You see it in every movie, you read it in every book. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Girl stays over. Boy and girl fall asleep. Boy wakes girl up by kissing her and touching her. Girl and boy have late night erotic sex. It’s classic, it’s hot, and at one point or another all women want to be woken up to their partner wanting to make love to them at a random moment in time. It’s romantic, really, that your partner wants to hold you and be one with you in the dead of night. It’s romantic and dramatic and beautiful…except when it’s not. Except when you don’t feel the same way, and you don’t want it, and you weren’t even awake enough to consent to it.
In a way, I was lucky. I woke up in time to stop the actual “deed” from happening. What I woke up to, however, was definitely not something I’d ever said “yes” to. First, let me set up the background for you. It was my first date with- let’s call him…Dave. Dave and I had met on one of those dating apps, shared a quiet dinner, and decided to watch a movie at his place. All throughout the evening, I wasn’t really feeling the sparks but Dave was persistent. I agreed to kissing him, mostly because I was too polite to say “no” (that’s a different issue altogether) but that’s all I did, and that’s all I wanted to do.
He wanted more physically, I could sense that much. I had to push him off and say “I’m not sleeping with you tonight” more than once. And yes, I said those exact words. But still I stayed, because he seemed to get it. He seemed to back off after that and we continued to watch our movie in peace.
I fell asleep while we were watching, and I remember him carrying me to his bed. That was sweet, I remembering thinking. It was late, and I was an hour from home, so it pleased me that Dave was going to let me crash here tonight instead of risk my life driving on the highway half-asleep. I fell back into my slumber faster than I thought was possible.
When I woke up, I woke up to the feeling of his fingers between my legs. I’m one of those people who has very strange reactions to crisis situations, so the first thing out of my mouth was a laugh. I casually pushed Dave’s hand away and tried to play it off. “Were you trying to wake me up to have sex with me?” I said casually. He mumbled and smiled and said, “Maybe. Did it work?”
No. No it hadn’t. I told him so, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep. His frustration was bleeding off of him, and I felt him turn to the other side opposite of me. I counted the seconds, and 453 later, I heard him snoring.
Holy crap, had I just been assaulted? My mind and heart were both racing. I was frozen and suddenly very afraid but very, very confused. I didn’t fall asleep again, and I left right at the crack of dawn. Over the next few days, I kept replaying the night over and over in my head. I had kissed Dave. I’d wanted to kiss Dave. I told him I didn’t want anything more. I woke up with his hand inside of me. He’d claimed to have wanted to wake me up with sex. But hadn’t I said I didn’t want to sleep with him? Did he think touching me was okay as long as it didn’t involve his genitals? I had stayed over, though…I’d spent the night, I’d let myself fall asleep there. Maybe I’d given him the wrong signals.
As time went on, I grew more and more uneasy with the encounter and my perception of it. The more I thought about it, the more sick to my stomach I felt. Because a part of me just knew that, in blatant terms, I’d been sexually assaulted. A stranger, a man I’d just met, had touched me while I was clearly asleep after I’d told him no just hours before. And if I hadn’t woken up…
Like I said, in a way, I was lucky. But a lot of women aren’t. A lot of women don’t even have enough memory of the times they were touched without their consent like I did. A lot of them wake up confused, frazzled, and have no idea what occurred the night before. Even though I remembered, however, I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone; I blocked Dave’s number and pretended the night didn’t exist. Looking back, I should have done something, told someone. I should have acted because any action- touching, fondling, kissing, having sex, everything else- performed on or to you without your consent is assault.
So here I am, finally telling someone. Names aren’t necessary here, so I’ll keep both mine and his anonymous. My point in writing this is to tell you that I know it’s scary when this stuff happens. It’s disgusting and weird because you can’t believe it actually did happen to you, that it wasn’t okay, and you don’t know how to behave afterwards. There are plenty of Daves and Sallys in the world who think it’s okay to touch you whenever they want, and it just isn’t. You have to know that, and you have to be brave and strong enough to do something about it if it ever happens to you.
So if you think you’ve been assaulted, in any way, but are too scared or confused to admit it to yourself- don’t be. Tell someone. Tell yourself. It’s the only way you’ll work through it, and it’s the only way you’ll begin to heal.