This post moved me really quite dramatically.
Reading this, I did want to cry with sympathy for this woman's experiences. At the same time, I felt so much admiration for her; for her candour and openness in deciding to share her experiences, and her courage at opening up about something so frightening.
Too few of us keep quiet when we are assaulted, and reading this post makes me wish I could have had more courage to speak up when things happened to me. But I counted myself lucky, because I was never "actually raped". I was never penetrated against my will, that I could remember, though I had come close on several occassions. I found myself thinking that this made the things that were done to me "unimportant", because "nothing really happened".
Well, now I know better. Here is my list. TRIGGER WARNING, UNPLEASANT STUFF
1. I was around eight or nine years old. It was a special occassion; one of those events where the entire family and lots of the family friends would all gather together at my grandparents for feasting, games and general merriment. I was still the only child on our rambling branch of the family tree; my second and third cousins hadn't been able to make it this time, so I was also the only child in the house. When the family decided they wanted to go to the pub, I asked to stay home as I didn't like the smokiness. A family friend, a man whose house I had stayed over regularly, sometimes for a week or two in the holidays, offered to sit me whilst everybody else went drinking. When we were alone, at some point I decided to go and give him a little family kiss. Instead, when I went to give him a peck he grabbed me and pulled me into a straddling position on his lap, started kissng me and grabbing me, pushing his hands under my clothes. I remember him pushing me back and down so that he was on top of me and starting to undo my jeans, then we heard the key turn in the front door. He let me go, and I sat in a corner of the room. I don't remember why, but at the time I felt guilty about the matter, so I asked him not to tell. Maybe because I kissed him first, so I thought I had "started it". Looking back, I can remember that when I used to visit him prior to this, sometimes he would get me to cuddle up in bed with him in the mornings, and we'd play tickling games and other things. It had never seemed odd to me, before.
2. When I was around twelve years old, during the Summer holidays, I was walking to a friend's house. I had just reached the top of my road, and there was a man standing there. He looked lost, or like he was waiting for someone. I smiled at him as I walked past. He started talking to me. Said he was going to a party, and would I like to come with him? I said no, and went to walk on, but he had backed me into a corner. He started touching me, talking all the time about this party, and how I would really enjoy it. It happened on a busy street, in the middle of a sunny day, with people I knew from school, the shops and other areas walking past, and no one said a thing, or tried to stop him from kissing and grabbing me. In the end, I agreed to go to the party, but I had to go and finish my errands first. He let me go, and said he would be waiting for me. When I eventually had to walk home from my friends' house, I took the route through the back streets.
3. I was around fourteen years old, maybe a little older, and was shopping at the local supermarket. A couple of times, my trolley bumped into an older man's one. I vaguely recognised him as someone who lived in the village, one of those people that you casually say "good morning" to when passing in the street, so I did again, and thought nothing more of it. As I was leaving, with my trolley full of groceries, he approached and asked if I would like a lift home. I said no, thank you, I'm fine to walk. As soon as he offered me the lift, I knew sometin was up. My school seemed to be targetted regularly by predators, so most months there would be a letter circulated to parents, warnin of a person or persons of particular description driving a particular vehicle who might "ask your child to ride home with them". He badgered me fora few moments more, and then splurted "I will pay you £50!". I said no once more, and by this time a few of the other shoppers had noticed what was going on and were watching him. This man never touched me, not once, but I walked home shaking the whole way, afraid his car would pull up next to me in a less crowded area.
4. My uncle decided to have his wedding at a luxurious holiday resort, and the whole family came along. I was now sixteen, and past the age of consent in England. While on the holiday, a number of the waiters flirted with me, mostly harmlessly, and doing so only when my parens were around, mostly I think to see if they could get me to blush, which I did with worrying ease. So I thought nothing of it when, at the little nigthclub, one of the waiters asked if they could dance with me at the end of their shift. Oddly, it was just as the club had closed and I was leaving that I was offered a dance. He grabbed me with a number of his coworkers surrounding us, watching, and pushed me up against a wall to kiss me. His friends were egging him on as he started stripping off my clothes. I managed to talk him out of it, saying that my parents, whom he had met, would be coming to collect me shortly and they would worry if I wasn't outside. He kept asking me to come away with him somewhere more private, and I just pretended I didn't understand what he was trying to ask me, that the language barrier was greater than it really was.
5. At a party around a friend's house, when I was around seventeen or eighteen. Most of us would be leaving for university soon, so we were having a last get together. A friend of a friend, a gloriously witty and charming young lad from America, who had been staying in England the last few weeks and had gotten to know us all well, was at this party. It got late, so with the host's parents away for the weekend there was no problem with us all sleeping over and making our way home the next day; safer, we thought, than walking home drunk after dark. I took one of the sofas in the front room. When I woke up, the young lad I mentioned was on the sofa with me. Lying behind me, with his arms around me, and one hand down my trousers. With his other hand he was trying to get me to touch him. I struggled, kept on trying tomove my hands away and to wriggle away from him, but I didn't say anything. I was scared, and embarrassed that I would wake up my friends upstairs and they would think I was just being daft. At one point his grip slipped, and I fell off the sofa on to the floor. I went immediately upstairs, and went to sleep on the floor in a room my best friend was in, with her boyfriend and a couple of other people. Nothing more happened, and I told no one about it the next day.
6. At university, it was the birthday of one of the guys I'd met during fresher week. We didn't share any classes, having taken completely different subjects, but we'd gone out with our social group together many times. I got too drunk at the pub, although I don't know how as I was drinking something I regularly enjoyed, knew my limits for, and hadn't had many. I don't remember getting back, or leaving the pub, but I woke up on the floor of my friend's bedroom. He told me I'd passed out and, as he couldn't find my dorm, he'd helped me back to his and let me have the floor. In any case, I still felt woozy and figured I was still drunk from the night before; I wasn't quite all there at the time. It was't until I was back to my own dorm and went to change out of my dress that I realised my underpants were missing. I don't know what happened. At the time I rationalised that, if anything did happen, I might have consented. I might even have just taken them off in a drunken stupor. Since I couldn't remember, I thought it would be unfair to accuse him of anything, and let the incident go, and bought a morning after pill. I still don't know if anything actually happened.
So that is my list. Even as I write it, I can't help but remind myself that "nothing really happened" during any of these incidents, that many women have experienced far worse than I have, but I try to ignore myself thinking like that. That sort of thinking is exactly the reason I kept quiet all those times, and I know that, had I not struggled, had I not said no, had my nan not come home early, much worse things would have happened.
There are other incidents. The usual, brief and "minor" encounters that most women have had; an unwelcome grope in a pub, on a bus or train, in the street. A man trying to walk me into a corner, or lead me towards a secluded area, but never actually getting the chance to touch me. A drunken friend kissing me in the pub and not getting off of me until a friend saw me gesturing and helped pull me away. A "compliment" given in the wrong tone of voice, with the wrong body language. Just stuff, and not worth the detail I've given to the above accounts. Most women reading this will know exactly the sort of incidents I am talking about, anyway.
From now on, I will speak up when someone touches me. I will fight back, and I will refuse to feel embarrassed or ashamed for myself.