Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to share...

*** TW: I don’t know if I would call it violent, but I describe a piece of the event with quite a bit of detail. I’m not sure if that’s normal or okay but there are parts that are hard to remember and parts that are really clear and I just wanted to get it all down. I don’t want anyone to be upset and caught by surprise so please tread carefully if the details may do so. ***

It was in June of 2019 and I had been seeing him for a couple of weeks. We would text occasionally throughout the day but the relationship was mostly about sex and that was fine with me. We would meet up for drinks or go to a movie and it was nice. I was 23 and he was 28. I was moving states in two months and neither one of us wanted it to be anything more than that. I still liked hanging out with him and he was someone I respected and enjoyed the company of at the time.

One night, we were having consensual sex at his place. He was standing behind me and I was on my hands and knees on the bed. I started to get uncomfortable and I asked him to stop for a minute. I didn’t want to stop completely, but it felt like I was being stabbed in the stomach. I needed to readjust because he was hurting me. He didn’t stop. I asked him again and he continued. It was hurting me badly. I was reaching behind me with my hand and trying to push him away, but from that position all I could really do was swat at his stomach as I begged him to please just wait a minute. And it was like a switch flipped.

He grabbed my arm and threw it back towards my face. He put a hand around my neck and shoved me down so that I was still on my knees but the side of my face was pushed into the bed. He squeezed my throat and told me “Don’t tell me to stop I’m not going to f*cking stop.” From what I could see of his face, he looked like a different person. He looked like pure hate and rage and I felt my whole body go cold. When I tried to push myself up I realized that he had me pinned and there was no way to move. He had his other arm wrapped under my hips keeping them up, and the other pressing down on my neck. I opened my mouth to say something and I couldn’t make words come out. Despite the pain, the worst part was what he said. “Are you going to let me finish?” I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified to say no and at that point I knew it wasn’t even a choice. I didn’t answer and he took his hand off my neck long enough to slap the side of my face that was facing up. I was too scared to say anything other than what he wanted to hear so I said yes. He asked me other questions and I don’t remember all of them, I just tried to answer how I thought he wanted me to. If I didn’t answer he would smack me until I did.

When he finished he still had his hand around my neck and asked, “You’re going to let me have sex with you again right?” I truly felt something shatter inside me when I answered back, “yes.” I try to tell myself that I said what I had to say to make it stop. But it kills me that there may be some sick way that he used those responses to justify what he did. I wish I had been brave enough to say something different. To say anything. He left me there and went to the bathroom and I heard the shower turn on. I felt like I couldn’t move but I knew I wanted to get out of there before he came back. I got dressed and ran out of his apartment and to the front of the complex while I waited for my Lyft driver. I didn’t cry until I got home. Then I just felt numb.

I never told anyone. Not the police, not my friends, not a single soul. It never even felt like an option. I justified it over and over again in my head. My vagina felt torn and was sore for days. But that had happened before. I don’t bruise easily at all, I can get hit at full speed serve by a tennis ball and not have a mark, so the tiny bruise on the side of my neck almost made me laugh. Who would look at that and think that I had been raped? I didn’t think anyone could look at me and believe what had happened. I was so angry with myself for not fighting harder. I found myself wishing that he had hurt me worse. I told myself, if he had broken a bone, or left a scar, that’s something I could report, but what happened to you? They’ll laugh at you. Real victims will think you’re ridiculous. So I sit with it. Most days I can convince myself that it was just “bad sex” and that I should have better taste in men. But it’s been a year now and there are some days, nights usually, when I can’t sleep and my mind takes me back and I start to feel the walls closing in and I know that what happened to me wasn’t okay. That I’m not okay.

I have never shared any of this before. Never written it down. Although it’s anonymous I feel a sense of unburdening. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell someone in my life, most of the time I feel like it’s too inconsequential to even mention and I still struggle to call what happened rape. But after receiving the responses I did on my last post I know that this is not uncommon. I know that I’m not alone. And I just hope that whatever I have to call it, I can start to find my way forward. Thank you to everyone that encouraged me to talk about this here. I don’t want to take up anymore of your time, so comment if you want to talk but otherwise know I have felt the support and it has been so appreciated. I have gained new perspectives and wisdom from hearing you all share even a fraction of your stories. And I know that what I went through is nothing compared to the pain of most who have been assaulted. Even so, I am a good listener and I hope there is something I can contribute. I’ll keep an eye out in the comments if anyone wants to talk.