Was I ‘Raped Enough’ To Call Myself a Survivor?

He was my boyfriend, so it wasn’t rape.

I stayed, so it wasn’t rape.

I came back, so it wasn’t rape.

He said he loved me, so it wasn’t rape.

I sometimes enjoyed consensual sex with him, so it wasn’t rape.

I was drunk too, so it wasn’t rape.

I just didn’t feel like fighting about it and gave in, so it wasn’t rape.

I chose to endure it rather than being alone, so it wasn’t rape.

He only put his hands around my neck the one time, so it wasn’t usually violent enough to be rape.

I stayed, so I deserved it.

The first time I was assaulted I was “just” pinned to my bed.

When my confused, terrified cries got loud enough that the friend who was holding me down got concerned someone else in the dorm might hear him, he took his mouth off of my breast, released my wrists, and sat up.

It’s the type of experience so common that even a naive 20-year-old from a safe, small Midwestern town didn’t bother to report or consider it sexual assault until over a decade later. Sure, I was terrified of him — this former friend-with-sort-of-benefits (or whatever it is we’re calling college-aged “dating” these…