So, I read once in Seventeen magazine that it's a good idea to state your boundaries with a hookup before things get "hot and heavy." (Their words, not mine). At the time, I thought this sounded like great advice—in fact, I thought it was such great advice that I prefaced probably 95% of my hookups freshman year with “I’m not having sex with you.” I’d be DFMOing with a guy, and-- “I’m not having sex with you.” “Uh, okay…I wasn’t really thinking about that, but …hey, wanna go somewhere quiet?”
Needless to say, this strategy does not always achieve its desired effect. It definitely didn’t the night I was raped.
I was hooking up with this guy at a party, and someone got TEMSed, or the keg was done, or the crowd started thinning—I don’t remember his pretext, but he decided we should dip out. He invited himself over to my room in Houston. I kept saying, “I don’t want to have sex, I don’t want to have sex, I don’t want to have sex.” And then, when he ripped my underwear off-- “I can’t have sex, I’m getting my period right now.” Which was true, I was. But either he didn’t see the tampon string hanging out of me or he chose to ignore it when he stuck his dick right alongside it. It hurt. I laid there on my back, eyes closed, and I started counting his thrusts just to make the time pass....
The worst part was actually after, when he decided to stick around. I’ve had houseguests crash on my couch for three weeks straight, but none of them overstayed their welcome like this kid.
I get up to put something on, which ends up being the first thing in reach—my fluffy pink bathrobe. Almost immediately, I regret this wardrobe choice. He slithers towards me, and, standing behind me he grips my shoulders, and slowly whispers into my ear with his sickly sweet accent, “Pret-ty in pink.”
I didn’t know how to make him leave. I sat down on my bed and he followed, and as he’s sitting next to me he starts shaking his head and goes, “I shouldn’t have done that.” “No, you shouldn’t have,” I said. “You know I didn’t want that.” Then, his anxiety turned to menace. “Shut up, yes you did. You don’t make sexy eyes at someone all night and then invite them back to your room if you don’t want to have sex.”...
It’s not hard to see why survivors of rape often blame themselves.
I prodded, half earnestly out of curiosity and half ironically out of anger.“Okay, so why shouldn’t you have done that?”
“Well, there’s this girl…” “Is she your girlfriend?” “Yeah, yeah I guess so.”
Not that I had wanted anything to do with my rapist ever again, but if I hadn’t already felt used, knowing I was “the other girl” was the coffin in the nail.
“So, why’d you do it?” “Because I saw you, and I wanted to, so I did.”...
If any of you were wondering whatever happened to that tampon, I found it exactly three weeks later. I had thought it was pushed up into my uterus, and actually had a slight panic attack about what might happen to me. I even went to Health Services and had them poke around inside me to look for it, for the tampon. I don’t know if any of you have ever had to write, “Lost tampon” on the sign-in cards at Health Services, but…let me tell you, it’s pretty embarrassing. The look on the nurse’s face was priceless, though.
Luckily, the damned tampon was just hiding under my bed, dry and shriveled like an oversized paper Craisin or a piece of potpourri.