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Around the time I had just turned 21, a group of friends(along with their friends that I wasn’t very familiar with) and I went out to the bars. When we came home we continued to hangout and drink. I was sitting on the couch next to one of my friends friends who was engaged. I didn’t know him very well but we had met a couple times before and he seemed nice. As everybody around us slowly went to sleep, we stayed up talking about random things. After about 30 minutes of just us talking, I said I was tired. He begged me to stay up and started to touch my feet/rub my legs. I pulled away and told him to stop because A. I had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested and B. He was engaged. He proceeded to grope me, reaching for my vagina and touching me multiple times as I struggled to get away from his arms that were pinning my legs down. I was supposed to be sleeping on the couch and he was supposed to be walking home because he lived down the street. I told him I was going to sleep and asked him to leave, he said he would and that he needed to use the bathroom. He was in the bathroom for awhile and I decided I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping on the couch by myself because of what happened so I was going to ask one of my girl friends if I could sleep with her for the night. I walked past the bathroom and the lights were off and the door was open so I was confused because I had never seen him leave the house. As I went to turn the bathroom light on and see what was going on, he grabbed me from behind and pulled me into one of the empty/vacant rooms that was directly across from the bathroom. It scared me so badly I couldn’t even muster out a scream, I just froze in terror, I couldn’t even find my voice. He moved his hand over my mouth and held my body against his with the other arm while shutting the door. At this point I was very drunk and very scared, in that moment I never felt more weak and helpless. He kept telling me “I can tell you want it by the way you were looking at me” “You were asking for it” over and over again. I felt his boner on my thigh the whole time. When he let his grip of my body go I stumbled forward and turned toward the door that was shut, but he was blocking it, all I could say was “Please” implying to please let me go. But that’s all that came out. In response, he said “My pleasure” as if I was begging him to do something sexually to me. He pulled his pants down and revealed himself as he grabbed my head and forced it down toward his penis. I mumbled “No, no, no, no” and struggled to push myself away from him but his grip was so strong, and the more he kept forcing my neck down the more I lost my balance and strength. I fell to my knees and he shoved his penis multiple times in my face but I refused to open my mouth. He then pushed me over onto my back on the floor and laid his body on top of me so I couldn’t move. He had one hand pinning my left arm and the other hand kept attempting to remove my pants all while shoving his penis into my crotch. I finally started yelling and he got scared somebody would come in and he got off of me and told me to stop. He told me to “Shut my pretty little mouth”. I stumbled for the door, this time he let me leave all the while saying things like “I know you still want it, I’ll be here when you’re ready”. I was able to get out and get to one of my very close guy friends sleeping on one of the other couches in the living room. I woke him up and told him what happened since it was his friend that did this to me and I thought he would be able to handle it and make the guy leave my friends house. He seemed like he was already awake as he sat up and said “Yeah I heard you guys, you know he’s engaged right?” implying that I helped him cheat. In disbelief I tried to help him understand that I tried to stop it from happening and it was not something I wanted. He finally understood the situation and kicked the guy out. In those first initial moments, my friend failed me.

I’m 24 now. I’ve let this effect me negatively ever since. I always regretted things, and wondered why they happened to me. I questioned what I was wearing, and the way that I “looked” at him and even started to blame myself at times. I thought I wasn’t stern enough from the moment it started and he took it as me “playing hard to get”. Maybe my words weren’t serious enough, maybe I wasn’t loud enough when I said no, maybe my actions were giving him mixed signals somehow, maybe I didn’t remember the night correctly the next day. But no. The truth is, he wanted what he wanted and I was his victim. I did everything the way I should have, and I saved myself from something that could have been worse. I’m strong. You are all strong, whether the experience is big or small. Don’t question yourself or your self worth. You are more.