It's been 9 years since I was an eager young fresher, full of the excitement and freedom of living away from home for the first time. I had had sexual relationships with men before uni however living in halls of residence with 720 other 18 and 19 year olds presented many new opportunities for promiscuity and new relationships of various kinds. I even indulged in the typical fresher week pulling and took back a second year student to my room without the need to find out his second name or pretty much anything else about him. Not an achievement I'm particularly proud of but none the less it was a decision I made and that I accept, it wasn't a bad experience by any means. I was not completely naive at 19, but I was also not particularly mature for my age, I possessed all the irresponsibility and carelessness of the stereotypical British teenager and I still today I am forced to accept the consequences of some of my careless decisions. But they were my decisions.
However just a few weeks into my fresher year, something happened that I have since brushed under the metaphorical carpet in my mind and have never really dealt with or come to accept. I met a man on a night out, he was also a fresher and lived in the same halls as me. I can't really recall the early events of that evening but I imagine we danced, we drank and we kissed. I had drunk a particularly large quantity of alcohol that night, which is partly why the whole experience is difficult to recall; I was heavily under the influence and lacking any logical or sensible reasoning. This man came back to my flat.
One of the few stand out memories of that night is being pinned against the wall of my flat and being asked 'do you want me to fuck you?'. It's a question that implies I had a choice, an opportunity to call things off, to send him away and get into my bed alone. I did not feel like I had a choice. I was too young and too drunk to know that the answer 'no' was ok. I felt completely out of control, and completely trapped. The presumably fun and flirty start to the night had progressed into an aggressive and intense situation in which I was not comfortable. There were no friends around to signal for help to, no crowds to hide in, no music to drown out the conversation. I was alone with him, in the stark silence of the flat, pinned against the wall in the cold reality of the night. As he asked the question a third time, I gave the only answer I thought I could give, 'yes'.
The following experience is blurry in my mind. But I can still feel the fear, the pain, the regret and the sadness as I was aggressively fucked in my own bedroom. He left almost immediately after, leaving me with the grey aftermath; underwear on the floor, candles knocked over, milk split over the desk, pain and discomfort coursing through my naked body.
I confided in my friends, I told them about the experience as if it were a regretful decision; comparable to a bad date or a a bad outfit. I never claimed to be a victim because I didn't think that I was. I had talked to him, I had kissed him, I had let him come back with me, I had said yes and I hadn't stopped it from happening. I felt accountable for my decisions even though they were decisions I had felt pressured to make. My now best friend, who was a relatively new friend at the time, understood the gravity of the situation perhaps even more than I did myself. She knew the man and he approached her on a night out around a week later, asking to speak to me. She protectively said no. Nonetheless, he did approach me, he apologised for what had happened and said that he knew I could have called the police. He thanked me for not having done so.
The apology did not give me any sense of closure or clarity at the time but rather confused me more than anything else. He had claimed responsibility for a crime that I wasn't aware he had committed. I knew he had been aggressive and persuasive, but I had said yes, I had agreed to it, wasn't it therefore a consensual act? I dismissed the fact that I had been so drunk and out of control that he had clearly taken advantage and coerced me into something that I was not comfortable with. He wasn't a monster, he was a drunk 19 year old who wanted to get laid.
Sitting here now, with 9 years more life experience, I have not changed my opinion of that man. I don't think of him as evil, I don't think he was a monster and I don't feel any hate towards him. Did he commit an act of sexual violence that night? Yes. What he did wasn't right; his acknowledgment of the situation demonstrates an awareness of his own choice to take away my control of the situation and of my body. But in the same way my alcoholic intake had influenced my behaviour, it had most likely also influenced his. Did that reprieve him of his actions? If he was drunk enough not to realise he was taking advantage, does that invalidate it as my excuse for my own lack of control? The lines of accountability seem so blurry it's easy to see why situations like mine get brushed aside with no blame laid on either side. And most people who experience similar situations don't get an apology, they are simply left with feelings of guilt, shame and regret for their own 'careless' choices, despite the fact that they didn't really feel or know that they had a choice.
The bottom line is, sexual violence is not ok. Regardless of how much you had to drink, what you were wearing or whether you kissed him already. If you don't want to have sex with someone, you have a right to say no, and you should be able to exercise that right with no consequences. Being put in a situation where you feel threatened if you don't engage in sexual activity with someone is not ok. If someone is trying threaten you, intimidate you or pressure you to say yes, then they are fully aware that your real answer is no. That in itself is an act of sexual violence.
What I do now realise is that I don't need to carry this experience around with me, locked in a box, always there but never really confronted. I can say to myself 'it's ok, this happened and it wasn't your fault.' I have relieved myself of guilt and shame and I can truly move on from it. What I wish I could tell every young person out there is, you have the right to say no. Even if you kissed them, flirted with them, accepted a drink from them, went back to your place with them, you still have the right to say no. And if it happens to you, if you said yes when you meant no, because you didn't feel like you had a choice, then it's not your fault. Tell someone, tell anyone, don't brush it under the carpet and carry it around like I did. No matter what anyone tells you, if you didn't want to do something, then it wasn't consensual, and that's something every girl and boy should know.
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