**Content Warning: This article contains discussion of and direct reference to sexual assault and rape. Keep this in mind if you choose to continue to read.**
I didn’t understand that I was raped until two and a half years after my assault.
Let me explain. I was sexually assaulted after attending a party in March of my first year at Kenyon. I never drank in high school, and barely drank during my first year of college. At this party, though, I drank. Too much.
I had gotten to know a guy over the previous few months. We texted or talked every day, and he seemed nice. Even though I’m not “the hookup type,” (whatever that means) I felt comfortable enough with him to go over at night a couple of times and hang out. And by hang out, I mean make out. It was exciting, and I felt mature for being able to separate physical contact and emotions for the first time in my young adult life. I began wondering if I wanted him to be the first person I had sex with. While I believe that everyone has the right to conduct their sex lives however they please as long as they don’t harm anyone else, I personally didn’t consider this option lightly.
When I showed up at his NCA after this particular party in March, I still hadn’t made a decision. I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to have sex with this guy, but I knew I enjoyed my past encounters with him and I was looking forward to that night. I was also slurring my speech and having difficulty standing and walking on my own. (At this point, it might be worth nothing that he had stayed in that night and was completely sober.)
He should have walked me home, or given me a glass of water, or at the very least put me to bed on his couch. Instead, he practically carried me up the stairs and took me to his room.
In this moment, I was okay with kissing him. Drunk me was enjoying myself, even—as I said, we had made out before. While giving consent once in the past doesn’t grant someone a universal pass for the future, I was comfortable with this. You could definitely argue that, due to my level of intoxication, even this shouldn’t have happened. And you’d probably be right. However, if this is all that had happened, I would have woken up the next day feeling completely satisfied with my experience.
But he didn’t stop there.
Luckily, it didn’t last long. The pain went away pretty quickly as I either passed out or blacked out in his bed. I spent the night there and was woken by him in the morning.
I felt weird when I walked home the next day, but I couldn’t figure out why. I knew that what happened wasn’t “good,” but I didn’t fully realize how unacceptable it was. I had texted one of my best friends that I was coming home, and he was waiting for me with a bottle of Gatorade and some water. (Bless you, unidentified friend, you are amazing.) I didn’t tell him the details of the night before—partly because I was still making sense of them, and partly because so many things were hazy.
I didn’t understand that I was sexually assaulted until over a week after it happened. He hadn’t talked to me much after that night, and I attributed this to the fact that it was a busy time of year. When he didn’t want me to come over the next weekend, though, I knew something was up. Initially, I felt rejected, stupid, and inadequate. What did I do wrong? Was this my fault because I was still a virgin? Did he finally get bored of me? Only after asking myself these questions and replaying what I remembered of that night over and over again did I see what was wrong.
I realized then that I had been in no position to give consent that night. And that realization was terrifying.
Even though I had been informed of Kenyon’s Title IX procedure and vaguely understood the different options I had, I didn’t know if my experience was “bad enough” to be worth reporting. The prospect of having to retell my story over and over again made me feel exhausted, so I ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want anyone to tell me that it was my fault or that I didn’t have enough evidence to justify feeling violated. I mean, compared to what thousands of other people have gone through, my experience really wasn’t that horrible. My rape wasn’t violent and it ended quickly, at least from what I can remember. So, I stayed silent.
After learning that this man had assaulted other women on campus, I deeply regretted that decision. I still do.
But at that point, I didn’t understand that the short duration of my assault doesn’t mean that it wasn’t rape. Neither the sex education I received in high school nor the information I had been directly given during orientation at Kenyon had told me this. It was only after I talked to an SMA in the first semester of my senior year did I realize and came to terms with the fact that I was raped. Once this SMA directly said to me, “It doesn’t matter if it lasted for one second, what he did to you was rape,” it clicked. No matter how non-violent he was and how quickly it ended and how drunk I was, his actions constituted an act of rape.
I had denied this truth to myself for so long because I didn’t want to seem like I was being overly dramatic about my experience. I had come up with a million excuses for his behavior. Maybe he stopped so soon because he realized I was too drunk. Maybe he stopped because I had never had sex before and he suddenly decided, after he had already begun, that he didn’t want this to be my first time. Maybe he could tell that it was hurting me. Wow, what a good guy.
The truth is, he isn’t a good guy. What he did to me was unacceptable and inexcusable. Even though I know this now, I still believe that if I had decided to report my rape and go through the Title IX process, I don’t think he would have ever been found guilty.
But after months and months of doubting reality and doubting myself, I know this to be true: Nobody asks for this.
Nobody asks to be a statistic. Nobody asks to be touched even after saying no. Nobody asks to be touched after not having the opportunity to say yes. Nobody deserves to be touched if they’re unsure they want to be touched that way. Nobody asks to be touched when they are so intoxicated they can barely walk and talk. Nobody asks to feel like every cell of their body has been violated. Nobody asks to have panic attacks in the middle of Peirce because their assaulter is laughing with their friends only a few feet away. Nobody asks to relapse into their eating disorder because it seems like the only way to take back control of their body. Nobody asks to feel like if they spoke up, no one would believe them. Nobody asks to feel like their traumatic experience isn’t horrible enough to speak up.
Nobody asks to question whether it was all their fault.
I’m about to get a bit meta here, because I genuinely don’t know how to conclude this article. Perhaps that’s because I still haven’t reached the end of my road to recovery. I still don’t have all the answers, and I never will. I will never know why he did this to me, or if he realized it was rape. I will never know how many other women he assaulted, and if he realized his actions towards them constituted sexual assault too. I will never know if he will eventually face justice.
Nonetheless, I hope that I will eventually be at peace with this uncertainty. With the help of my friends, I have already come so far.
If you have been sexually assaulted or are facing any other type of issue, please reach out to one of Kenyon’s many resources to get the help you need:
SMA Hotline: (740) 358-1544
PC Hotline: (740) 398-3806
Campus Safety Emergency: (740) 427-5555
Counseling Center: (740) 427-5643
And remember that you are important, you are valued, and you are loved.