This is a VERY sensitive subject, I know, but I am curious to know just how big a problem this is

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

How many people on here have been assaulted/raped and have either reported or not reported it?

I found out that the conviction rate rapes was just 6% . 6% of reported rapes. There are many many many more that go unreported. I want to know roughly what kind of figure we are looking at. Please change your name if need be, but do post.....

I'll start..

Me - unreported.

piffles experience is exactly why I would not take the pervert to court now. even though it has been done recently. I told dh who told my mil - who was sympathetic - NOT - she just uses my experience like a whip to beat me. Clearly I am so damaged my opinon cannot be trusted. Every disagreement she alludes to what happened and tells me that its all in my head.

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and sadly in my experience her attitude is not uncommon.

ashamedshepherd, your mil attitude must feel liek a further violation. I do not understand why women can be so unsupportive/insensitive/vile in such circumstances

Raped as a teenager by a bloke who offered me a lift home when I was staggering pissed. Unreported.

Relationship rape by xp. Unreported.

Groped or flashed at quite a lot, actually. But the one that bothers me in retrospect was the guy who tried to entice me & my brother into the bushes at our local park 'to show us something special' when I was 8ish (db 6ish).

Because I ran off, thoroughly embarrassed, told my mum, & she just explained that this bloke was a bit of a saddo, & best steered clear of if I saw him again. Honestly never occurred to her that this bloke was possibly a serious threat to children, & maybe she should report it...

I don't really know a lot about the technicalities of a trial, but our adversarial system does mean that a defendant is entitled to make a defence (and how could you have a fair justice system otherwise?), and is entitled to a solicitor and a barrister. And it is thier job to fulfill that function, irrespective of thier innermost personal views. Every toerag criminal with all the evidence against them still makes a defence, with a barrister presenting their case...and then they get sent to prison - except in rape cases. because of the particular mix of difficulty of proof and mysoginist double standards still deep in people's psyches and given credence in a court.

I mean, i think legal aid defence barristers defend obvious guilty criminals all the time!

winnie - yes violated - but the person who violated me most was my mother for beyond asking me if it was true never from that moment forward acknowledged what I said. It all came back to a head after dd was born.
Blu - it saddens me that our legal system is so crap.

This thread is incredible. Story after story.

Me - one of the luckier ones it seems. Certainly forced during long term relationships, many times - but I would never dream of calling it rape. Unwanted sex that made me feel awful, but easier than dealing with the ramifications of refusal.

I know we all worry about our dd's, but I think we also have a big responsibility to educate our ds's - how do we do that??

Tickle, "Unwanted sex that made me feel awful, but easier than dealing with the ramifications of refusal"

Really heartbreaking to read over and over that we fear not being believed, and when someone like a relative KNOWS, they still don't do anything. Sickening.

VVVQV - thank you for raising this even though it's hard for us. I namechanged as I regularly post and obviously have my issues with the past that I don't want to bring to MN under my usual name. The fear and shame and horror of it all is still within me. Very few people know, and it took me years to confide in my dh.

The self esteem thing - I was brought up to obey adults, no matter what. Once I dared to voice an opposing view to my mother and she played holy hell with me afterwards and told me I was Never to shame my parents by declining to obey in such a situation again. She made me feel that my views counted for NOTHING, in all sorts of ways. Very controlling. If I had tried to confide what had happened to me, she wouldn't have believed me and likely would have beaten me over it to boot. As an adult I have always been a people pleaser as I ended up thinking that was the only was to achieve acceptance. How bloody sad is that? How easy for it to follow on in the next abusive situations that I couldn't protest.

Perhaps I need to leave the thread a while now too, as it has raised lots of things to the surface, the anger, the sorrow for the powerlessness of the little girl inside me who was so alone.

Bet my tears aren't the only river on this. Thanks to the other posters too as I know now that I am not the only one to carry such burdens inside and be so normal in rl to everyone else.

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So sorry for everyone. So many sad stories.

