April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Apr. 5th, 2010 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slowlyunfolding51% of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of sexual or physical violence. Close to 60% of these women have survived more than one incident of violence. (Statistics Canada, 1993, "Violence Against Women Survey", The Daily, 18 November, p. 1, 3)
I'm not sure how much stock to put in this statistic due to it's age. However, the next time you are in a cafe, classroom, bus, or your workplace, you are most likely surrounded by people that have experienced such trauma. It's taken me years to realize that I have experienced sexual assault. I've never talked about it here before, but I think it's time to speak up.
It was 1992. The summer between my first & second year of university. I was hanging out with my best friend. We were two years apart in age, but we were so close we felt more like sisters. Her little sister was my little sister. She had planned for us to hang out with another acquaintance & either watch tv or something along those lines. I honestly can't remember his name now. It's probably better that way. I'll call him Mr. X. We had all worked together at the same crappy fast food joint during high school, so I knew him, just not well. He went to a different high school and was also two years younger than me. I thought he was cute and quite nice. It turns out, I didn't know him at all.
We arrived at his house in my mom's car. His parents had split up I think, but his dad was out when we got there. I was fuzzy on the details of what we were supposed to be doing. I think we were supposed to go out or some such. I still can't recall what we were supposed to have done. Mr. X's bedroom was in the basement level, not quite underground. It was right off their tv room. I remember seeing a thin rope or cord with hundreds if not thousands of beer can tabs attached to it.hanging over the headboard of his bed. I felt rather uneasy about the volume of tabs. Mr. X was seriously proud of having drank that many beers. I didn't think it was all that great after having witnessed and done some seriously stupid alcohol related things during first year of university. He opened his bedroom window and poof! pulled in a pack of beer. Apparently a friend was 'paying him back' for something or other, and left it there for him. I was definitely in disbelief that nobody had stolen it, or that his parents hadn't 'noticed.'
I think he gave us some beer. I only liked it ice cold, not room temperature. I just can't recall drinking any. My best friend was all a flutter. I think she had a crush on Mr. X and was slightly overwhelmed by hanging out with him. He mentioned he wanted to 'party.' I was up for it. It was summer break after all and I wanted to let off some steam. He called one of his friends to come over. At this point, I was still uneasy, but couldn't see a reason for it and ignored the feelings. Pushed them away.
When Mr. X's friend arrived, I am pretty sure he came in through his bedroom window instead of knocking on the front door. I know it freaked me out big time and it annoyed Mr. X. His mood started to change at this point. Up until this point, we had been swapping stories, laughing and seemingly having a good time. Yet, the good time only went surface deep. I knew something was off. When the friend arrived, the tone of the evening changed.
Suddenly, I'm on the floor, Mr. X is holding my hands above my head and he is sitting on top of me. I think it started off as a play fight or tickle fight. I might have been trying to get him off my friend. I think he was making it look like a tickle fight, but I knew it wasn't by her reactions. I realized too late that he was much stronger than me, even though we were roughly the same height. He wanted his friend to hold me down. He must have initially held me down for Mr. X because my shirt and bra disappeared. I remember him kissing me, and grinding on me. He was trying to kiss my breasts. He liked how they looked. He approved of the shape of them. As though they could be considered separate from the rest of me. He was whining that he "only had one condom." I know I could have got out of the bedroom a few times, but my friend was incapable of moving. She wasn't physically injured, it was the emotional paralysis that crept into our limbs that prevented us from moving, and then, from feeling much at all. I remember getting an arm free, then I gave him a bloody nose. He got scary then. I looked into his eyes and there was no humanity left. I got really scared, and my stomach did that free fall thing as though I was on a too fast elevator.
His friend had retreated to the bed and had been watching the proceedings. My friend was incoherently babbling. I can't even remember what she said. It didn't matter. I was standing face to face with Mr. X, and his nose was dripping blood on my blouse. My brand new embroidered white blouse. He was about to hit me. I could see it coming. His breathing was ragged. His hand was clenching into a fist. He was so angry that I had the nerve to bloody his nose.
So, I did what I thought I would protect myself. I apologized and asked him if he was okay. His friend was trying to talk him down. He sounded scared, which made me even more worried we weren't going to get out of that room. I didn't think he was an upstanding kind of guy for sitting around watching what his friend was doing so I didn't trust him at all either. But the fact that he was also afraid of his friend made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Somehow, my friend and his friend talked him down from hitting me. All he did was grab my shoulders painfully hard, but then he let me go. My friend said that my shirt had blood on it, and asked him for a t-shirt for me. He gave me one and I put it on. I left my blouse crumpled on the floor.
