Content Warning – a recount of sexual assault, discussion of rape culture, and some politics

I woke the morning after the election, knowing who’d won, and who’d lost (it’s yet to be determined how much we’ve all lost). I spent the day alternating between fear, fury, and the deepest anguish. That may sound dramatic, but I’m allowed my feelings. I’ll eventually get to more of the reasons why I had those feelings, but that grief, the tears were an understanding of just how much people – particularly men and apparently white women – hate strong, highly-intelligent, powerful women. I also could not understand how a person who has admitted publicly to sexual assault (“grab em by the pussy” is in fact sexual assault), and been found guilty of sexual abuse would not automatically be discounted as a viable option, much less a winning option. One point of my deepest points of sadness was the reinforcement of rape culture in electing that same person to the highest office in the land. Maybe it isn’t taking us back fifty years, but is just pointing out that rape culture is still a real thing, that men still hold the power and some people are apparently just fine with that, support it even.

I was raped when I was 20 years old. I’d been a virgin when it happened. I was raped by the boy I was dating – well, kind of dating – at the time. I was raped by that boy while my sister sat in the next room. I didn’t scream. I didn’t fight. I never reported it. I felt guilt and shame. Still feel guilt and shame. I had invited him over. I had taken a shower with him. I was naked with him in my bed. I knew full well what his expectation would be when I asked him over. I did it anyway. But when we reached the point of actually having sex, I said no. I said no when he pushed his fingers in me. I said no when he started to push his penis into me, and not just because it was painful. He hadn’t cared about my physical preparedness, much less anything else. When I tried to stop him, he told me if I didn’t let him, I was a cocktease and an immature baby. For some background, this boy had cheated on me repeatedly with a “woman” – his reasoning that she was old enough to party, drink in bars, and slept with him the first night she met him in one of those bars I was still too young to get into qualified her as a woman while I was still a girl. So I let him go ahead. It hurt. I still half-heartedly tried to push him away. He outweighed me by 100 pounds. He was an athlete. He won the battle.

Afterwards, I continued to date him for a few months. We had sex a bunch of times. Then he cheated on me again with that same “woman”. I also found out I’d been part of a bet amongst him and some of his teammates on the baseball team. They’d all known I was a virgin so the bet was to see who could be my first. I told him we were done. I wouldn’t see him, wouldn’t take his calls, wouldn’t go to parties at his house, wouldn’t talk to his friends about him. He confronted me at school. I finally grew a backbone and let him have it. I never talked to him again. I think he married that “woman,” at least for awhile. I do know he had a baby with her. I try not to think about him. And I blocked out what happened that day for a long time. Funny thing about trauma, it comes back to you when you least expect it. But that’s a different post for a different day.

What put me in that situation? What lead me to believe I needed to let him have what he said he wanted? Honestly, I know now he didn’t really want me. He wanted the conquest. And he’d do what he needed and wanted to get it. He proudly boasted to other people that he’d “won” not even hours after he left my apartment. I’d blamed myself for years, not even calling it rape until someone clearly pointed it out to me.

Rape culture, ingrained all my life, enabled it to happen. He believed he was entitled to it. Him telling me I was a cocktease if I didn’t let him after we had taken a shower and were naked…infuriates me now. When I had those first sex talks with the Princess, I repeatedly told her that her no was her no, and it is a NO no matter when it comes. He forced me, with words and with actions. I believed I owed it to him. I’d been told most of my life I had to have sex in order to be an adult, have an adult relationship, to “keep a man”. That’s bullshit. I wasn’t ready. It should have been on my terms. I heard all the usual things when I was younger – the boys who were mean to specific girls were that way because they liked them and that was just how they showed it. Way to set up abusive relationships. I was also told that if men cat-called me, I should take it as a compliment – I was attractive enough to warrant being cat-called. If men I worked for wanted to buy me drinks and food, I should let them regardless of the environment, because I didn’t want to threaten my own career by denying them.

Rape culture is real. It has been reinforced by society for so long, and in so many ways. Be careful how you dress – you don’t want to be a tease. Be careful how you act – you don’t want to lead someone on. Don’t get too drunk at parties or bars because then you’re just asking for it. We talk to girls about all the “rules” they need to follow to stay safe out in the world, to not encourage or invite unwanted advances or behavior. We still blame women and girls, question when they tell us something has been done to them if it really happened or what they’d done leading up to their assault. It makes me livid.

I honestly believed our world, our society was finally moving away from accepting rape culture, and was making headway into breaking its hold, that men who commit assault were finally being called out and held accountable. The Me Too movement felt so empowering, and as if we were finally getting somewhere. I’d assumed my daughter’s world would be a safer world than the one I grew up and was a young woman in, But then this election happened – an assaulter was elected President. And it seems like half of those he’s trying to appoint to his Cabinet have also either been accused of assault or have been involved in situations where women and children were victimized. Rape culture has once again been reinforced. Men have once again been told they can behave however they want, and there will be no consequences. They have immunity. They are, in fact, rewarded. This is just one of the many reasons I would never vote for this person. Sexual assault is a deal breaker for me. The fact it isn’t for others makes me distrust them, their morals, their priorities. If making our country “great” again – whatever that means – places women right back where we were fifty years ago, I want no part of it. NONE.

I cried so many tears that Wednesday three weeks ago. My daughter called me at one point, needing me to help her understand, process, to be there with her in this place of grief and disbelief. I just started sobbing, and had to tell her I could not be helpful, could not be the logical mom shoulder she needed in that moment. I was heartbroken and angry and so fearful for what this means, for what this says to sexual predators, to men in general. The world is theirs. They still hold the power – we just gave it back to them. I will never forgive that, never forget that. Women will once again hide what has happened to them. We will have to maintain our vigilance, be careful what we wear or how we talk, not accuse lest we ruin some boy/man’s potential career. We have once again been told we are second-class, if that. We matter less. We are here for their enjoyment, their pleasure whether we want it or not. Honestly, no man who’s been convicted of assault, exhibited this disgusting behavior, should be rewarded, his actions discounted. It should be a dealbreaker. It should have been a dealbreaker. It is for me.