How Sexual Assault Affects Me

I was sixteen years old. He taught me how to "make out" for the first time in my life and then he proceeded to put his hand down my pants. I grabbed his hand and told him to stop, and he did. I told him I didn't want to move so fast because of how inexperienced I was. A few minutes later, he did it again. This time I didn't say anything. I really liked him and I didn't want to ruin my opportunity and push him away. I had never felt this way with a guy; I'd never felt any sort of passion by touch. He was the first guy that had ever made me feel "hot." He apologized afterwards and I acted like it was fine, which I thought it was at the time, because I thought this meant things were getting more serious between us. Naturally, he told his friends that he fingered me, which quickly spread. Two days later, my friends said that they “heard what happened” and asked me how it was. I didn’t want to give away all of the details, but I didn’t hesitate to brag about an older guy being into me. I was waiting for him to ask me to be his girlfriend. He finally did, and though I never told him this, I really thought I loved him. Before him, I had never felt physically intimate with a guy, and that made me care about him a lot. Sexual interaction deeply affects your relationship with someone.

A few weeks later, he started acting distant. We never hung out alone again, and I eventually asked him if he still liked me, and he said that he was losing feelings for me but that he wanted me “to decide whether we should break up.” I broke up with him, of course, holding onto my last crumb of dignity.

I later found out that he had been “talking” to another girl while we were still dating. (Side note: “talking” is a ridiculous trend that’s a precursor to actually dating; it basically just means you like each other and everyone knows it, and you text a lot.) They made their relationship official a month or two after we broke up.

Considering that I genuinely thought I loved this boy, it was a really tough breakup for me. I spent the next few months in one of my deepest bouts of depression, coming home every day to cry and write in my diary about how I wished he would come crawling back to me.

The United States Department of Justice defines sexual assault as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.” It took me 2-3 years before I realized that this is what happened to me. It’s still hard for me to acknowledge, because of the lack of acknowledgement I received from anyone I told afterwards. Everyone says “I’m sorry that happened to you” and moves on. That’s plenty for me, because it’s in the past and I’ve moved on, but that doesn’t mean that it was okay. I think a lot of people my age are ignorant to what sexual assault really is, and how often it happens. Just because you weren’t fully raped while screaming for help doesn’t mean that it was legal.

I’m not looking for this guy to be arrested by any means. It was four years ago and I’ve forgiven him. I think he was just immature and didn’t realize what he was doing. What I hope is that people would be educated on what consent really means, and what is considered assault or harassment. Just because the victim doesn’t cry for help or push you off of her doesn’t mean that she’s consenting.

What happened to me may seem like a very small event, which in some ways it was. However, it did affect me psychologically in ways I didn’t realize until recently. Since then, I’ve really struggled to trust guys when they say that they actually have feelings for me. When a boy tells me I’m pretty or cute or sexy, I don’t believe them because my instinct is that the only reason they’re telling me this is to get in my pants. I’m lucky to have a boyfriend now who understands my anxiety, but I’m sure it drives him crazy that I doubt whether he really loves me after all he’s done for me over the past year.

To anyone who has experienced anything like this: you’re not overreacting. It wasn’t your fault just because you didn’t do anything to stop it. You didn’t say no but you certainly did not say yes, and therefore it shouldn’t have happened and you cannot blame yourself. We as a society need to acknowledge that girls who wear clothes that show off a lot of their skin aren’t “asking” for this to happen to them.

I have a very close friend who was raped once and I cannot even begin to imagine what that felt like. I think that our society generally agrees that rape is wrong and evil and completely unacceptable. Then why is it okay that he fingered me after I told him I didn’t want to move so quickly?