I'm not sure why I'm writing this but I don't really have anyone else to talk to (my husband wouldn't understand) and I just need to get it out.
I was browsing twitter today and saw a hashtag circulating that was to do with people who are victim to rape/sexual assault and their reasons behind not reporting it.
I read one in particular and it rung true to me. I sat and thought about this particular time in my life and all of a sudden became very overwhelmed and emotional, realising that I think I was sexually assaulted.
I was 14, sleeping at my friends house as her parents were away for the weekend. Her older sister was left in charge and my friend asked if she could have a little house party with some friends. There were 4 girls and 4 boys, all within our friendship group at school and we had a pretty good evening just chatting, playing games and listening to music channels. My friend had asked her sister to get us some alcohol and she did. I wasn't particularly drunk but we had all had some alcohol by late evening. My friend had two seperate reception rooms in her house, most of the party were in the one at the back of the house and a female friend and I were chatting in the other room at the front of the house. My friend was sat on the sofa and I was laid on the air bed on the floor (we had already arranged where we were sleeping). The male in question walked into the room and asked if we had seen his drink, we both said no and continued chatting. He joined in our conversation and laid down next to me (which wasn't unusual, we were friends and had been for years) and continued to chat. After a while he got under the quilt and moved close to me, we weren't really chatting much at this point as we were watching something on the TV. I then felt his hand touching me down there over my pyjama trousers, I immediately looked at him and pushed his hand away. He smiled at me and put his hand down my trousers, touching me. I pulled at his hand again and whispered 'stop it, what are you doing?' he didn't say anything and just continued to smile and fought with me to keep his hand there. My friend was sat literally metres away and I just couldn't say anything out loud. I kept grabbing his hand and saying no and mentioned his girlfriend at one point and he just whispered that he knew I liked him and to stop fighting with him. I tried to move away and he pulled me back close to him so that my back was against him and then pushed his penis into me, no more than 4 times. I moved away as much as I could and said stop now, loud. He didn't let go. My friend looked around and said "Omg are you two doing something?!" this obviously shocked him as he pulled out and I took my chance to move away, pulled my trousers up and walked out of the room. I was upset when I left the room and everyone asked me what was wrong, I told them and they called him a prick and went and watched the film with him.
The next day, I was obviously under the impression this was my fault as no-one else seemed angry at him, no-one else seemed to care. I must've led him on or something.
I went home and showered and just tried to forget about it. This was the era of msn messaging and a mutual friend of myself and the male friend popped up saying "I've just heard you and *** had sex last night? Omg!". I immediately replied asking who had said that and she said he had messaged her telling her. I literally felt like throwing up. I didn't reply.
Later on that day I went with my cousin to watch a local band play and during that time I had a phonecall from the girlfriend of the male in question, shouting that I am a slag and how could I have sex with her boyfriend. I rang the male and asked why he was telling everyone we had sex, including his own girlfriend. He said "because we did, we did have sex". At that time, as a 14 year old I thought I was the crazy one, I thought I had interpreted the situation wrong and maybe we did have sex? Maybe I did want him to do that to me?
Today, I've realised that he told everyone we had sex because he knew what he did was wrong. He knew that if he told everyone we had sex, my version of events didn't matter. I wish I could have realised sooner but to be honest I think I've purposely just tried to forget about it.
A few weeks after this incident, in school in a maths lesson he touched me under the table in a similar manner. I told him no, pulled his hand away and he didn't listen. I didn't see any point of making a fuss cause no-one cared the first time.
Sorry for the extremely long post. Not sure what I want from it but it feels good to just get it out. I understand it isn't as serious as some other sexual assault incidents but I haven't mentioned this to anyone (other than the people there that evening) and the rest believe I voluntarily had sex with him. I think I'll go to pushing this to the back of my mind again after today but I just needed to acknowledge that he did know what he was doing and I wasn't overreacting.