I Didn’t Want To Be Aroused By My Sexual Assault, But I Was
by Suzannah Weiss
Genital arousal is a learned response, the way Pavlov’s dogs salivated in response to the bell.
In October 2013, shortly after I moved to New York, a hot Londoner struck up a conversation with me in Starbucks. We had dinner that night and met up for breakfast two days later, then I followed him back to his Airbnb while he packed.
I didn’t want to get too involved because he was leaving, and I barely knew him. So, when he leaned in to kiss me, I said, “Let’s not go further than this.” When he took off my shirt, I said, “No further, OK?” He didn’t seem to listen, because he then took off my bra and started kissing my chest.
Although I didn’t agree to what was happening, I was physically getting aroused by it. Once it became clear that my attempts to stop it weren’t succeeding, I figured all I could do to make the situation less unpleasant for myself was try to enjoy the arousal I felt mounting in my body.
So I laid back and made little sighs of pleasure. It was only when he grabbed my hand and put it on his crotch that I jumped up and told him to stop. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess it’s a guy thing.”
