What it’s really like dealing with the aftermath of rape and sexual assault in the UK
The last few weeks and months, years even, has seen men, and women, regularly outted as sexual predators, often towards girls underage. Often, but not always, by men with a lot of power, authority, or a facade of such. As someone who has been struggling for their entire adult life to make sense of the acts committed against me, its often triggering, difficult, but never surprising. Like a dull ache of an injury that will never heal - its there, and it will never not be shouted at to be noticed.
Statistically as someone who was raped 3 times by 3 different men by the age of 21, it terrifies me what that could mean for the rest of my life. Is that an average of a new one every 7 years? Will my 28th birthday mean it’s round 4? Or have I survived the worst of it, whilst I was young, impressionable, and ultimately even easier to take advantage of. The thrill of a girl only recently out of puberty is one that these predators seem to particularly thrive on.
Being raped at the ages of 17, 20 and 21 does a hell of a lot to your development. I’d say I’m an overtly sexual person. I love sex, I have a lot of it. I make dirty jokes more than my friends. Innuendos constantly. I love sleeping with people and experiencing the pleasure they gain from being with me in that way. And then a mass of guilt and disconnect emerges. Rape victims aren’t meant to feel sexual. They aren’t meant to love sex. Society depicts us as people constantly wounded and afraid of connection. And for many that’s true, but it’s not the only way we as humans work. For myself, that’s also true. There have been many hook ups, both one night stands and with long term partners that has led to me crying my eyes out, panic attack and PTSD attacks a-plenty, my poor companion often left with an uncomfortable conundrum and with no idea what the right thing is to say, except perhaps a pat on the back, or dare a hug. And then a rush of guilt often comes charging in, that I haven’t fulfilled the night in the way that was desired. A disappointment, a weirdo, a failure. I’ll often feel obliged to complete some sort of act once my tears have dried just to make whoever I’m with feel more at ease.
Being confident in myself sexually amplifies the ridiculous and disgusting notion that often, we are “asking for it”. We’re only “genuine” in our victimhood if we are scarred from it. It’s as if people can’t understand that there may be truth in allegations if we aren’t all totally and completely fucked up.
It’s difficult to know what to do or say when it happens. Because everyone knows what the “right thing to do is”, it’s poured down everyone’s throats from every news article to every empowering tweet. Report. Be honest with yourself. Don’t increase the stigma. Be open with your friends. And yes, this is in some respects, the right thing to do of course. Predators and abusers won’t stop getting away with rape and assault if there is no comeback on them. You will equally struggle to process and keep your head above the water if you bury said head in the sand and don’t let yourself rely on those that offer. But these phrases are easily said, but much harder to put into action when you’re feeling used, abused, confused, and all the other ‘useds’ that come with assault.
I did all those things for two out of three of them. When I woke up to a friend of mine fingering me and forcing his penis in me when I was asleep after a party at 17, I pushed him off me disgusted. I told my friends about it the next few days, hoping for solidarity and support. An understanding of what had happened to get to that moment, despite it being in an empty spare bedroom with no witnesses. I was instantly vilified. I lost nearly all my friends and spent the year of sixth form practically alone, with only horny boys in other classes messaging me about my ‘giant tits’ that had appeared the summer beforehand. It’s hard not to place so much emphasis on your sexuality when it’s the only reason anyone seems interested in talking to you at all. At 17, I was already certain that the only likeable characteristic of mine was my ‘giant tits’. It wasn’t until years later when other allegations from women, including his girlfriend at the time, about the same man came out that it was re-addressed by my then-friends. They still associate with him regardless, a situation I can never get my head around.
This experience completely put me off doing anything about rape number 2. A customer from the cafe I was working in, it was physically everything they make it out to be in the movies. Begging to stop, being physically overpowered and giving up, tears in my eyes whilst he finished the job. Which in itself is rare. In most cases of rape, your body goes into ‘fight, flight’ but most often ‘freeze’. Often, fighting back is not even a conscious option. Your body takes over and tells you to endure it, that it will be over soon. When the doctor at the hospital told me this, I felt like it validated my experiences of being passively taken advantage of. There needs to be more awareness of bodily reactions to trauma so women aren’t put in that position of guilt and confusion: ‘why did I let it happen’?
Saying nothing didn’t help either. I was angry and disgusted that this incredibly wealthy, privileged man could continue his seemingly amazing and exciting life. I was angry and disgusted that his young children, including a 9 year old daughter, would never know what a fucking monster her dad is. I was angry and disgusted that I walked past him on occasion in Soho on my lunch breaks as an intern and he had the audacity to call out to me in the street. Hurrying back to my foray into the big sexist world of advertising disturbed and restless. I was angry and disgusted that I was put in a position where I would have to quit my job at a cafe I loved, with friends I’d made, or have a situation arise where I’d have to see him again.