I opened his bedroom door and got the hell out. The first thing I saw was his dad, sitting in his recliner, pretending to be asleep. I was shocked that he was home and hadn't busted in when he heard the ruckus. I ran up the few stairs to the front door, dragging my friend along. We were wild eyed and crazed. I had that panic moment of fumbling for my car keys when everything slowed down and I couldn't get my fingers to move properly. I thought the boys were going to bolt out of the house and chase us down. I don't think we spoke in the car for the 30 minutes it took me to drive to her house to drop her off. She refused to stay at my house. It would have been weird to try to ask permission from her parents at that hour. It just didn't occur to me at the time. I drove around for a long time. I didn't feel like I could go home. I eventually parked the car, and sat on a park bench downtown. People were walking by, talking with each other. Seeing me but not approaching me. Even though most of those people went to different high schools than I did, they still knew who I was even if we weren't on speaking terms. I went back to the car after I started feeling scared again. I'd left the lights on. Luckily, I hadn't left the car for very long and the car started okay. I got home, completely exhausted and nauseated.
The next day I overheard my parents talking about how much gas I used on my Friday night out, but nothing was ever really said to me. I had forgotten I'd used up almost a whole tank of gas in my erractic driving around. Our town was small, and all the gas stations were closed by the time I'd come back to myself. I was just pissed off that I didn't cover my tracks properly and filled the tank. It also underscored to me that my thought processes were not functioning properly.
My friend and I? We never spoke of what happened. I eventually threw out Mr. X's t-shirt. Return his t-shirt after what he tried to take from me? I felt so much lighter when I threw the shirt out. Having it around made me feel guilty. As though I had done something wrong by saying no, or stop it, or let me go.
The "only" thing wrong was Mr. X assuming he could do what he wanted with us, his friend watching, and his dad pretending everything was fine. He could hear us yelling at Mr. X to stop perfectly well 20 feet away. His dad might as well have been in the room, sitting on the bed with his friend and watching his son.
If you've made it through to the end of this, thank you for reading. If you don't know what to say, that's okay. Sometimes it's just too hard to come up with the right words. You can just say "I read this all." Or, nothing at all if you just can't. That's okay too.
It was 1992. The summer between my first & second year of university. I was hanging out with my best friend. We were two years apart in age, but we were so close we felt more like sisters. Her little sister was my little sister. She had planned for us to hang out with another acquaintance & either watch tv or something along those lines. I honestly can't remember his name now. It's probably better that way. I'll call him Mr. X. We had all worked together at the same crappy fast food joint during high school, so I knew him, just not well. He went to a different high school and was also two years younger than me. I thought he was cute and quite nice. It turns out, I didn't know him at all.
We arrived at his house in my mom's car. His parents had split up I think, but his dad was out when we got there. I was fuzzy on the details of what we were supposed to be doing. I think we were supposed to go out or some such. I still can't recall what we were supposed to have done. Mr. X's bedroom was in the basement level, not quite underground. It was right off their tv room. I remember seeing a thin rope or cord with hundreds if not thousands of beer can tabs attached to it.hanging over the headboard of his bed. I felt rather uneasy about the volume of tabs. Mr. X was seriously proud of having drank that many beers. I didn't think it was all that great after having witnessed and done some seriously stupid alcohol related things during first year of university. He opened his bedroom window and poof! pulled in a pack of beer. Apparently a friend was 'paying him back' for something or other, and left it there for him. I was definitely in disbelief that nobody had stolen it, or that his parents hadn't 'noticed.'
I think he gave us some beer. I only liked it ice cold, not room temperature. I just can't recall drinking any. My best friend was all a flutter. I think she had a crush on Mr. X and was slightly overwhelmed by hanging out with him. He mentioned he wanted to 'party.' I was up for it. It was summer break after all and I wanted to let off some steam. He called one of his friends to come over. At this point, I was still uneasy, but couldn't see a reason for it and ignored the feelings. Pushed them away.
When Mr. X's friend arrived, I am pretty sure he came in through his bedroom window instead of knocking on the front door. I know it freaked me out big time and it annoyed Mr. X. His mood started to change at this point. Up until this point, we had been swapping stories, laughing and seemingly having a good time. Yet, the good time only went surface deep. I knew something was off. When the friend arrived, the tone of the evening changed.
