Friend

anonymous

my best friend, who’s also 13, was touched on her thighs and on her chest by her guy-friend. Of course she assumed it was a mistake the first few touches, but after a while it was obvious her was doing it on purpose. I’m uncomfortable boys my age feel conmfortable treating girls like this.

HG

One of my male friends whom I’d been friends with for years came to visit me while I was working on the road recruiting students for a college. He was in the military and a die hard Christian so it was out of character for him to drink but he brought a bottle of scotch anyways. The night started out with 1 drink and ended in many more. I had plans to meet up with out mutual friend (his bet friend) the next week for a date and he knew about it – he said he was happy for us. Since the hotel I was staying in had 2 beds I said he could spend the night, I crawled in to one bed, he took the other and I turned out the lights. I fell asleep almost instantly. When I awoke, I felt a heaviness on my body and could feel his wet lips on mine. I stayed still, awake for a few seconds to process what was going on – my shirt was no where to be seen, he was kissing me and had wedged his body between my legs (still clothed in my pajama pants). I pushed him off the bed and climbed into the other, warning him to stay away from me. The worst parts came after when I told a close friend what happened and she said “Don’t be so ungrateful, he’s hot.”

Alice

So I go to my usual pub and after I’ve been there a couple of hours I go to the bar where a so-called male friend flicked my nipple and acted like it was a joke. His friend was laughing along encouraging him and threatening to do it as well. Out of my presence they asked a third male to flick my nipple and he “surprised” me by doing so a few minutes later. Everyone thought it was hilarious. My boyfriend who saw the second “hilarious” nipple flick did nothing.

Nadia

Molested by half-conscious friend. It was in Brighton, quite a long time ago. I was with an old cis male friend of mine. We had been at a party and we had agreed that I would be staying over at his on the sofa. Unfortunately for this story, he got incredibly wasted. I realised this on the way back to his. I wasn’t quite sure how out of it he was, he was still speaking, mildly, but it seemed that he was operating with basic motorised functions but not really himself for a number of hours. When we got to his house, he didn’t seem to have the keys. Later we found that his keys were in his pockets. Now I know to have checked them but he was still talking to me so I thought that he might have lost them on the way back or at the party. I can’t remember why but I also didn’t have money at the time either. This basically meant that we were on the street for a number of hours. I was quite unsure of what to do. I needed to look out for my friend, stay with them, until they were more themself. I waas holding his hand as we walked around near the lanes. It would have been seriously dangerous for him without my assistance. We were going to be on the streets for the rest of the night, morning, with basically nothing. I was worried about getting really cold. I used to get to know homemless people in Brighton quite a lot. In Brighton there is a lot more of a friendly atmosphere (than compared to, for example, central London which is where I moved to a few years later) and so it’s not uncommon for people to hang out with homeless people and talk to them there. I ended up spending time with a homeless person which at first was great. I thought company! & they offered me my and my friend a blanket. To my horror, whilst I was speaking to the homeless person, out of no-where my friend started to touch me inappropriately, the most sensitive, intimate and traumatised part of my body. Incredibly shocked by this, I moved away from him and within a few moments he had adjusted where he was at and he did it again. I don’t want to go into more detail about how horrible this felt. I said his name and told him to stop it not sure if he could hear me. Now, what was – amongst the obvious horrible ness of this – also disturbing was that I knew he was semi-conscious. He was reaching for the most sacred and intimate part of me when I hadn’t given any sign of consent in a semi-conscious state. Who the fuck was this? What’s going on?! Am I communicating with this persons subconscious?! Great. ‘Cause it’s freaky shit up in here and I do not know how to deal with molesting parts of people’s subconscious, at least at that specific point in time psychologically. Also – how did he know that’s where that part of me was? I mean, why wasn’t he going for my feet, or some part of me closer to him? It was very obviously direct and disturbing. What should I feel about this? Seriously…what the hell…my friend just molested me when he was semi conscious. Also! If he was in any way conscious, this was a friend of mine, I trusted him…I mean, he knows about my past about this stuff, I have told him about it to ask for support and help. Really quite angry. Really quite confused. Also simultaneously and still (rather ironically at this point) really concerned about his wellbeing. Also! How am I going to explain this to him the next day? I mean I have to… I have had so many uncomfortable conversations with people only out of necessity about such things. ​It’s pretty surreal and I really don’t mean in the dreamy sense. SO BASICALLY, I got up, moved us to the North Lanes – not really knowing how to process all this but knew I had to move as the homeless person started being creepy too and I was like BLAHHHH – I went just round the corner to the North Lanes. It was too early for people to be around much, but it felt safer and I found a great bench (outside the bagel store facing the on-foot path with loads of cafe and shops that were about to open) in the North Lanes which seemed like a good place whilst I meditated near. Someone from a cafe gave me a muffin for free but was also creepy – really spun me out and gave me a tiny glimpse (but obviously not a real representation as I am hugely privileged in various senses such as being white, I seem cisgender to others, having a home, usually having the option of a roof over my head from family and friends and so on) but a small idea of how dangerous is can be being female-bodied, vulnerable and on the street. I mean there were so many creeps and my friend sexually assaulted me when he was out of it. Really sucks. He was really sorry. I’m glad that he accepted it happened and was really sorry about it. It does help when people do that.

