The Sex You Didn’t Want
The further I get into the safety of a long-term relationship, the foggier my examples become. Each year is like another gloss of paint, obscuring. I am grateful for this obfuscation, however, a part of me wants to hold on to the memories, coloring them with new perspective as I grow in age and wisdom. This part of me wants to lose itself in the comfort of reliving the incidents, but altering the endings. This is what I would do, if it happened again. By rewriting your rape stories, you regain a façade of control.
There was a boy I had been kissing a lot over the summer. I had just been dumped by my first love and was about to leave for university. It was the last summer all our friends would be together in our hometown. On Friday nights we packed the mini dancefloor in the one good pub, drinking and sweating until closing time then drifting home in the warm night air.
We would always seem to end up together when the night was over. He walked me home and kissed me outside my front door. They were the sort of kisses you only experience when you’re a teenager; time-stopping, universe-falling-away kisses, the last of their kind before everything changed.
As summer burned toward its inevitable end, a feeling of sadness set in. We’d had such a good time. He was such a good kisser. Those balmy nights unfolding on the precipice of change had been unforgettable.
Despite our implicit agreement that this wasn’t a serious thing, we spoke about keeping in touch once we were at uni. He would be studying in the next city over, freeing up the possibility of seeing each other once term started. A month or so into the academic year, we made arrangements for him to come visit me.
In retrospect, I think I made this arrangement as an attempt to counteract the deep loneliness I felt during those first weeks on campus. I didn’t have anything in common with my new flatmates. My hall of residence was one of those boxy cheap builds, part of the architectural virus that was just beginning to infect cities across the UK. I hadn’t yet settled into my studies and felt like a reject sitting alone at the back of lecture theatres while everyone else seemed to have found their crowd. At weekends I would often drive home because I couldn’t bear the thought of filling those endless afternoons.
I longed to travel back in time to that perfect summer when there were no responsibilities. On a weekday afternoon we both had free, I met the boy I had been kissing at the train station.
As we walked through the bustling city center, making awkward chit-chat about our respective studies, a horrible realization began to bloom. It was accompanied by the feeling of being turned upside down, liquid lurching like sand pushing through to the other side of the hourglass.
I realized I didn’t know this person. Didn’t feel particularly attracted to him when I saw him standing outside the station in the gray light of day. The fire of the previous months had turned to damp embers. As much as I was struggling to get to grips with my new life in a new city, it was a new life I was living, and the boy I’d been kissing all summer had no place in it.
I felt awful; racked with guilt and embarrassment. What was I going to do?
The hours of the night stretched before us like the start of a new century. We must’ve wandered for a bit, eaten somewhere; but all I could think about was the double bed back in my room, purple sheets, enclosed space. I wanted to run away. But all I could do was pretend everything was the same. As I so often did in those days, I drowned out my feelings by focusing all my attention on his.
When we got back to my halls I gave him the “grand tour,” pointing out landmarks, overflowing bins, cheese-encrusted microwave, moldy walls. In my room we hovered anxiously near the door, clutching bags. I babbled about the tiny window through which I could sometimes hear drunk students vomiting in the middle of the night. He perched on the edge of the bed and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I cradled my head in my arms and wished I could fast-forward.
When you dissociate, it’s like your brain is wrapped in layers of thick cloth, but now and then a sharp flash of memory punctures the layers like a sewing needle pushed through. These sharp flashes are all that remains of the rest of that night. I remember changing into my thickest pajamas in the bathroom, covering every inch of my skin like a warrior suiting up for war. I remember the look in his eyes, the way he seemed expectant, hungry. I remember my senses switching off as though my brain had gone into sleep mode, the room feeling like a chamber, the air close. I remember his shadow looming over me in the dark as he removed the pajamas. I remember pain, dryness, his body grinding into my leg, awkward angles. I remember closing my eyes and hoping he came quickly.
One fact burns brightly through all these details: I did not, at any point, say no. I did not push him away, or ask him to leave, or make an excuse about being on my period. At that point in my life I was still deeply ashamed that my period even existed; the idea of using this as an excuse would’ve been out of the question. The idea of using any excuse, or having a conversation that would cause him disappointment or embarrassment, was too large a price to pay for my autonomy.
If a survivor told me this story, I would have no qualms about using the “R” word. I’d explain to them the “freeze” response, which is the most common reaction for a victim to have during a sexually violent act. I would talk about the intricacies of consent—that the absence of the word “no” does not automatically mean “yes.” I would explain dissociation as a coping mechanism. I’d say that just because you have consented to other things, does not mean you are obligated to have sex. I would try my best to offer the comfort of solidarity, by telling them that many girls and women are scared to say “no” for fear of upsetting or disappointing the man, but that your body is your body and you get to choose what happens to it.
But despite the comprehensive training I have received on sexual violence and the hundreds of conversations I have had with survivors, my doubts concerning my own situation remain. I still switch back into teenage-girl mode when I think about that night, and somehow all my knowledge of consent disappears.
I go over and over the details like a lawyer cross-examining a witness: you invited him to visit. It was an overnight stay, in a room far away from home. You were both horny teenagers who had been kissing each other all summer. You had fancied him, and he had fancied you. You didn’t say “no,” or anything that could be construed as “no.” You let him do what he wanted to your body without complaint, without fight. You were an eighteen-year-old idiot, and words like “boundaries” and “consent” did not feature in your understanding of sex.
What was the harm in just letting him get on with it?
The next morning, I lied and said I had an early lecture so that he would leave quickly. I bought a coffee, walked around campus for a bit, then went back to my room. I was already in the process of forgetting. In the following weeks, I ghosted him until he stopped sending messages. For years afterward I would simply categorize the experience as “bad sex,” share it as a lighthearted anecdote with girlfriends whenever the topic came up. I still struggle to think of it as anything but a mistake made by a weaker, more passive version of myself.
When we rewrite our rape stories, the emphasis is never on the actions of the perpetrator. This is because the burden of saying “no” is heavier than the responsibility of seeking a clear, unequivocal “yes.” Our reimaginings are filled with phrases like “I should have. . .” or “Why didn’t I. . .” or “If this happened again, I’d. . .”
But when we lose ourselves in the comfort of this reliving, we are overlooking the simple, most primal facts of our brains and bodies. Each of us is wired with predetermined mechanisms designed to keep us alive during incidents of sexual violence. The law often overlooks these facts too, which may be a contributing factor to the shockingly low reporting and conviction rates for rape and sexual abuse. It shouldn’t be the case that acknowledging the “freeze”/“flop” response is some kind of radical act, but unfortunately, it is.
I still have a hard time acknowledging my own freeze response in that room, in the late 2000s, when I closed my eyes and hoped it would be over quickly. And as much as I tell myself something like this could never happen again—can any of us ever be sure?
https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/sexual-consent/
https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence/
-Jade Green
Jade Green (she/her) writes fiction, cohosts a podcast about creativity, and is the editor of an intersectional feminist journal of fiction and mental health writing. In her day job she works for a rape crisis organization supporting survivors of sexual violence. Find her on Twitter @_verdoux and on Instagram @jade_green_creative