No means no

I never classified the assault placed on me as 'rape' until about a year ago. It's such a loaded ugly word. Rape. I find it hard to believe that I would be raped. After all, I go out of my way to move worms off the sidewalk into the grass, I talk to homeless people on the street, and I enjoy spending time with the elderly. Why would anyone want to rape me? I'm a good person who did nothing to deserve it. So I disregarded my now ex-boyfriend/dominant's assault on my ass as rape until I relayed the story to a friend of mine who replied: "Dude, that's rape."

I often asked myself "Well, I'm submissive, and I was submissive to him, so even though he disregarded the fact that I said no but didn't press the matter because I was afraid of him, it's still not rape, because that was my role." Right? Wrong. I said no, but him being larger and stronger than myself forced my face into the pillows while he forced himself into my ass. My being submissive does not equate me being less than human, and therefore denied certain inalienable rights. This was the unfortunate event that made it clear to me that he did not get that memo.

My opinion was not asked during the course of that relationship, I had no rights or privledges. I was not even awarded the common courtesy of asking to consent to blanket consent, something I never would have done given the choice. None of the fetishes that I enjoy today flourished then, even though I did them on a regular basis.

I'm not one to write in anger, but after keeping my silence for almost two years, I feel that I'm allowed to write about my anger towards what was done to me. I strive to be strong, to take what happens to me in stride, but even the best of us get stopped in our tracks, completely floored by certain events or circumstances. Some people grieve, some people get angry.

I got angry. But my anger came later, much later, when there was nothing left to gain from it. It never occurred to me to grieve for myself.

It was months before I worked up the courage to leave him, and it didn't happen right after what I have come to term as The Incident. It was four months after that that I finally broke free. I never reported him to the authorities. The physical evidence of what was done to me has been washed away.

I, for the most part, have healed. I enjoy power exchanges today, I greatly enjoy service and, since that relationship, I have never encountered the problems that I did then. I have fetishes that I did not have then, and I allow myself to play with some people with a certain amount of abandon. I'm in service now, and very very happy with what we are doing. I am also due to graduate in March. In short, I'm a person who is being given a second chance. I'm furious at the man who did that to me, but I don't allow my anger to bleed over into the other parts of my life, because my life is too good right now to let that man take it all away from me again.

I do, however, get angry at the people who get all uppity about topics like rape. We did not invite it. We are not accountable for what happened to us. How can we be? By it's very definition it's impossible. How can anyone say those things when from 1992-1995 20,000 to 70,000 women a year were being taken to 6 DIFFERENT RAPE CAMPS in Bosnia as a systematic tactic of war. That every 15 minutes a woman in South Africa will be raped, and that those are the only ones that are reported. This is to say nothing of that fact that every 2 and 1/2 minutes someone is being sexually assaulted in the US. Don't tell me that I asked for it to happen when I laid there underneath that terrifying sweaty man and begged to die. And if you tell it to my face, then be prepared to tell it to those women in Bosnia, Yugoslavia, and Croatia. Be prepared to tell it to all the women, and yes, men who were victims of horrible hate crimes and terrible circumstances.

Seeing the right people, wearing conservative clothes, all of those things do not protect us from being raped. I am no virgin by any means, I know that there are naked pictures of me floating around out in the world, I know that there is one 'home video' out there starring me and an old ex. Yes; I fuck and play with different people, but that does not automatically mean that my right as a human being to say 'no' should be taken away because I'm a woman who is comfortable in her skin.

Virgins are just as likely to get raped as whores are. No matter what our sexual status, we are still daughters and sons, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and friends and somewhere along the line, that concept that the offended belonged to someone went missing. And my heart bleeds, not just for myself, but for every one who was forced into a situation against their will. Because the wounds are not always reparable, and scars can be ugly.

Almost two years later, and I still get tears in my eyes at how furious I am at what was done to me. I have nothing but admiration at the people who have the courage to write about their experiences. I am in awe at what College Callgirl wrote, and her courage should be commended for putting herself out there like that. I also felt very much in agreement with Calico's righteous anger. Living in fear, powerlessness and pain is a horrible thing, but to blame ourselves, to let these crimes against us go unspoken is just not cool. Those of us who are survivors of sexual assault and/or rape did nothing to deserve it, we are not worthless. It doesn't matter who raped us; boyfriends, girlfriends, acquaintances, clients, employers, random strangers, doesn't change the fact that they violated us and made us feel small in that terrible way that makes you feel like you are going to vanish and no one will notice.

Rape and assault are rape and assault, no matter what the circumstances, and we cannot make excuses for those people any more. It's just not acceptable. I don't know how else to put it. Rape, assault, abuse, they are just not acceptable. Don't tell us that it didn't happen, that we 'imagined' it, because to me that just perpetuates the myth that rape and assault are okay. And it's not. It's just not acceptable. No means no.