And so when the third time happened, I did everything they tell you to do. I was desperate for a sense of retribution. That finally, one of these horrible horrible men would be held accountable for their actions. After being possibly drugged and unconscious, with eight hours missing from my memory and a whole load of possessions and clothing along with it, I found myself at a specialist rape hospital in Whitechapel after 24 hours of trying to make sense of the situation. I washed my bed sheets (and was told that was a stupid thing to do) because they were a posh present from my dad for Christmas and I didn’t want the ridiculously large blood stains from forced penetration on them to stay. I’d washed the clothes I still had left as I felt sick knowing what had happened in them (and was told that was a stupid thing to do too). I even slept with my boyfriend at the time who came round with pizza and Louis Theroux because I told him I felt so sad and sick. I didn’t tell him why though. And I didn’t tell him why I had spent the whole morning throwing up in my bathroom, even though I was proudly the girl that ‘never threw up from hangovers’. I just wanted someone else that I loved and respected to reclaim their own right that I had given them to my body. The idea that this man’s penis was the last one in me was too sickening to think about.
It was lying there for 4 hours in the rape hospital being prodded and poked, swabs of DNA samples taken from every imaginable place, every bruise poked, every shred of evidence possible taken as I lay attached to a hospital bed, legs in the air, crying my eyes out that I felt stupid. I felt stupid that the DNA they’d find would probably be my partners as well as his, and that that made me look unbothered by the alleged rape that had happened 48 hours earlier. I felt stupid and self-conscious about my unwaxed vagina on display and the bruises around it. I felt stupid that I was wasting these friendly and understanding nurses’ time when I was sure there were women in far worse situations than me waiting for their forensic appointment too.
I had a 4 hour long police interview where I was equally between tears and a stoney face. Where the questions included ones about how often I partied, took drugs, if I liked sex, if I’d found this man attractive, if I would have slept with him if sober. Every question felt like an arrow of blame on me. Them looking for a nugget of proof that it was a drunken mistake that I simply regretted. That this man was innocent, and I was trying to ruin his life. I was told if I didn’t submit my phone for evidence, the case would likely be dropped before it even reached Crown Prosecution Service. My phone that held innocent pictures and messages of sexting, nudes, drinks and drugs as most 21 year olds would. But now those articles felt like proof of a sexual party animal that can’t keep her pants on. I was told his phone wouldn’t be confiscated for evidence however. And he probably wouldn’t even be arrested, just invited to ‘answer some questions’. For months I dreamt about what they asked him. What his wife would say when she heard the allegations. If she heard. What his response would be. I convinced myself he told them I was some big drug lover and had a history of sleeping around. That was all they would need to hear to drop it.
I stopped imagining that scenario a long time ago.
Over 18 months later and I still haven’t heard a word from the police about my case. I can only assume they’ve dropped it and haven’t informed me, which sadly comes as a relief as remembering my experience with them is so traumatic. I used to joke to my therapist that I found the police interview more traumatic than the rape itself. In retrospect, it wasn’t much of a joke. I still can’t see a police car around my home in Hackney without a slight shudder. I have refused to call the police in situations I should have because I’ve been too afraid to be around them. It disgusts me that the group of people whose job it is to protect us, bring bad people to justice and to account are part of the fear in my head. The idea of the ‘police’ is an absolute fairy tale to me.
It would be easier for me to encourage women to report if this wasn’t the experience I had had, and I have sadly heard similarly from other women. And really, I am one of the luckiest women going. White, privileged, with a loving family and a free national healthcare system. My heart still aches for the hundreds of thousands of women with no resources to help themselves process their experiences or get out of horrible situations. The biggest trope in my therapy sessions was often that of immense guilt and sadness towards those that have gone through what I have and will never get out of that cycle due to their own contexts. Trans youth, marital rape, those of backgrounds and situations who can never talk to their family or friends about the abuse they endure. Those not allowed to leave their house to visit a hospital without permission. That I could receive support and they couldn’t felt truly sickening to me.
With absolutely shot mental health and some scary visits to mental health centres, after a long long long waiting list on the NHS (which I am still waiting on), but a persistent desire to get better and ‘fix my broken brain’ as I used to see it, I slowly processed that the idea of closure, retribution or working through it was the wrong angle to take. Rape victims and rape survivors, a term I always felt a great disassociation with, can’t rely on other people to ‘get better’. Rape and assault is something you live with forever, and it’s learning to allow that part of you to sit, comfortably or uncomfortably, within your memories, experience and self. It changes you as a person, but learning not to mourn that loss of who you are is the challenge. Because it is not a loss, just a shift. A change, for better or for worse, but not a loss.