A few weeks ago, I read the essay Lena Dunham included in her new book, Not That Kind Of Girl, detailing the time she was date raped in college. The fact that she was willing to talk about what happened to her, and put her name to it, made me feel braver than I have done in years. Because I was date-raped ten years ago, when I was 17, and even now I feel I don’t want anyone to know.
I was desperate to have sex – really, really wanted to do it and couldn’t believe that, aged 17, I’d not done it. I was a late developer in almost every way: my boobs didn’t come in until I was 14, I didn’t get my period until I was nearly 16, and so I wanted to ‘do sex’ at a respectable age.
We used a wine glass as an ashtray, which I held between my knees. I was very flirtatious. Writing this, I still can’t help but feel I was asking for it.
His name was Dan* and I met him at a party, at my friend’s 18th birthday in north London. He was Oxford-educated, in his mid-twenties, handsome in a lizardy kind of way and I wanted to impress him. We smoked together, he asked lots of questions about my A levels and university applications, gave me loads of red wine and introduced me to some of his friends. We used a wine glass as an ashtray, which I held between my knees. I was very flirtatious. Writing this, I still can’t help but feel I was asking for it.
We left the party together at 11pm so we could get another drink at a bar by ourselves. Dan said: ‘Come back to mine.’ I was flattered. So drunk I could barely walk, I remember him telling me his place was nearby and he propped me up as I stumbled along.
Even though I still think about it all the time – it’s not packed away, it just floats around along with everything else in my head, like keys in a handbag – memories of what happened are hazy. Falling over in front of his block of flats and skinning my knee, though, I do remember. I remember being in his flat and him taking off my dress as I lolled against a wall, hardly able to stand. I remember thinking how weird it was that when I had got dressed that evening I wondered if anybody would see my underwear after the party.
Dan went down on me then asked me to give him a blow job, which I did even though I didn’t want to and was so wasted that it can’t have been any good. I was scared he’d think I was a prude and I had no way of getting home. He had told me we didn’t have to have sex, but we did anyway. Looking back, I expect lots of women lost their virginity in a similarly coercive way, with a broken promise and a few flattering words about how they looked naked.
‘Come on,’ he said. He put a condom on while I lay underneath him, barely conscious. The room was spinning around me. He pointed out a book of Hunter S Thompson essays on his bedside table and I threw it across the room. He put his penis in my vagina, and it hurt.
I started crying and saying I didn’t want to do it. I said ‘no’ quite a few times but he didn’t stop. His whole body weight was on top of me and I couldn’t move. I think I must have been crying so much that he was put off and, after a few minutes, he went to the toilet to wank himself off and said something disparaging about ‘silly teenage girls’.
Dan then came back to the bed, made a crass remark about ‘taking your cherry’. He hugged me and told me not to tell my friend what had happened because her father would be annoyed. Oh yeah, he was my friend’s dad’s mate – think that might make it even worse?
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I let him hold me for half an hour, then blearily got dressed and he put me in a cab. I gave him my number but was so drunk I gave him the wrong one, which I’m pretty happy about. It proves that I was not in my right mind, and that comforts me.
It was only a few months later that I realised what happened hadn’t been healthy, although it was only a few years later on that I realised it was rape
The next day, I woke up elated that I’d had sex. Finally! It was only a few months later that I realised what happened hadn’t been healthy, although it was only a few years later on that I realised it was rape. I have told a few friends what happened, but only if rape comes up in conversation. My boyfriend knows what happened to me too, and is so kind and sympathetic.
I didn’t have sex for two years after the attack and, at university I would often go out to clubs in my pyjamas and no make-up so men would ignore me. I veered dramatically between being wary of speaking to men I didn’t already know and desperately trying to have sex with them so they’d like me.
Seven years after the incident, Dan got in touch with me over Facebook just to say ‘hi’. That’s when it clicked that he didn’t know what he’d done was rape. He didn’t know that I’d have flashbacks while having sex with my loving boyfriend of five years. He didn’t know anything.
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He’s married to a really beautiful Spanish woman, which is frankly much better than he deserves. I do hope that he maybe has an embarrassing, painful problem such as hemorrhoids and that it keeps him up at night. I hope that, a few years ago, when I was awake, thinking about that weird night in north London, he was being kept up at the same time.
Now I’m 27, the 10 years since it happened has given me perspective. I’d like to be able to blame myself, or daddy issues, or being drunk, but I can’t. It was him. He’s just a dick. I feel sorry for him because he raped a teenager without knowing what he was doing. And thought his stupid Hunter S Thompson book had impressed me. What a moron.
*Names have been changed
You might also be interested in:
Pro-Rape Reddit Thread ‘The Philosophy Of Rape’ Aims To Teach Men How To Rape Girls ‘Properly’
Banter Is Just A Way Of Silencing Rape Culture On Student Campuses
‘I Tried To Be The Cool Girl Once – And It Almost Wrecked My Life’
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.