I am not to blame.

I’m currently writing my dissertation on feminism and gender. As I’ve been researching I’ve had to look into a lot of discourse on sexual abuse. As I researched more and more the most horrific realization dawned on me. I have been sexually abused. Not in an obvious way, not even in a violent way, but in a way that sickened me to the core at the time and made me hate MYSELF.

About a year ago I worked in a bar. There was a guy who lived above it, we chatted a few times and he was nice enough. One night after work I stayed for a drink with my friends, he was also there. As we got more and more drunk he was telling me that he’d been watching me behind the bar for ages and that I must’ve known because I’d been parading myself around “looking sexy”. Honestly I was flattered, I thought he was kind of cute but I knew I didn’t want anything to happen. I drunkenly told my friends to please stop me if it seemed as if anything was. One by one, though, my friends left and it was just me, this guy, and a couple of people I didn’t really know. That’s when the coercion started. He was relentless, I said no multiple times, he kept giving me drinks, he told me that it would be hard for me to get home because it was late, “just come upstairs and lie down, I’ll get you a cab in the morning”. At this point it was about 6am, I was wasted. Eventually I agreed to go upstairs, part of me knew that he didn’t really just want me to lie down but I went anyway.

Upstairs I started to sober up and feel panicky. He was kissing me and I kept pulling away, I sat on the end of his bed and told him I felt ill, I didn’t want to do anything. He said he understood but he kept touching me, not forcefully just in a way that suggested he didn’t really care how I was feeling. He wanted to get laid. In the end, after a few hours of coercion, I slept with him. He had trouble getting it in because I was so dry. I just lay below him and tuned out and when it was over I got in a taxi and went home.

I didn’t sleep for two days, I felt nauseous. The sad part is that the nausea was guilt because I felt I had done something wrong. I was stupid, I shouldn’t have flirted with him, he was friends with my boss, what was I THINKING? I believed I had control of the situation but I didn’t. He did not for one second consider my obvious discomfort, even my verbal non-consent prior was ignored.
It’s taken me this long to realise I was not at fault. Knowing that, even now, lessens the blow a little bit as it allows the guilt to alleviate. The guilt, though, transforms into a white hot rage that I am not the only one. I hope that by sharing my experience I can help someone else realise if they ever find themselves in that situation, you have a right to leave. Get out. You do not owe anyone ANYTHING. You are under no obligation to put yourself through sexual trauma just to keep the peace. And sexual harassment isn’t always obvious, sometimes it is subtle, creeping and turns you against yourself.

<3