Tinder is not an invitation for rape. Cuddle parties can teach consent.

As a survivor of rape, I am confronted with so many potential triggers on a daily basis… just a simple scroll of the newsfeed and suddenly there are stories… traumatizing stories… everywhere.

I feel fortunate to not be easily affected. I feel fortunate to have a universal compassion towards stories of sexual assault, rather than an immediate sense of being reminded of my own or reliving that trauma.

But today, I stumbled across an article I was surprised would resonate with me. A single mother who was gang raped by intruders in her own home, in her own bed, in front of her two year old daughter. Horrifying — no matter who you are or what you’ve experienced. This woman was sharing her story about bravery. This woman was also highlighting a really important problem… and that was what struck a chord.

First, she was, as she put it a nearly “perfect victim” — a term here used to describe someone who, in our toxic victim-blaming rape culture, is arguably without fault in the situation. She was described as “being home, dressed in sweats, sober, with her child, sleeping in her own bed, in her 3rd floor locked apartment.” And yet, upon arrival the officers asked “well what happened here?” as though suddenly becoming privy to a private party gone awry. And then continued a line of insensitive questioning including asking whether or not she was on Tinder.

And then the rage. Cue all my own guilt and shame. Cue anger. Cue the “fuck that shit I’m NOT going to NOT talk about this” moment.

You know, our problems with rape culture placing blame on victims is so palpable that I cannot wade through the slosh of facebook statuses any given day without seeing something that somehow insinuates rape happens because victims are asking for it. There is a fucking book on rape culture that actually is titled “asking for it” on this topic.

Somehow, the officer asking if she was on Tinder, was an immediate insinuation that despite being the “perfect victim” (ugh, so problematic), she may still have somehow been asking to get raped. Thus, you know, decreasing the severity of the heinous crime perpetrated upon her body, unwillingly, and in front of her child. Nevermind the evidence of intrusion — of her door being broken in…of the bruises she sustained.

This affected me because I carry the sense, all the time, that maybe somehow I invited my own rape because I met the perpetrator through tinder.

This was my first tinder date. What a way to start the single life.

I am so fortunate to be able to reject that really wrong attitude that I, or anyone else, ever deserves to be raped. I use that phrasing intentionally. It’s a phrase internet trolls seem to love to use against women, especially, with whom they have ill-will against. I think it’s important to use the same ugly language… I don’t think I have the power to reclaim it… but at least it’s in a different context and I’m going to shut that shit down.

I went on a date with a guy I met on tinder. He went to an Ivy League, he was a lawyer, he seemed to care about social justice. He was well dressed and smiling in all of his pictures. My friends agreed, this guy seemed great.

Our date devolved from plans to get dinner, to getting drinks, to eventually settling for hanging out at his place with a bottle of wine. Partly because our timing was off and it was getting late, but mostly because he only saw the potential for sex.

I was fresh out of a long term relationship. My sense of what was normal was skewed. Maybe this is normal, I thought. That didn’t stop me from sharing my location with every single friend I’d talked to that day — just in case.

Initially the physical touch was consensual. This is where I usually stop and give up hope that anyone deeply embedded in rape culture — and let’s face it, we all really are — would take my story seriously.

The sex was not consensual. I took my dress off and from there apparently everything else was an open invitation. What seemed like a playful aggression turned quickly to a threatening violent control. I realized I no longer had agency as soon as I said “no” and nothing changed.

Again, I said “no” — I would hear “you like it” — -again, I would say “stop” — and I would hear “don’t tease me” — -again and again I would say “stop, no, don’t”… and I would be ignored. Forcefully, aggressively, taken advantage of against my will.

I stayed until I felt safe to leave at my own free will. When he was satisfied and no longer pulling, pushing, or throwing me around. That is what my survival instincts looked like — submission. And so, I felt like I was somehow complicit. I had always assumed I would fight back — I am at my core a fighter. But, this guy played football, he was an athlete, I knew I was no match physically. So I did what I could.

Even when I walked out of the door I felt conflicted. I had agency to leave. My perpetrator had taken control of me and suddenly I was free… and so had he really possessed me? Again, was this normal? (The answer is probably yes, but does not change that it was fucked up and 100% rape.) I knew I felt used. I knew I hated what happened. I knew this guy was a shit person.

The next day he texted to say he had a great time. Would he see me again?

And again, I questioned my own understanding of the situation. And then finally confronted him.

No means no. Stop means stop.

