I was raped. #MeToo
I was raped. It didn’t happen in a dark alley at knife point. It didn’t happen in a poorly lit parking garage. I wasn’t hit, stabbed, or shot. I wasn’t hunted down. I was not drunk. I was not wearing a low cut blouse or a tight miniskirt. It wasn’t a faceless stranger. It wasn’t someone bigger and stronger. It wasn’t at a party. It wasn’t someone completely without morals. It wasn’t someone incapable of love, generosity, and kindness. It wasn’t someone wholly bad.
I was raped. On a bed by someone I was dating. I had been wearing work clothes. He asked me to come by after a shift at my retail job. I took the train to his apartment knowing he would probably try to have sex with me. He was handsome, hard working, a family man, and honest. He was a God fearing man. He introduced me to his close-knit family. When I hurt my ankle he took me to get help. On our first date he told me he had been married before, when he was too young and immature. He said he wanted to be honest about his past so I knew what I was getting into.
I was raped. And I thought it was my fault. He called me a tease. When I told him I was a virgin (at the age of 24), he laughed. When I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have sex before marriage he ridiculed me for not living in the 21st Century. (I was raised in the purity movement of Evangelical Christianity.)
I was raped. I said no. I gave him a little push and then froze. He told me to trust him as he tried to have sex with me without a condom. My protestations finally annoyed him enough that he put on a condom. Afterwards he rolled over and he said he didn’t want to talk about what had happened just then. It was late and I said I wanted to go home. He told me not to be stupid, that it was too late to take the train back home. Then he fell asleep and I lay awake next to him all night. The next day I went to work, straight from his apartment wearing the same clothes two days in a row. For hours and hours I rang up clothing purchases and removed security clam tags, then tossed the two halves into separate bins marked MALE and FEMALE.
