Don’t DO That.
A Teachable Victim Monologue
So I was date-raped in my own bed.
I didn’t call it rape when we talked about it, after. I called it “non-consensual sex.” But what else can you call the absence of consent? I had told him quite clearly that I didn’t want to have sex just then, even as he was putting on the condom. We had never had sex before. I remember pushing his penis away with my hand and trying to decide when and whether to say anything further out loud. Then he was inside me. It was too late.
I was really attracted to him. We had great chemistry. We hadn’t known each other that long, but we seemed compatible on nearly every level. I thought it was safe to let him sleep in my bed even though (I thought) we had both agreed we weren’t ready to have sex yet.
He said he thought I wanted it. I told him I had just said out loud that I didn’t. I said he should have asked to be sure. Use your words.
I am writing this story mostly to have a record of what happened, before the details fade in my own memory. I don’t believe there was malice involved. He would probably say it was all a big accident. At the time it just felt selfish. He took something that I had wanted to be special, something shared and mutual, and turned it into five minutes of his own disposable pleasure, to be followed almost immediately by sleep.
More to the point, it changed the way I thought about him. An entire blissful imagined autumn evaporated and collapsed within minutes. It was never an option to nod and smile and pretend nothing had happened, because he had revealed himself to be a different person. Not a monster. But not the man I had thought I was falling in love with.
I didn’t call the cops. I guess he listened ok when we talked about it that night. And the next day. He said he was sorry. But he didn’t do the one thing he should have done in this situation.
He never asked, “What can I do to make this right?”
So I’m out here, feeling like damaged goods.We both lost a friend and an activity partner. If I don’t sound like a rape victim, then I can only say no two rapes are alike.