He was appalled that I was “suggesting” he raped me. He became defensive immediately, understandably. I’m sure he was scared — because deep down he knew he fucked up. And yet, I couldn’t do much else besides berate him on the problematic approach he was taking towards sex. I had to tell him that what he did constituted rape and if he didn’t think so he was emphatically wrong wrong wrong.

But, under the guise of staying “professional,” and moving forward…the damage was done and I would let it go.

But the truth is I let it go because rape culture convinced me that I asked for it. I went to his house. I took off my dress. I was on Tinder.

And that is why I was so triggered to see that of all the things the police officer could do to be compassionate towards that single mother who had been brutally violated, he instead asked if she was on Tinder.

This is why I never reported my rape. This is why I don’t feel like I even fully accept my status as victim — saying instead survivor — as if somehow there is a distinction between how much I did or did not ask to be raped and then how I can identify myself moving forward.

Moving forward from rape is a slow inertia out of shame.

I fought the victim-hood of feeling alone and isolated by refusing to let a shame spiral send me into the pit of anger, low self-esteem, and loneliness. I did this by telling everyone, my family and anyone I was even relatively close to; people I hadn’t seen in years, friends over coffee, new friends of friends.

It somehow alleviated me from the guilt that I had been placing on myself. It made what happened more real and less imagined — something I could misremember as just a bad night. Instead, I let it live and breathe in the light of day so I could face it’s ugliness and acknowledge how little room in my life I had to carry it with me each day.

Slowly I regained my sense of self. Like I said, I had come out of a relationship that had lasted for years — my worthiness for a long time had been tied to being a partner to someone else. Nothing could make me feel more worthless than to be taken and ignored. Nothing could damage my self-esteem more than being used without any regard to my wants or needs.

I found healing in, what I had imagined, would be the most unlikely of places.

A tantric cuddle party. For you non-Bay Area folks, or non-Burners, cuddle parties are safe spaces where consent and communication are the basis for sharing intimacy with (mostly) strangers. (If you live in San Francisco long enough things like this start to seem normal — and I *really* appreciate that.)

I was recovering from the feeling of being unworthy. I was reeling from a sense of naïveté and not being able to trust my own judgement. I was avoiding at all costs dating anyone, anyway, at all. I still craved intimacy though…

At the urging of a dear friend I was convinced that this could be, at the very least a new experience, and at most, fun.

I was apprehensive driving there, nervous walking in, self-conscious while introducing myself, surveying the room… I am generally very open-minded and inviting, but I was coming from a place of fear, and so anxiety was abound.

But, this cuddle party had the most healthy approach to physical intimacy that I had ever been exposed to. Consent was modeled! Like, an actual lesson with language that we could use. If someone did not want the physical touch you offered, they said “no,” and you replied “thank you for taking care of yourself.”

“Thank you for taking care of yourself.”

The power, agency, and respect carried in those deferential words taught me a different kind of way to communicate love and compassion.

And then, slowly, I was also able to reclaim my own desirability and sexuality.

It was remarkably damaging to have my first encounter with sex after a trusting loving relationship to be with someone who treated me like I was not worthy of respect. I wondered if I had been tricked one way or the other — either with an inflated sense of desirability by one partner, or a tarnished sense of worthlessness by the other. You would think my heart and mind would trust the love of a partner of many years over one terrible night but the brain is weird that way.

But, suddenly, in this safe space strangers were freely expressing their interest in me. It shattered the social norms in which we play coy about our interest in being intimate (for lots of valid reasons, generally) or can’t express interest without feeling too forward. My fear of being undesirable quickly faded away. I accepted and enjoyed the different kinds of intimacy from strangers and felt safe and in control the entire time.

I was able to practice communicating consent. I was in a room filled with people who valued and trusted one another implicitly, without judgement, and with full presence of mind and body. How powerful, I thought, to be free of that fear and shame I had walked in with.

I haven’t gone back to a cuddle party since then, but those lessons have helped me reclaim a thriving romantic life. Sharing that shame and facing fear every single day (seriously — I ask myself, in earnest and without judgement, “what are you so afraid of?” whenever I’m uncomfortable, to better help myself move forward) has helped me lead a healthy and happy life. I have boundless love and compassion, because I have learned to offer that to myself, and recognize that it comes from within — -not from some finite corner of my being, but an endless radiation from my core.

Rape culture sucks. Tinder is not an invitation for rape nor a justification for getting raped. No one asks for rape. There is no such thing as a “perfect victim.” Cuddle parties are rad and can teach radical self-love. Consent and communication are central to healthy sex. All of these things I have learned in the last few months, and I am better for it.