I Didn’t Know I Was Raped

No one taught me about enthusiastic consent

There are some things that you can identify immediately when they happen.

Like when a gun was fired a few houses down from my apartment, there was no mistaking the sound. I didn’t have to ask my husband “Was that a gunshot or a firecracker?” It was obvious.

I always figured rape was one of those things. How could something so violent and so horrible ever fly under your radar?

But then it happened to me. I knew what had happened, but I didn’t label it rape.

And I wouldn’t for another year.

One of the Worst Nights of My Life

It happened to me at 16. Only a few months before, I had been a virgin.

I met an older guy at a small party in someone’s apartment and he gave me what I wanted most at that moment: attention. I had just been dumped by my first boyfriend, who I was sure would be the love of my life, and I just wanted to feel that someone was interested in me.

When he asked me to get high with him, I went for it. I was from a boring small town, so I was no stranger to weed. But smoking the stuff he gave me didn’t give me the feeling I was familiar with. Instead of a comfortable buzz, I felt strange, confused, and totally numb.

It puzzled me at the time but looking back now I know that what he presented as pot was really laced with something stronger.

I was completely out of it when he grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s talk.” He pulled me to his room and shut the door.

I was in no state for talking. Whatever he gave me left me mostly unresponsive. I laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

I figured “talking” was a pretense, and when he started undoing my pants, I knew for sure. I pushed his hand away a few times, I asked him to slow down. He didn’t. He told me to relax and ignored my attempts to fend him off.

I stopped pushing him away when he started fingering me. Not because I welcomed it, but because my mind still felt numbed. Nothing about it was pleasurable. It didn’t feel like we were fooling around; it just felt like I lost the will to fight.

With his finger still inside me, he asked “Is this okay?” I mumbled “yes” even though it didn’t feel okay. I mumbled yes because I felt like I couldn’t say no. I mumbled yes even though anyone who genuinely wanted to get my consent would have been able to tell from my body language that I was not giving it.

He got up off the bed, but it was only to turn off the lights and get a condom. He pulled my pants off and stuck his penis in me.

This time, I didn’t feel numb. This time, I felt pain, and lots of it.

I cried out and told him to stop. I told him it hurt.

He shushed me and told me to “just let it go all the way in” and insisted it would feel good once it did.

It didn’t. Not that it mattered. I winced and whined from the pain until he came.

He left and returned to the party.

I was still in a daze and put my pants back on. I went to the bathroom and discovered that I was bleeding quite a bit.

And then I acted like nothing happened. I told my friends I was fine because I didn’t want anyone to feel bad about it.

It Wasn’t the Kind of Rape I’d Been Warned About

Writing out that story, it’s shocking to me that I had such a hard time identifying what happened as rape.

I had a pretty narrow idea of rape.

My mother warned me about lecherous strangers, but never about guys who are sort of nice at first.

I knew that “no means no” but I didn’t know what it meant when there was a “yes” thrown in there somewhere.

On top of that, the next day he got in touch with me. He asked me to come over and hang out with him. That made things even less clear for me — a rapist, I was sure, wouldn’t act this way.

Rapists don’t come back like they’re asking for a second date.

Needless to say, I didn’t go back to his place. I ghosted him.

I later found out that my girlfriends wanted to check in on me when I was in this guy’s bedroom. They knew there was something sketchy about the whole situation. In the end, they decided against it because the guys they were with talked them out of it. They insisted I was just in there having fun.

It didn’t fit their idea of rape, either. To them, rape didn’t start with the victim willingly following the rapist into his bedroom.

My girlfriends were still not entirely convinced that I was just in there having fun, so they asked me what happened. I told them the details. I said it was weird and that I had a weird feeling about it.

They dismissed it. “Well, you said ‘yes,’ right?”

Those weird feelings? They insisted it was just because I didn’t like him that much.

What happened to me didn’t fit their idea of rape, either. Rape victims kick and scream and repeatedly shout “no” at the top of their lungs — they never mutter an awkward and uncomfortable “yes.”

I Was Confused About Consent

Everything I had absorbed about the notion of consent taught me that it was almost like a switch. Saying yes — or simply not saying no (or not loudly enough) — sets things in motion, and you have to take responsibility for everything that happens afterward.

Smoking his laced weed. Going into his room with him. Fighting him off too feebly when he tried to finger me. Giving up when he did finger me. Giving one of the most reluctant yeses of my life. Any one of those was tantamount to consent as far as I knew.

The only explanation I could muster for how uncomfortable I felt about what happened is that it must have just been bad sex. And I couldn’t help but feel like it was somehow my fault.

It was another year before I really got a better, more nuanced understanding of consent.

I learned that consent needs to be ongoing, which means it can be withdrawn at any time. Saying “yes” at the beginning (or in my case, a little after the beginning) doesn’t count as an automatic endorsement of everything that follows.

I learned that defensive body language is enough to withhold consent. Consent is enthusiastically given, not presumed.

And it’s kind of sad that I had to be explicitly taught this last one, but I also learned that drugging someone negates their ability to consent. I could have mumbled “yes” a dozen times and it wouldn’t have mattered after he snuck drugs into my system.

We Need to Teach Young People Better

After having “no means no” seared into my memory from a very early age, I was sure I knew everything about consent.

And then I was thrown into a real-life scenario. Real-life scenarios aren’t as clear-cut as we’d like them to be. And “no means no” didn’t give me all the answers I wanted. It didn’t help me understand what happened to me, and certainly didn’t help me label it as rape. If anything, it left me more confused.

I never want my sons and daughters to be confused about what counts as consent or what counts as rape. I want them to be clear eyed about all of it.

I want my sons to know that when someone acts like they’re not comfortable, it’s not a green light for them to pounce — it’s not even a yellow light.

I don’t want my daughters to ever tell their friend that what happened to them was just bad sex because they gave their consent at first.

I don’t want any of them to think that drugs or alcohol doesn’t change anything when it comes to sex and consent.

And I don’t want them to think there’s anything innocent about trying to guilt or pressure someone into having sex.

I want them to know that they can withdraw their consent any time they don’t feel 100% enthusiastic about what’s happening, and I want them to know that they need to respect someone’s decision to withdraw consent, no matter how horny and disappointed they are.

And I want to teach them early, because I was raped before I had a chance to learn what consent really meant.

Now when I look back at what happened to me, I have no problem calling it by its name. I know I was raped that night.

But I still struggle with how I feel about the whole situation.

Maybe it’s the cultural baggage I carried into that situation or maybe it’s because it took me a long time before I found anyone who didn’t minimize what happened to me. Whatever the reason, I still struggle with feeling like it was my fault. My fault for saying “yes” when I really didn’t mean yes. My fault for not struggling harder, screaming louder, saying “no” just one more time, hoping it will somehow get the message through. My fault for putting myself in that situation — for agreeing to get high with someone I barely knew, for letting myself get pulled into his bedroom.

I want my children and other young people to learn about genuine and enthusiastic consent, and to learn about it long before they find themselves in bad situations. I know it won’t always be enough to prevent sexual assault from happening, but it’s the best tool they can have to name it and look out for themselves and each other.

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