What happened to me did not follow the traditional rape script of strangers, dark alleys, and violent struggle. This situation is certainly a real one, and particularly visible in our society’s conceptions of sexual assault. So when, on a trip in the spring of my senior year of high school, I was being intimate with someone I’d met, I didn’t know it was rape when he ignored my timid “no”s; I didn’t know it was rape when I became too afraid to forcibly stop him.
The context was blurry, confusing, and gray. Eventually, a friend called my name, so he stopped and we left to meet up with the rest of my group. As we walked, I could tell that he didn’t even realize he had done anything wrong. When he saw I was upset, he asked me if everything was all right; he seemed genuinely concerned. But I didn’t know how to process the discomfort I felt, and if anything, I was sure that it was my own fault. So I smiled at him wearily and told him everything was fine.
The reality was far from fine. As I walked down the street, he on my left and my friend on my right, I turned from one to the other, alternating between panicked whispers to my friend, describing what had just happened, and calm reassurances to him that I was okay.
“Oh my God, I just had sex,” I told her. She laughed, unable to believe that this was how I lost my virginity.
I couldn’t believe it either; in fact, it took five days of taunting and prodding from my classmates for the details of my newfound “sex life” for me to realize that what I had experienced wasn’t just sex; it was rape. It took me five days to realize that there was a reason I had said “no,” and that when I did, it actually meant something. I had replayed my quiet refusals over and over in my mind along with everything else from that night, but something had still stopped me from realizing that when I said “no,” he was supposed to listen.
Ashamed and confused, I returned home feeling lost and unable to process what had happened. The only thing I was certain of was that I couldn’t tell anyone. It simply could not be spoken of. For me, being raped and talking about being raped were like two mismatched puzzle pieces: there was no way they could fit and no reason I would think to try.
Though I didn’t rationalize my silence at the time, I now realize that my body didn’t let me speak because I was ashamed. Afraid that if I actually told the whole story, everyone would realize that I wasn’t really raped, that I was “easy”, immature, and too weak-willed to take full responsibility for what had happened. After all, I had been drinking, and we were hooking up. I was consenting. So why should I be allowed, all of a sudden, to revoke my consent when things move a step further? How was I supposed to be angry at someone like this? How could I blame someone who was sweet to me even though he had just taken away my right to consent? I worried others might not allow me to claim that word—rape.
These thoughts were paralyzing. Reconciling them to myself was hard enough. It felt even more daunting to share my experience with others, worrying that they, too, might judge or blame me for what happened. So I remained silent. No one knew about the elaborate excuses I gave to my parents, friends, and coach in order to get extensive testing done at Planned Parenthood; no one knew of the scenarios I tormented myself with as I waited for months for the test results to come back. No one knew why this hardworking honors student was failing tests and missing deadlines. And no one knew how many times I lied when I told them I didn’t know what was wrong. In my silence, I was profoundly alone.
Months later, I was a freshman at Wesleyan, and my RA encouraged my hall to attend Take Back the Night, an event designed for survivors of sexual assault to tell their stories and for allies to listen and show support. I didn’t really know what it meant for me to attend or what I would even get out of it, but I knew it was something I had to do.
Standing in the CFA courtyard on that October night three years ago, I listened as survivors told stories that challenged my notions of what experiences and parts of ourselves we are allowed to claim. The diversity of experience that I heard told me that there is not only one rape script, but many ways in which we can experience sexual violence. I remember one upperclassman’s story that resonated strongly with my own. Her uncertainty, her pain, and her acceptance that she had been violated provided my own struggle with a validation I had always hoped for, but had never acknowledged that I deserved.
And perhaps most importantly for me at the time, I realized the possibility of speaking out. Here they were, all these peers of mine, who had experienced some form of sexual assault, and hundreds more who were here to support them. In hearing these stories, I allowed myself to stop living in fear that my pain was not legitimate; in the survivors’ collective strength, I realized that I, too, could begin to heal.
Over the course of that year, each time I told someone about what I had been through, my body felt lighter, and there was less of me to hide. But I never could have imagined the empowerment I felt when I told my story to hundreds of my peers at Take Back the Night the following year. I finally claimed my experience as my own and as legitimate, and I multiplied that lightness by those hundreds.
I was free.
Hearing people’s stories at Take Back the Night gave me the opportunity to examine my own experiences with sexual assault. I had been through something where I repeatedly said “no”, however passively, and that was difficult enough for me. But what about those other times I had been with someone sexually and not only felt uncomfortable with what we had done, but that it was my fault. After hearing the stories at Take Back the Night and participating in the discussions the event provoked, I began to reconsider some of my other experiences here at Wesleyan.
Early in my freshman year, a hallmate brought me downstairs to “get some water” and then started to kiss me. I was caught off guard, but I didn’t resist. I engaged back because I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything else. Then he reached into my pants, and again, I didn’t resist. Not physically anyway. But in my head, I was confused, and anxious. Then he unzipped his pants and tried to enter my body with his. I calmly told him “no” and together we walked back upstairs, but for me the interaction didn’t end there. Even though we hadn’t had sex, I had engaged in sexual activity with him, and I did more than I was comfortable with. He made assumptions about what I wanted to do without ever checking in with me to see how I was feeling.
So how do I classify this? Can I call this sexual assault? He was ready to put his penis inside me, without using a condom, or asking me anything about getting tested or being on birth control, and had I not said anything, he would have done it. After this interaction, again, I was ashamed of what I had done, and even after all the work I have done around sexual assault on this campus, and all the conversations I’ve had and the journal entries I’ve written, it took me three more years to realize that this, too, was coercive and unjust. I’ve called this sexual assault, but sometimes I don’t even feel the need to use those words. After all, my goal in all of this is to understand how I can feel okay about my experiences and for others to understand how they can make others feel safe in their sexual encounters and relationships. For me, it is not about placing blame.
Take Back the Night allows us to realize that there is more than one, or even two, or three, or ten, ways to look at sexual assault and at rape. It allows us to expand our definitions and to expand the spaces in which we address such topics. It is all too often that I hear a friend say that talking about rape and consent on this campus is just preaching the choir. Take Back the Night allows survivors and allies alike to understand the importance of consent and to acknowledge the very real existence of sexual assault and the various forms it can take, even in our own communities. And it allows us to start conversations about how to prevent and respond to situations of sexual assault so that we can make sure our partners can always feel safe, and so that we know how to support our friends when needed.
Take Back the Night is not only significant for survivors, but also for the strength and cohesiveness of our campus community. It allowed me to see for the first time that I didn’t have to be silenced, that I could get up and speak, and that I could exist in a sexual context without needing to be linked to the baggage that comes with being a “victim.” For this reason, I encourage you to come to Take Back the Night this Thursday, whether as a survivor or an ally. We need to harness this power that Take Back the Night provides and carry it with us daily. Imagine a community in which respect for people’s bodies and people’s right to consent were an expectation, in which communication was a tool to understand people’s needs and desires, and in which we made it our business to not make assumptions about someone’s desires or their level of comfort. Take Back the Night has given me strength that lasts well beyond one day a year, and has allowed me to re-imagine the ways and spaces in which I can talk about and relate to my experiences of assault and of consent each day.
Now I invite you to break the silence—at Take Back the Night, in the classroom, on a sidewalk, in the bedroom, with friends, and within yourself.
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