unable to even

Pressure Sex (trigger warning)

March 15, 2017

 

My girl, oh my feisty awesome girl, got sexually assaulted last year.

What do you say?

“I’ve been there, I love you, be brave, you got this.”

It’s almost a rote response at this point.

One in four one in four one in four.

Seems like more than one in four.

Seems like my answers and condolences are automated. “Welcome to the club sounds” awful.
But it’s astute.
There are so many of us and no one seems to know how to stop it.

I can tell you what you don’t do, for all the men out there.

What a male friend of hers did when she opened up about what happened a few days later.

He sent her full frontal nudes and dick pics.

She is still reeling and dealing. The betrayal of the supposed friend worse than the assault by the other.

I get it.

She did something decidedly brave in my opinion, she called him out. Not the first but the second, the shitty full frontal friend. Called him by name.

There is fallout, there always is.

She popped her head into my inbox last night, so I stopped what I was doing and said the things I have been programmed to say. The things I wanted to hear after I was assaulted, after dick pics, after men behaved badly.

I had posted yesterday that maybe we should start naming them, these men who do these things to us. The ones we called friends or lovers who don’t understand the words hurt or no.

These aren’t strange perverts in alleyways and parking garages waiting to victimize women, these are men we know. Men we felt safe with until we didn’t.

For every serial killer there is a chorus of neighbors saying ‘we didn’t know, he seemed like such a nice guy.’

Whisperings of abusive and perverted men passed around like dirty currency in the dark where they won’t make a scene ~ J.U.

I am wondering if we should all stand together as women and start naming names.
Not scratching them into the backs of bathroom stalls and hoping someone will heed our warning, but actually naming names.

I tried to call someone out, on that very status, that sparked a war. And I couldn’t.

Me, the girl who speaks her mind, who doesn’t lie, who found her voice and screams from the treetops. Good bad ugly…I am the one to say it.  But I can’t.

I can’t say that 2 years ago I had too much to eat at a dinner he bought for me. We went back to his house, like we always did. He wanted to fuck like we always did, but I didn’t. I was feeling tired and sick and stressed and all I wanted to do was lay down for a minute and muster the energy to drive home. But instead I got fucked, rather roughly and unceremoniously while I was mentally disconnected from my body just waiting for it to be over. And that it might have been okay except for the text the next day that said something like “the sex last night was amazing”.

Was it now? Because to me it felt like you were using my body like you would a doll, just something to get you off in a pinch. Using my body like my soul wasn’t in there, that I didn’t matter. Not noticing that I didn’t make a sound or much movement at all, not noticing I was dry as a bone.

I never went back.

He still tries to talk to me and I say hi back politely, curtly or ignore it if I feel like I can get away with it.

Therein lies the problem.

I’m still scared.

A few months later I was lying in bed with Biker Body Pillow. We never fucked, just spooned when we were both broken up about someone else. He got hard in the middle of the night. I was the little spoon so I noticed.

I ignored it, braced for impact in the morning.

I have already written about this. About how a 6’5” heavily tattooed biker stood in my kitchen almost in tears when I explained how I had been programmed to deal with unwanted sexual advances from male friends. When he asked how many times and I couldn’t count. When he asked why and I explained because saying no is sometimes a dangerous thing to do. Which basically boils down to ‘blow them if you have to, it’s safer that way.’

Safer than saying no, safer than trying to leave. Diffusing bombs with your mouth and tongue, but not by talking yourself out of it. Because at some point you already know, they stopped listening.

I have saved a handful of women and girls by drilling into my son’s head, that “even if she stops right in the god damned middle, you stop. Cover her up and wait. Go if she tells you to go, stay if she tells you to stay.” It happened to him, with a girl and he told me he was grateful that he knew what to do.

This is what we need all men to do.

Stop. Cover. Wait and fucking listen.

But what do we tell women and girls?

Fight back, name names and in the morning, we rally.

 

 

 

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  • Lacy March 15, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    This is an amazingly powerful post and I can not tell you how much it related to my experiences. Feeling used, blowing so that I could just “get it over with,” laying there and allowing someone to use my body while I felt broken inside. I have thought about naming all the men who have done horrendous things. Because why should the victim feel shame when it is he that should be shamed? I wish all the happiness for you and your friend.

    • sexloveandgrace March 15, 2017 at 1:14 pm

      i think we all go through it and we never talk about it, or rarely ever.
      its that concept of ‘rapey behaviour’ putting a Y on the end doesn’t make it suck any less.

  • Jodie March 15, 2017 at 12:43 pm

    It’s not always men that harm some women do it too

    • sexloveandgrace March 15, 2017 at 1:12 pm

      NOT TO BE A CUNT, BUT SERIOUSLY. I AM DONE WITH THIS SHIT. I AM A WOMAN WRITING FROM A FEMALE’S PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO ME AND MY VAGINA, AND MY FRIEND’S VAGINAS. YA, I KNOW WOMEN DO SHITTY SHIT. I HAVE GOOD MALE FRIENDS WHO HAVE HAD SHITTY SHIT DONE TO THEM BY WOMEN, I WRITE ABOUT THAT TOO.
      THE CAPS LOCK WAS LEFT ON BY ACCIDENT AND I AM NOT GONNA CORRECT IT.
      YOU WANNA FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT FOR MEN WHO HAVE BEEN ABUSED, PLEASE DO. I WILL JOIN YOU, BUT NOT HERE AND NOT NOW.

