There is a girl I used to be.
She is fearless, she is brave. She is silly and fun. She loves men, and isn’t afraid of them. She loves sex, and isn’t afraid of enjoying it. She has a voice, she’s strong and outspoken, and doesn’t take your crap, thank you very much.
A teacher in high school tried to take that voice from her. She told that girl that she wasn’t talented, wasn’t worth the effort, wasn’t kind, or considerate, or deserving, but really, the girl was all those things. And although that teacher’s voice still rang in her ears, she persisted. She followed that talent.
And in her 8th week at college in her freshman year, the voice was silenced. It wasn’t silenced by a man, although he was there. The girl ran away, and hid, and stopped talking. She said she “wasn’t sure,” but she didn’t say “no”...and then she couldn’t say “no.” She watched, but she didn’t speak up. Any sound, any sound at all would have made it all go away, and she was silent. Inside her head, she was screaming. He didn’t notice her silence or stillness, he didn’t hear the screaming in her head. And then she was gone.
And I hate her for leaving me that night under that man. I hate what that means about myself. She went away that night and she’s never come back. My whole life since then, I have tried to find her. Sometimes I imitate her. I’ve created a version of me that’s based a little bit on her, an homage to the original. But the fact is, that night, in that dorm room, I was changed forever.
A therapist once told me about a patient she had that orgasmed during her rape. I understand how betrayed by herself she must have felt. As sick as it is to say out loud, I sometimes envy women who feel that they can blame their rapists, only because I so often fall to blaming myself. It took me 3 years to even call it “rape.” I still struggle with it, worried that someone will catch me on a technicality, will try to argue that something valuable wasn’t actually taken from me, that I gave it up, and so that somehow means I’m not missing it at all.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if that girl had found her voice and stayed. What my relationships would be like. My marriage. My career. What kind of a mother would I be? What would it feel like to not be afraid? What would it feel like to trust myself? What if I had never had an STD, or felt broken? What if I hadn’t spent years after that incident trying to reclaim that part of me that I lost? What if I had just stayed whole?
I once got professional feedback that I “said ‘no’ too much.” What those men I worked for couldn’t understand is how very hard it can be to say ‘no’, especially for a woman saying it to a man who has power over you. They didn’t see how much bravery it took to say ‘no’ to them (two of them hit on me later, they didn’t like when I said ‘no’ then, either). I have spent my life shouting ‘no’ into my past, hearing the word echo in my head, not hearing it in my own voice. I can’t say it to him, so I say it to myself, and by doing so, I deny myself so many things I want.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t have to say “no,” because the absence of “no” is not “yes.”
So to hell with him for wanting sex more than consent and to hell with you if you think that’s not rape. No person deserves to live their life with this much self-loathing for doing nothing wrong. I may never find that girl again but I hope she knows I love her even though she left me, and the woman I am is learning to love herself every day.
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