hurt by a friend

i was sexually assaulted (i don’t know if it classes as rape or not) by a close friend. he invited me round as we had planned to go out that night, he ploughed me with alcohol and made me feel like i couldnt say no when he offered. whilst we were walking to the venue he tried to kiss me, i was so intoxicated and unaware that i let him and he then proceeded to talk for a long time about how i shouldn’t have “friend zoned” him and that i “kind of owe him” because he comforted me when i had cried about a family issue earlier that night. i then blanked out and only remember flashes of what happened. i woke up the next morning feeling extremely scared of this former friend as i trusted him when i was most vulnerable. we are still on the same course and i still have panic attacks sometimes if i know i am going to have to see him.

hollywils

When I was 17 I went to my best friend’s house party and had a bit too much to drink. I accepted a lift home from a boy I’d known well throughout my school life and someone I felt safe with. He drove round the corner, pulled over the car and started to try to initiate foreplay with me. I was too drunk, which I recall him saying as well, and crawled to the backseat of the car to distance myself from him. He also moved over to the back. I was lying down on the backseats when he started masturbating. I was very drunk, confused and don’t have much memory of this part now (I assume from repression), but I remember him looming over me and eventually finishing over the top I was wearing. He then drove back to the party and made me get back out of the car, meaning I had to return to the party in which a lot of my peers were at. For a long while, my friends and peers found the incident funny. I felt it was all my fault, I shouldn’t have got in the car/shouldn’t have got that drunk, and that I should be really ashamed and embarrassed. It was only when someone in my year group approached me after hearing about what had happened that I realized I wasn’t the one in the wrong, because he simply told me that him and his friends were appalled by the boy’s actions and that they were sorry to hear of what happened. Even so, I’m still teased by friends about the event today (3 years later) and feel like a lot of my friends don’t understand fully why what he did was wrong – it’s easier to just laugh and embarrass me about it. The boy completely denied that he did anything wrong when the peer mentioned above tried to talk to him about it. His defense was that he could have done more, but he resisted. We spoke once after the incident, in which he told me that the only good thing about me was “my tits”.

P

When I was seventeen, we were hanging out with friends in one of our friends home. We all stayed for night, and when I woke up at my bed in the middle of the night, one of my male-friends was beside me and had lift my top up and was opening my trousers. I freeze out of the fear and couldn’t say anything. I was immediately afraid that would he hurt me if he would realize I was awake. Only thing I knew to do was to pretend I was still asleep so that It would still be easy for him to stop without getting caught, turned around and yawned so loudly that it could be possible for someone else to wake up to that. It “worked” and he stopped it, slide my top down and left. I started to avoid that male”friend” and I never told about that to anyone. I was afraid that people would blame me about it and say I was trying to ruin his reputation for some reason.