Me - another of the luckier ones, I think. Failed attempt at 17 - I bit him where it hurts. Ha! I didn't report it. I sort of felt like it was my fault.
Mildly assaulted in a street in France (year abroad). Didn't report because was scared of language barriers/different systems etc. and again because I felt stupid to have gotten myself in the situation.

I came back to this thread to offer a few word of support but words just fail me.
I just can't think of the words....the stories on here are chilling. It has shocked me to the very core that so many women have been through this but have felt they can't/shouldn't/couldn't/wouldn't report it.

This world we live in is a seriously messed up one.

I'm so sad for you all....

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When I first started to read this I thought I was one of the lucky ones, and in some ways I am.

But I had my share of 'Unwanted sex that made me feel awful'.

One of which was my first time.

I was 17 and he was some 15+ years older than me. I thought it was cool for me to go out with him although I did not even like him that much - he was boring like hell.
One evening he took me home and we started kissing in the car. I did not want it to stop but I did not want it to go that far. He got annoyed by my 'teasing' and drive us to a secluded place and did it in a hard, soulless way.
I could have said no, but I though at that point that it was too late - it was my fault for pushing him this far. (now at the thought)

I left him after that and I am sure he felt like shit for it but still, he should have known better.

After that the same happened a few more times with 2 more guys. I always felt I had no rights to say no as I had been flirty with them, or I went to their house etc.

In fairness I am not so upset with them as I never openly voiced my opinion (although I am sure deep inside they knew).

and all this happened because a year before a guy of 18 took me home from a club and when he started kissing me outside my front door and I stopped him he says in a nasty nasty way 'what do you mean you're not ready, I am not forteen you know, I took you home'. I still remember it as if it was yesterday and that hurts a lot more than all the rest. It undermined my confidence and what I believed was right and caused me to behave like a doormat for a while.

After those few years of low self confidence I changed scenery and I started to value myself and understood (not just with my head) that smiling, flirting, being nice, going for a drink with someone, does not mean I owe them something. And I've never let that happen again.

I am fine with it all now, I take it as a rite of passage into aduthood and maturity and self awareness. Although I wish I could have known all this before, I wish my mum and dad were not so busy divoircing and paid more attention to their teenage - lost - children. but than again maybe it would have been the same.

in fairness though I wasn't fine with it for a few good years after and it showed with the first decent relationship I had once I moved here. I just could not relax and always felt used.

It took a while but it's okay now. and it's such a peasure to be able to stand your ground and say NO.

The problem is though that even those who would 'respect' your No and back off will have this face on which clearly says, 'you brought me to this point'!!

sorry for rant!

and for all of us!!

My sisters knew about the rape, they must have told my Mum. They were friends with him though, even afterwards (it took me a while to get hiom out of my life- I thought it'd make it alright, but actually the mroe I got to know him the more I realised what huge psychiatric issues he had, like playing chicken with the mail train). Not one person in my family offered a word of support. i think there was this general idea that I was a bit of a slapper- actually I might have worn short skirts but ahd only slept with one boyfriend, and had only kissed that peson, and I was just about to turn 18 when that happened. Even if I had been a slapper though- I mean- if it was one of my kids? i think that is aprt of the reason we moved away, a lot of stuf flike that happened and I knew I ahd to break the family dependency.

My sister is worst (middle sis); I was in an abisive relationship for a year which i got out of; she witnessed lots of abuse (my top being removed in public, arm almost broken, nasty emotional stuff) and she is his best friend- she even took him on honeymoon and has pics of him in her loo. I see her once, maybe twice a year, and that's all I can deal with.

The being let down factor was significantly worse than the attack.

I went way off the rails afterwards,but am back on thank goodness. An excellent boyfriensd in my late teens (I'd ahve married him five years later and been very happy, I still miss him but I was way too screwed up) believed me and got very angry on my behalf.... I needed that, it helped sooo much. I still see him around, and I still love him so much, even though I'd never cheat on DH- I could have been happily married to either, DH was in the right place when I was ready, I guess.

