I mean I guess
So,
I don't know. My cousin recently had alerted me that a past occurrence with my ex falls under sexual assault and I guess it does. But I feel it's so mild in comparison that I don't feel like I have the right to complain. Plus, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel.
The event in question was a night (well day because I worked over nights) that my partner at the time came and woke me up extremely drunk. He kept pestering me until I relented and agreed to having sex. But an hour passed and it was starting to hurt. I did my best to ignore it but it got so painful that I couldn't. I told him it was hurting. That I wanted him to stop but he would just tell me he was almost done. Eventually I gave up trying to get him off of me and watched the clock trying not to cry for two more hours. Well when I went to the bathroom I was bleeding (it actually wasn't the first time he had made me bleed) and I continued to bleed for the rest of the week.
Well now sex hurts almost always for me even though I have a super gentle partner. I don't know. I don't know how to feel. My whole relationship with him was violent and awful. But I just can't see it as rape because I agreed and then stopped fighting..
@LemonaidProxy
Hello there, lovely. First of all, my heart absolutely goes out to you for all the mess of feelings that you must be going through right now, and I want to let you know that there's no such thing as ''mild in comparison'' when it comes to rape and assault. What happened to you, and the effect that it had on you, is individual to you, and no one can tell you that you don't have a right to complain.
When something traumatic happens to us, we may not realise it at the time, we may file it away in our heads under normal behaviour, but there's a bit of it that always knows that something is wrong, and this is the bit of you that's ready to think about what happened, which is an incredible step forward, I am so so proud of you for getting there. Your cousin sounds like a really perceptive and supportive person, I'm really glad that you have them in your corner.
Let me tell you something about consent: even if you say yes and then change your mind during sex or foreplay, that means that he's ignoring you and overpowering you. There are a lot of myths about what constitutes rape and consent, and rape is rape no matter when and who and how it takes place - between partners, if one's drunk, if you've already said yes - it's still rape if you have sex with someone when you don't want to.
To give a silly example, if a salesman came to the door and told you to buy some new windows, and wouldn't go until you said yes, so you say yes, you'll think about it, then the next day he comes back and has the windows fitted, and presents you with a bill - you'd be furious! You might have said yes, but everyone has a right to change their mind, and what you decided before you don't have to be held to. This is applicable to all areas of life, be that sex or double glazing - you have the right to say no, and more importantly, the right to change your mind, and he did not respect that right.
I always tend to think of a certain quote from To Kill A Mockingbird whenever I hear any mention of a rape not being ''serious enough'' to warrant a sentence. This is one of the young protagonists' take on the definition of rape:
''Apparently you had to kick and holler, you had to be overpowered and stomped on, preferably knocked stone cold.''
There's still a prevailing notion that rape must be violent and between strangers to count as a ''real rape'', which is simply not true. It can and mostly is coercive and between partners, and to discount all those people who experienced serious trauma because they didn't fight enough or they said yes and then changed their mind is simply wrong.
Your body is your own, and no matter what label you give to what happened to you: he hurt you and ignored your wishes. ''Stopping fighting'' isn't the same as giving consent, please believe me on that.
There's a lot of help and support for you out there, when you're ready to take it. If you're able, working through with someone about what happened that day and how you've processed it since is a really positive place to start. Rainn might be a really good place for you to go, a specialist rape and sexual absue support website, with hotlines if you want them. Were you ever able to talk to your current partner about what happened? He sounds like a very loving person, and it's so awful that your relationship is still being shadowed by what he did to you.
And if you ever feel that you want to, the law is on your side in terms of prosecution. Obviously that's not something that is likely to happen soon, but knowing that might help your own healing: the law is on your side, and what he did to you was illegal.
If you feel like you want to talk more, please reach out, I'd love to hear from you <3
All my love,
Lyra
@Lyra I found your reply really insightful and very poignant since I often have to convince people that what they are describing is actually rape. Your reply adds to the body of info out there giving girls who've gone through "kind of rape" a strong grounding to voice their valid feelings from. Sincere thank you!
My story is different, but I too feel like my experience is "too mild". But it's been bothering me lately. It happened 8 years ago, and it's just now truly bothering me. I felt guilty calling it rape. I kept saying it was "kinda rape". But that doesn't even make sense! It's either rape, or it's not. Even as I type this I feel like an imposter calling it rape.
Thinking back on when it happened, I felt so disgusting and numb for a while after that. The exact length has escaped me. I guess I just tried to shove it all inside. I don't know how to feel about this. I keep telling myself I need to just get over it and stop acting like it was a big deal.
Basically, a week after I broke up with a live in ex I went to pick up some moving boxes. Our relationship had died 2 years prior, so we hadn't even had sex for 2 years (while he was cheating on me the entire time). He started kissing me. This man that had not wanted anything to do with me for 2 years was now "wanting" me. I was frozen, limp, unresponsive. He had sex with me as I remained like a rag doll. I didn't say a single word. At one point he had the gall to say, "You may not need this, but I really need it." And I feel like I am being dumb calling it rape.
