I don’t talk about my rape because I rarely think about my rape. It hasn’t affected my life more or less than all the other forms of misogynist abuse that I (and all women) experience daily.** In my mental map of outrages, it lives somewhere next to the time a man pulled his penis out and waved it at me in an otherwise empty subway car and the time a supervisor propositioned me while I was talking about how upset I was because another supervisor had propositioned me.
In some ways I hesitate to talk about my rape now, because so many other women have said so powerfully what I don’t think I have the ability to say eloquently, and because even though I have a very small social media presence, I fear violent, misogynistic responses. But my rape was something that happened because of a man with ideas about my body identical to Donald Trump’s ideas about all women’s bodies. I keep thinking about my rape now, because everywhere I turn someone is talking about Trump’s disgusting words and actions.
So I’m talking about my rape here, now. But why didn’t I talk about it then? Why didn’t I report it?
I didn’t report my rape because I’d consented the first time. I didn’t report because I said no three times and pushed him away, but after he pinned me down, I didn’t say no again. I didn’t report because it took me five years to understand that being penetrated against my will (without a condom, of course) was rape. I didn’t report because I thought, like many an innocent 19-year-old, that since I’d consented once, I couldn’t have been raped, even though I did not want to have sex again, and was able to say so, and said so. I didn’t report because I was ashamed of having a one night stand, which seemed to me then to be further proof that I couldn’t have been raped.
At 33, it’s much easier to call a rape a rape, and to see that I didn’t invite it. No one in the history of the earth has ever invited their rape or their assault.
I said no. I had the right to say no.
I cannot wait to say no to Trump next month.
**I am profoundly lucky in that I was not more lastingly traumatized by my rape – perhaps because it was not especially violent. My heart is with all survivors who live with trauma as a more constant force, especially right now.