I have huge trust issues outside my immediate fmily now though, I am very armour plated, and people find me very stand offish.

I was brought up by a feminist mum who thought all men were worms - she left my Dad and went through a rebirthing process.
So I grew up with a healthy mistrust of mens intentions.
Even so...
I have never told my mother, she knows a bit about the stalking one, but I've never told anyone about the first one.
I've told the revenge story on another thread and tbh that was far more satisfying and justice serving than a court case and prison IMHO

Just come back to this thread that so many MNers are living with the scars of assault.

Why would I 'confront' my father ? What would I gain ? As far as I'm concerned he has no rights, nor power over me anymore. If I were to meet with him or confront him in some way then I'd be allowing him back into my life and way more horrifyingly than that, my DAUGHTER's life. He has no idea that I am now happily married with children, as far as I'm concerned he has not 'won' because I am happily, confident, loving and loved. No amount of screaming and shouting at him will change that, nor will it change the past. TBH, I live with the abuse day to day and it plays very little part in my life anymore. I got away, I moved on.

Uselessmum (please change your name...) I have had my fair share of those kind of experiences, with older men when I was under age. I used to hang out with a much older crowd along with my oldest girl friends friends - we despised boys our own age so most of our relationships (at 14 and 15) were with men significantly older 24-30).

It makes my skin crawl now to think about how they treated us. I had an 'awakening' of sorts at 16, got politial, discovered feminism and drifted away from them - my friends carried on more or less for another couple of years until we went to university.

Of this group of girls one is now an alchoholic, three have had significant mental health problems which they are only now (at almost 40) dealing with. They have all had terrible relationship histories with men who seemed to latch on to a lack of self worth within them and treat them badly. I think these early abusive relationships damaged them all.

I feel I HAVE to post this one though, because it is something that has affected me far more deeply than the 8 or 9 years of sexual abuse at the hands of my father.... I should have reported this one...I'm sorry, it is likely to be a very long post....

It happened when I was 18. It wasn't rape, technically, but it was almost definitely a sexual assault. I've always suffered from odd gynae pains and so I went to visit my GP at the time. He was on holiday or something so I got the Locum, who was youngish (mid-late 20's) and very handsome. I sat on the chair and told him about my pains, he asked whereabouts they were and I showed him through my clothes by pointing. He said he wanted to do a smear and an internal just in case it was something he could detect that way, he mentioned PID. I told him that I was on my period so anything internal wasn't really an option. He told me that it was better to be safe than sorry and insisted on doing it (after all, doc knows best ). So I said that I'd just pop to the loo and remove my tampon. He told me that it was fine, I could do it here (cue alarm bells). I remember hesitating but putting it to one side because I was prob being over paranoid. I went to undo my jeans and was expecting him to at least turn around with his back to me, but he just stood there holding out a kidney dish . I removed the tampon with him watching me and put it in the bowl which he them put on the side next to his sink.

I got onto the bed thing and lay down, staring at the ceiling, utterly frozen with mortification. He went to the bottom of the bed and got the speculum out and then told me that yes, I was bleeding too heavily for a smear but he could do an internal, so he did. I remember him looking at my face whilst he had his hand inside me, I was staring at the ceiling still. Then he removed his hands wiped me with a paper towel and told me I was free to go and that he hadn't felt anything untoward. I went home feeling totally numb.

I feel that I had a ral responsibility to report that one because he was a GP, a person that came into contact with young women all the time. But TBH, part of me just wanted to forget it and another part of me thought I wouldn't be believed. I was convinced that he'd be able to come up with some sort of reasonable medical justification for the internal etc and I would be laughed out of court.

I feel quite sick now, but it helps to write it down.

Alongside the feelings of not being believed because he was a doctor, I guess I was worried that they'd look at him - young, attractive, sucessful, and think that I was somehow delusional

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DH is the only one I've told about it.