It was a hot Florida summer, the last before my senior year of high school. I, an overdeveloped girl of 17 was in my typical summertime outfit of short shorts and a strappy tank, sitting on the couch, trying to cool off and watching TV. He came into the room, handed me a note. “I’m going to go take a shower and masturbate. If you want to come watch, act like you’re getting clothes out of the closet.”
I recoiled in shock. He apologized like he’d made a mistake. The conversation we had an hour later when he finally managed to coerce me into being alone with him again was completely one-sided. I knew exactly what I had been doing. We had been playing a game, teasing eachother, and I had been a willing participant. He’d been watching so long.
I was 17. He’d been my stepfather for 15 years of my life.
Fast forward a few years later. I’d been dating a really nice guy a few years older than me. Gentle giant type, worked in medical. Sweetest person ever. Except one weekend, we were going away together to a convention. I stayed the night with him the night before we were to leave because it was an early departure. We wound up going to his friend’s party, and had a bit to drink. I passed out and he woke me up later and raped me. I cried. I went to the convention with him, we argued constantly. I ended the relationship when we got back home – never telling a soul the reason we’d had the “big breakup argument.”
I was 19. He’d been my boyfriend for months.
Fast forward again. College now, living on my own, meeting new people and having a good time. One night after a few hours bar hopping, hanging out with friends, I get a little too drunk to drive home. No problem, as I knew most of the bouncers really well, and one offered to drive me back to my place and make sure my car didn’t get towed. I knew his wife. I did the sensible, responsible thing.
Only when we got back to my place, I was dropped off, and then told that I “owed” him for the favor. Too intoxicated to fight back, to protest more than “this is wrong,” he raped me.
I was 21. His wife was my best friend at the time. She found a compromising photo of me on his phone a few weeks later, and blamed me for trying to wreck her home. It was my word against his. I cut all ties, and told no one else.
If you’re thinking there’s a common thread here, and that it’s that I should be blamed for being intoxicated in several cases, you’re dead wrong. Instead why not assign the blame where it’s really due, to these men who had earned my trust and then took advantage of that privilege in the worst way. It’s not like these people were strangers I met once, twice. Not like they were just people who snatched me off the street. They were people I trusted, people with power who chose to abuse their positions.
Why has it taken me so long, so many years of silence to speak up? Fear, anger, regret, remorse, self-loathing. In every case, I heard at least once that it was MY fault, that I had caused this to happen to me, that I was to blame for acting a certain way and inviting this behavior. The thing is, I’m not sure the outcomes would’ve been any different if I had acted any other way, and in any case, it’s irrelevant because it HAPPENED, and I will never get those moments or the aftermath back.
Yet I refuse to carry the shame any longer.
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