I am desperate for a space to talk this through and I literally don't know where else to go, I have no one to talk to in real life.
Many years ago, when I was twenty, I lost my virginity to an older man and it was the start of an unpleasant involvement with him. After many years I started to see what he did as abusive and that first night as rape. This was a long, long journey towards naming, five years in therapy and a complete break down later! My thinking went like this:
In the run up to the night in question he isolated me from all my friends. Made up stories that they were calling me names etc. By the time it happened I was talking to no one but him in our group.
He made jokes about creeping outside my room (we were in a shared house on a college trip at the time).
These two things made it feel a bit more calculated than a simple misunderstanding.
I was a virgin and at this point in my lifeI planned on waiting until I was married. He knew this.
The actual incident is a bit more tricky. I had been drinking. He called me to his room and I went, I kissed him willingly. I let him take my underware off although my dress stayed on. He lay me on the bed at which point I started to feel out of my depth but said nothing. He asked me if it was what I wanted and I just couldn't speak which sounds stupid but that's how it was. I remember thinking he might fall out with me or that it would be awkward in the morning and wondering how I would get out of the situation without it being too embarrassing. He then said 'If you keep going I'll make love to you'. He kissed me again and when he stopped I said the only thing I said all night which was 'Bloody hell' and I brought my hand to my face and covered my eyes for a moment at which point it was too late, he was inside me and that was that. He asked me questions during but I couldn't answer them. Eventually he stopped, picked me up, I fell against the door, he said oh for fuck sake and booted me out. I locked myself in the loo and sobbed, woke early showered and didn't mention it to anyone.
I went back to him a few days later. I suppose I felt that if it became a relationship then that night wouldn't matter so much. It just became a bigger mess with lots of unpleasant sex that was often painful or coercive. Eventually I had to drop out of my course and move away.
Afterwards he only spoke about that night once. He said that he had asked me if it was what I wanted and I had clearly said 'Yes' to him. I knew it was a lie and argues that I had said nothing but he said that was just as bad and then he denied the night took place at all.
For some reason at the moment it's all unravelling and I am thinking I have framed it all wrong and that really he did have reasonable belief in consent and that I shouldn't have been so bloody passive etc etc. And if that is true then I don't really know how to process it anymore.
I posted it here because after years of therapy the only thing that ever really helped was looking at it through a feminist lens.
I will stop, this is too long already.