It’s time for me to talk about rape.
My journey through an experience of mild and spicy rape.
We are gathered here today for yet another personal reflection. But this time it’s to celebrate a passing, and also merge (or transform?) into something new.
If you know me at all, you know that I am an advocate for sex positivity and I am not going to get too much into that or what it means right now. Today is to share about why I am such a believer in sexual expression for women.
From a very young age, you could say I was slutty, although I prefer the term sexualized. In my first month of grade 7, after returning from a bathroom break my math teacher stopped me from coming back into the class by “copping a feel” on my eleven year old boobs. He reached out and put his left hand on my right boob, and his right hand on my left boob, he then squeezed and said okay, you can come in now.
That same year, a guy who was like super cute and one grade older than me walked into my class while the teacher was away and pointed at me then asked me to stand up and put my hands up. I did. He joked and said, ya you do have nice tits. I had never spoken to him before this.
Fast forward 6 years and countless assaults later and I am in college. It is my first year and I was having the time of my life. I was in a new city with new friends going to a school I truly enjoyed. And because this is a story on rape, I must identify that at this point in my life I had never, not even once, had a single glass of alcohol. Needless to say, I was doing great.
I was seeing a guy and we were a thing for almost a year. I knew his sister and his mom and of course it wasn’t too serious because we were young. But I liked him and felt comfortable with him, plus we had fun together.
A year had passed after we went our separate ways, but we had mutual friends and once again I found myself at his apartment.
It was a beautiful night, one of those warm but not hot summer days when it was light out until forever. He lived about a block away from the ocean in Vancouver and had a great view. He was Persian so his house was always cozy and had delicate things everywhere that made you think you would break something, but also that you could stay there forever.
We spent the evening chatting and watching a few videos. He showed me some projects that he had been working on and soon enough, once again we were having sex and it was great.
The next night, I was with him again in that same warm apartment. I had one of my favorite outfits on at the time. It was a skirt with this coral bodysuit on underneath. I was young and could look good in anything. I remember this bodysuit so well because it had three snap closures right between my legs, which in hindsight sounds very uncomfortable but I only remember it being so freeing.
This night there was less chit chat and it seemed like he had something on his mind. He was proceeding to seduce me and I just didn’t want it. I had such a good day, my friend was in town. He kept pushing and pushing and I kept saying no. I looked him in the eye and said if you do this I’ll never speak to you again. He lifted my shoulders, flipped me over, and put me on my stomach while he proceeded to rape me while I laid there biting my nails.
When he was finished, I immediately got up from the bed, buttoned those snaps that he so easily undid, grabbed my bag, left my scarf and walked out of that apartment trying to stay quiet for his sister in the next room.
I walked home that night so thankful I had worn heels. There was nothing more powerful than walking up a hill in heels undefeated from a man who just took me physically without any concern.
Immediately when I got home I drew myself a bath. I sat there alone in my apartment, cried, and cleaned everything I could from my toes to my scalp. I went to sleep, luckily quite quick. The next day I called my manager and said I couldn’t make it to work and told her what had happened. She asked me to come in anyways, said it wouldn't be a work day but she wanted to support me and be there, it would be a day of just being present. And oddly for that I am truly grateful. Once I got in, I told another co-worker about what happened that night (yes we were all very close), and her reaction this time was a slight grin followed by a “that’s okay, they have nice dicks anyways.”
For the purpose of today and this story, I am holding off on sharing other memories. This one is the easiest to tell. It wasn’t a stranger jumping out of a bush. It was someone I knew well and had trusted. His sister was in the other room and nearly no noise was made. It wasn’t about a fight, it was about a man taking complete control of my body physically.
I feel this story is important to share because so many women I know now today have had similar or worse experiences. It’s not how we imagine or what we see in movies. It’s these seemingly small events that change who we are completely.
Every date I go on, I tell them that I have been raped. I don’t personally identify as a survivor, because the surviving isn’t about the rape, it’s about the healthcare gap, the wage gap, the fact that a women's home is the most dangerous place for her. Surviving this one rape story doesn’t mean I have survived. It is with me every where I go and I see the world completely differently from that short incident that happened so long ago.
