themselves merely perpetuates a culture that places shame and guilt on survivors of sexualized violence, and further enables the male social privilege that allows men to get away with acts of sexualized violence. The most important weapon we have as women is our voice, and the communities we create by using them to share our experiences are stronger than we can imagine.

R.

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I was in a relationship with a guy who would”joke” and mock all my beliefs in feminism, gay and trans rights etc. He’d tell me he was definitely right and went so far as to tell me that I had to agree with him because he is a man and I am a woman and women should listen and submit to mens wishes. He would pressure me into sex and if I said no my reason had to be good enough. He would joke about hurting me. he’d wrestle me and tell me that I was weak and couldn’t fight my way out or he pull out a knife and pretend to threaten me. He would fight with me about wanting to sleep with other women or “side hoes”, he used shitty sexist language all the time. He broke up with me and told me he never wanted to see me again, I got black out drunk at a friends birthday when he wasn’t speaking with me and he took me to his house (after I threw up on the bus) and raped me when I while I was unconscious. Sexism starts small and gets big. It’s easier than you think to be manipulated by someone you love, I was 17/18.

Marcella

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Easter Sunday I am wearing a one-piece white shorts outfit. Comfortable enough to drive back to art school, which is a 3-hour drive. I am visiting my adoptive parents for 2 days and Uncle Paul spent holidays (lunch) with us as well as my grandparents. When I leant over to Uncle Paul to kiss him goodbye on his cheek, HE STUCK his tongue down my throat aggressively and felt me up with his hands. When I pushed him away he simply laughed out loud at me! I drove back to art school and rang my adoptive mother straight away. I was beyond furious. I said, “tell your boyfriend Uncle Paul to keep his tongue and hands to himself next time otherwise SAL (adoptive father) will be told ALL”. When my adoptive mother challenged her lover Uncle Paul about his sexual assault on her daughter he simply said “just look at her, I couldn’t help myself”. Nothing was ever done.

Jason

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I was abused by my last gf she used to hit my across my face and was overly controlling, cutting me off from all my female friends in case I was “cheating” I broke up with her and sought help, many told me I was a pussy and to grow up, I am considering jumping from a bridge right now, in this sexist society, only women can be abused, men can’t cry or show their emotions in fear of being called un-manly or feminine, because apparently women can’t abuse or rape, everytime I’m on the metro, mothers ask their children to move away from me as if I am a pedophile or rapist, this is only a fringe of the real everyday sexism that men go through..