The Number is Eight

I have been sexually assaulted more than once. Each time that it happened to me, I felt that extenuating circumstances kept it from truly being rape. I was working as a prostitute, he was my boyfriend, I was drunk, I got in the car. I never believed that I had fought hard enough. I made excuses for the men who hurt me; I told myself "he didn't know what he was doing." When I spoke about my experiences with sexual assault (which I did very rarely), I would say only that “a lot of bad things have happened to me.”

After reading the responses to this post on Jezebel, it occurred to me that I do not know the actual number. I lost track of how many times I had been violated because I did not call them by name. I did not call them by name because I blamed myself. Because I did not name them, I could not fight.

Now I realize that the following occurrences are not hazy or ambiguous. They are assaults, crimes that come to a specific number. No matter what mistakes I made before or after. I have gotten drunk many times. I have had many boyfriends and gotten into many cars. The only times I was raped were when the man I was with was a rapist.

THE LIST:

1. Danny
He was my best friend’s boyfriend, and he took my virginity when I had not yet decided to give it. Still a Christian, I was saving myself for marriage. He took advantage of my crush on him, the fact that I was willing to come over later at night, and the fact that I wanted to kiss him. He ignored me when I said no and I felt ashamed that my inexperienced body responded. I was 13 or maybe 12. He smiled and walked me home afterward, singing songs to “cheer me up” while my bloody underwear was balled up in my pocket. It was the first time a boy ever told me I was beautiful, and I remember the unexpected shock of those words as well as I remember the weight of his arms on mine and the too-hard grind of his teeth against my nipples. When I told his girlfriend, my best friend, what had happened, she did not believe me. I learned my lesson then about rape. It is slippery and hard to see. I decided I had blown the whole thing out of proportion.

2. Matt, Chris, Danny, and others
Matt and I went to school together. After the dismissal bell rang, we would walk over to his house. His friends were older; in their 20s at least. I can’t remember all their names. One day we were all playing around with a pair of handcuffs someone had found. But when I put them on, hands behind my back, no one would give me the key. They circled around me, touching me. One of them offered me a drag of his cigarette, and Matt said, “Don’t give her anything.” I said I had to get home before my parents came home from work. They pulled my top off. Matt said he would let me go after I sucked them all off, starting with Danny. “And no penguin head, either,” he said, meaning that I wasn’t to leave them with their pants around their ankles. I only gave one guy oral sex before they let me go. Not everyone touched me, but none of them stopped it. I blocked this entire incident out of my memory for a year or two, until one day it came rushing back to me.

3. Chris
I was 14 and he was 21. I believed him to be my boyfriend, and only a decade later understood that our age difference meant I had been molested. When I was not in the mood to have sex, he would rape me. Once he raped me in front of a friend, who did nothing to stop it.

4. Robb
He may be the most evil person I’ve ever met. I was 16 and he was 28; we met online and I secretly made the hour and a half drive to spend the night with him. We began dating, although he refused to be monogamous, even having me drop him off at other women’s houses. One day I cut school, came over, and we fucked all day. Halfway through he started slapping me. We had played this game before, but he took it too far. I began to plead with him and he hit me harder. I said no, and he fastened his hands around my neck and choked me with eyes that looked cold. I believed he was going to kill me when I passed out. I came to and he was raping my ass instead. Afterward he told me, “The fear in your eyes made me want to cum and cry at the same time.” I went to school the next day with bruises on my jaw and broken blood vessels on my neck.

5. Dan
I also met him online and came over to his house. I was a teenager and he was an adult, and I now realize, a predator. At the time I just thought we were on a date. Instead he held me down and fucked me while I struggled. When he came he pushed my head down so far on his dick I choked. I wondered why he never called me again.

6. ?
I don’t know his name. I was working as a prostitute when he raped me. I consented to vaginal sex with him and he forced me into anal sex. He put a belt around my neck. “Shh,” he told me. “You’ll like it. Kiss me, relax.” He paid me. I left.

7. Chris
I drunkenly came home with him. Two other girls came too. My head was drooping as they all chattered in the living room. I went to the bathroom and threw up, then stumbled down the hall and passed out on his bed. I woke up with him on top of me. I would see him out afterward, talking to other drunk girls. I always pulled them aside and told them that he had date-raped me, so I’m probably not his favorite person. I later found out he is a high-school teacher.

8. ?
I was leaving an event I had organized. It should have been my moment of celebration. I was drunk, had probably had a line of cocaine, and thought taking a cab home was the safe option. The driver talked me into the front seat with a lame excuse about how he wanted to read my palm. Then he put his hands down my shirt, up my skirt. He told me he could tell I would be “heavy” someday. I said “No, stop.” He drove down dark alleyways touching me, looking for a place to pull over. I begged him to take me home, and finally he did. I didn’t pay.


I didn’t press charges any of these times. Some of them I didn’t even tell anyone about. I am posting this not to revel in my bad experiences, but to show that the real circumstances of real rape don’t always look like we think they should. Rapists are not just evil men who jump out of the bushes. Rape can happen even if you were drunk, even if you stayed still instead of kicking and biting, even if you had an orgasm, even if you liked the guy, even if you had consented to sex with him previously. The lies we are told about what rape silence us. If we aren’t even sure that we have been raped, how can we seek justice?

If all people who have been assaulted would stand up and say, “I have been raped” instead of blaming themselves, more rapists would be punished. So for that reason I am telling all of you that I have been sexually assaulted 8 times. I hope it never happens again, but if it does, I will call it what it is. And I will press charges.