I want to ask you why. I know there’s no point. Nothing you say will ever make me understand. But I have to ask, to get the question off my chest, to stop myself mulling over the possible answers in my head. Why, in that moment, was my body not mine? Why was I a victim, not a person? Why, when I lay in that bed, paralysed with fear, did you not stop and for one moment think that maybe my sanity, my body, my consent were more important than your physical urges?
I told you to stop it when you touched me. I told you it was not a good idea. I felt pressured and I did kiss you. And then I quickly pulled away, realising I didn’t want to kiss you and that I had the power to resist pressure. I turned my back on you, I said no more.
Ultimately, I can’t remember everything. But I do remember leaving barefoot at 2am. I do remember that I never said yes. I do remember saying no. I do remember being paralysed with fear as you moved my rigid, unconsenting body for me. That is my overwhelming memory: my body shutting down, my throat closing up.
You know that I did not consent to having sex with you. Non-consensual sex isn’t sex. It’s rape.
Maybe it’s hard to hear. But you need to listen, hear me say those words. That night, you didn’t think about me. You didn’t listen to me. And now I deserve to be heard.
I feel worthless and broken. I thought you cared about me. Did you? Do you regret it for the pain it caused me or simply the damage it has the potential to do to your life? I hope you realise what you’ve done, how unlovable and disgusting I feel. How scared and sad. How ugly. How unbelievable it seems that anyone would ever find me attractive when my body is so utterly tainted and stained by your doing. You have hurt me.
I am not going any further with the police. I am worn out. I am so, so tired of it all. Do you know the conviction rates for sexual assaults? They’re pretty low. Maybe I’m not brave. Maybe I’m weak and you’ve won. But I refuse to put myself in a situation where I have to relive what happened. I refuse to be cross-examined. I refuse to have to hear that you’ve said “no comment” one more time.
And then what? Say, for example, that I did go ahead with trying to get you prosecuted. What if you were found not guilty? When I know the truth, you know the truth, and yet the truth has been dismissed? How will I feel, knowing that, even though the law is on my side, justice isn’t?
You are not a monster. Just as you let me down, someone, somewhere, has let you down. The psychologist who should have spotted your issues, or the family who chose to turn a blind eye when other, less serious accusations of a similar vein were made against you.
Our prison system is so messed up anyway. Say you did get a conviction (which, by the way, would lose you years to prison), I doubt it would help. The part of me who wants you in prison is the part of me that wants retribution. But, actually, that’s not the answer. Rehabilitation is. You have done something wicked, but if society uses that to define you for the rest of your life, then society, too, is doing something wicked. If society forgives you, then maybe I won’t feel bad because I can’t.
I thought we were friends. I trusted you. You broke that in the worst way possible. Actually, you broke me in the worst way possible.
I hope you go to therapy. I hope you admit what happened. I hope you change. Because, there comes a point when second and third and fourth chances run out. The only way you can be forgiven, the only way you can change, is if you admit what you did. You raped me.
Anonymous