      • Jess March 16, 2017 at 2:32 pm

        There is always at least one person who really does not get it and feels the need to make a inane comment like this. Pointless and ignorant. Good for you for your response.

        • sexloveandgrace March 16, 2017 at 2:56 pm

          i am wondering if this person was in a same sex relationship with a woman and was trying to express this. i don’t know. i am so done with the ‘not all men’ argument

  • Anonymous March 15, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    And before anyone posts it we KNOW it’s not all men. The problem is how do we differentiate!

    • sexloveandgrace March 15, 2017 at 4:43 pm

      not all men, but yes all women. that is the problem

  • Mark March 15, 2017 at 3:46 pm

    Thank you Christine for reblogging this. This world has always laid dormant… or simmering in the back of my mind. I for one don’t know what to say. And one in four… I don’t get where that comes from because virtually every women I’ve dated or been close with, plus my own daughters, have been assaulted in one way or another. With my daughters, this is at the forefront of my mind. And I still don’t know what to say. I try. But I really appreciate the honesty and truth here. it is needed and guys need to read this, know this, fucking care about consent. I am built a little differently in that I cannot comprehend being with a women physically without her wanting to be with me as well. I knew if my girlfriend kissed funny, looked funny or breathed funny that it was not the right time… time to talk, hold, or maybe just kiss. Anyway, i will share this on my feeble site because it is paramount in my world these days.

    • sexloveandgrace March 15, 2017 at 4:42 pm

      thank you for this.

  • Dolly March 16, 2017 at 5:00 am

    my friends and i have gone through this situation. “Rape in the name of love”. I have trie to write about this but my words did not do the article justice. I want to double share this.

    • sexloveandgrace March 16, 2017 at 10:35 am

      i am feeling like we all have at some point or another.
      please do share it. maybe if we take the shame out of it we can stop it.

  • Nobody March 17, 2017 at 12:05 am

    I relate. How can I live this life? A constant fuck hole for a man who doesn’t notice my obvious repulsion.
    I do it, I lay there because he is a good father to our child. I dont know what else to do.
    My sould feels baren. However, how do I contest to a ” right” allotted to my husband. Do I lay myself down to avoid his disdainful glares. His accusations of infidelity, his pouty insecurities?
    Whats left for me?
    A lonely spot in my soul left by the traces of matital rape. Forever ruined, lonely for a friend who just wants to hold my hand again. And only that.
    Has he ruined any chance for trust, or a mutually satisfying sex life?
    Will he leave me for another, one who doesnt just lay there while the beast does what he must to make it through his week.

    • sexloveandgrace March 17, 2017 at 8:19 am

      oh mama.
      i am so sorry.
      we all do what we have to do to survive.
      i hope change comes for you, and soon.

    • Anonymous March 17, 2017 at 9:35 am

      I apologize if this is mansplaining, but i think you need to empower yourself. I used to never contemplate divorce, until it happened. If your relationship is shit, believe me, your kids will know it. And if they’re too young to know it… then, in my opinion, you gotta either tell to him to change, or leave. He can still be a good father on his own time. You don’t deserve to be miserable. His satisfaction is not your problem. If he can’t love you first as a person and a friend, then he’s barely even a fuck buddy.

      • sexloveandgrace March 17, 2017 at 9:53 am

        i am the mouthiest bitch of them all and if you have to start something by explaining your manslpaining, you probably shouldn’t do it.
        don’t you think i would have said what you said if i thought there was the slimmest chance it would help?
        the reason i had to write this article, the reason i was awake listening to my girl vent at 2am is because of victim shaming.
        this shit happens every fucking day and we can barely speak about it.
        it’s easy to sit at your desk or on your phone and read anonymous words by some woman you will never meet and say “oh that’s too bad, you should leave him.”
        if any of this was easy it would have been done already.
        me?
        i want to find her and go get her, but i can’t.
        all i can do is write this down, write her story down and not shut up about it.
        dubbing what she is going through as him ‘barely being a fuck buddy’ is asinine. it’s downplaying her getting raped a few times a week under the guise of marriage.
        and i won’t stand for it

        • Anonymous March 17, 2017 at 10:05 am

          You’re right. Sorry. I’m just furious at the issue. I don’t mean to invalidate anyone. I hate to see someone feel like there are no options when there maybe. Old habits of fixing/rescuing people are hard to break. I don’t know the situation. I hope for the best for your daughter, I hope Nobody finds strength to get through this. I hope the same for me and my daughters. Take care.

          • sexloveandgrace March 17, 2017 at 10:21 am

            warn your daughters, arm them, that’s all we can do.

          • Anonymous March 17, 2017 at 10:29 am

            Oh, I do… all the time. We talk a lot about sex, boundaries, dating. An absolute must. They’ve been hurt nough.

          • sexloveandgrace March 17, 2017 at 10:47 am

            good, and i raised a son to help them not hurt them

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