Suddenly, I'm on the floor, Mr. X is holding my hands above my head and he is sitting on top of me. I think it started off as a play fight or tickle fight. I might have been trying to get him off my friend. I think he was making it look like a tickle fight, but I knew it wasn't by her reactions. I realized too late that he was much stronger than me, even though we were roughly the same height. He wanted his friend to hold me down. He must have initially held me down for Mr. X because my shirt and bra disappeared. I remember him kissing me, and grinding on me. He was trying to kiss my breasts. He liked how they looked. He approved of the shape of them. As though they could be considered separate from the rest of me. He was whining that he "only had one condom." I know I could have got out of the bedroom a few times, but my friend was incapable of moving. She wasn't physically injured, it was the emotional paralysis that crept into our limbs that prevented us from moving, and then, from feeling much at all. I remember getting an arm free, then I gave him a bloody nose. He got scary then. I looked into his eyes and there was no humanity left. I got really scared, and my stomach did that free fall thing as though I was on a too fast elevator.
His friend had retreated to the bed and had been watching the proceedings. My friend was incoherently babbling. I can't even remember what she said. It didn't matter. I was standing face to face with Mr. X, and his nose was dripping blood on my blouse. My brand new embroidered white blouse. He was about to hit me. I could see it coming. His breathing was ragged. His hand was clenching into a fist. He was so angry that I had the nerve to bloody his nose.
So, I did what I thought I would protect myself. I apologized and asked him if he was okay. His friend was trying to talk him down. He sounded scared, which made me even more worried we weren't going to get out of that room. I didn't think he was an upstanding kind of guy for sitting around watching what his friend was doing so I didn't trust him at all either. But the fact that he was also afraid of his friend made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Somehow, my friend and his friend talked him down from hitting me. All he did was grab my shoulders painfully hard, but then he let me go. My friend said that my shirt had blood on it, and asked him for a t-shirt for me. He gave me one and I put it on. I left my blouse crumpled on the floor.
I opened his bedroom door and got the hell out. The first thing I saw was his dad, sitting in his recliner, pretending to be asleep. I was shocked that he was home and hadn't busted in when he heard the ruckus. I ran up the few stairs to the front door, dragging my friend along. We were wild eyed and crazed. I had that panic moment of fumbling for my car keys when everything slowed down and I couldn't get my fingers to move properly. I thought the boys were going to bolt out of the house and chase us down. I don't think we spoke in the car for the 30 minutes it took me to drive to her house to drop her off. She refused to stay at my house. It would have been weird to try to ask permission from her parents at that hour. It just didn't occur to me at the time. I drove around for a long time. I didn't feel like I could go home. I eventually parked the car, and sat on a park bench downtown. People were walking by, talking with each other. Seeing me but not approaching me. Even though most of those people went to different high schools than I did, they still knew who I was even if we weren't on speaking terms. I went back to the car after I started feeling scared again. I'd left the lights on. Luckily, I hadn't left the car for very long and the car started okay. I got home, completely exhausted and nauseated.
The next day I overheard my parents talking about how much gas I used on my Friday night out, but nothing was ever really said to me. I had forgotten I'd used up almost a whole tank of gas in my erractic driving around. Our town was small, and all the gas stations were closed by the time I'd come back to myself. I was just pissed off that I didn't cover my tracks properly and filled the tank. It also underscored to me that my thought processes were not functioning properly.
My friend and I? We never spoke of what happened. I eventually threw out Mr. X's t-shirt. Return his t-shirt after what he tried to take from me? I felt so much lighter when I threw the shirt out. Having it around made me feel guilty. As though I had done something wrong by saying no, or stop it, or let me go.
The "only" thing wrong was Mr. X assuming he could do what he wanted with us, his friend watching, and his dad pretending everything was fine. He could hear us yelling at Mr. X to stop perfectly well 20 feet away. His dad might as well have been in the room, sitting on the bed with his friend and watching his son.
If you've made it through to the end of this, thank you for reading. If you don't know what to say, that's okay. Sometimes it's just too hard to come up with the right words. You can just say "I read this all." Or, nothing at all if you just can't. That's okay too.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 01:17 am (UTC)&hearts
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 07:11 pm (UTC)I read a comment you left at
And then it turned out your journal isn't locked. That totally up to you, of course, but that is how a complete stranger like me read this post and felt the need to tell you they are sorry this happened to you. That's all.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 10:51 pm (UTC)Thanks for leaving a comment!