Friendship, Betrayal and Rape ...

By Rae Lewis-Thornton

April 13, 2011

This piece originally appeared in Rae's blog, Diva Living With AIDS.

It was a great Friday night, me and him secluded in his dorm room laughing and then loving. I thought I had hit the jackpot with this one. He was attentive to my every need. That night was no different from any other night we had spent hanging out and I had no reason to believe so.

After we had sex, he got up and went to the bathroom. He lived in a dorm where they shared baths that were not connected to the rooms. He slipped out of the room and I laid there in the dark thinking how great of an evening this had been.

When I heard the door open, a quick smile swept across my face. "Boy am I lucky," I thought. He came to the bed in silence, I couldn't see him, but I felt him as he laid on top of me. "Awww here we go again," I thought. But then panic swept across my face. This was not him! This was not him! Who the fuck? What the fuck?

Then he whispered in my ear, "John said that you were great in bed and I just had to see for myself." I was stunned into silence. I knew the voice immediately, it was his best friend. OMG! Not in a million years could I believe that John would do this to me. But he had. I felt used and defeated. His friend chimed in again, trying to be all sexy and shit. "John said you wanted to see what I could do too, I won't disappoint you baby," he mumbled.

I had just been set up. There was a sense of powerlessness that overtook me. I wanted to push him off but he was too big for that. "But where the hell was John," I thought. "He left this room half dressed, is he watching? Are there more men?" My mind was racing. This was an all male dorm. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't think fast enough. I felt powerless and my body went limp as he entered me.

He was just moaning and groaning, "Oh yeah, he was right. Damn this is some good pussy. Is it good for you?" Everything had shut down, my body, my tongue, and my brain. I just laid there like a wounded animal. I didn't speak. Nor did I move my body. I just laid there. He had to have known that this was not right. He started feeding his ego with sex talk. "Is this some good dick?" he asked. My mouth wanted to move, but it was as if someone was holding my tongue down. I did nothing. I said nothing. I just laid there with the weight of his body on top of me, smelling his musk in disgust.

His climax was quick. I don't know how long he was actually on top of me. It seemed like an eternity but I'm sure it was not longer than 10 minutes. His body went limp but he didn't waste any time, he got off of me and slipped out of the room. I laid there for a moment, then got up, searched for my clothes and dressed in the dark as his semen dripped down between my thighs.

When I left the room, I didn't see either of them anywhere. I went to my dorm, turned on the shower and let the scalding hot water wash away the ugly.

I felt so ashamed that I never confronted John or his friend about the rape. How could I have allowed myself to be set up was all I could think about. "You stupid Bitch," I mumbled to myself for weeks and weeks. At 19 years old I had survived almost everything, so I thought. "How could I have been so stupid?" I asked myself. But better yet, why didn't I push him the hell off of me? What happened to my backbone? Why couldn't I confront him or report it?

I'll tell you why. At that moment I felt powerless. I had been betrayed by a man that I TRUSTED. My sense of powerlessness then turned into shame. They are both lucky Law & Order SVU wasn't around back then because I would have went straight to the hospital. #ForReal.

But even now I think about how all of this played out. I was in his dorm room. I had consented to having sex with John, but not his friend. Not speaking up, not saying NO, did that make it consensual? I'm not a lawyer and that's not my point today. I want to unpack the rape and it's dynamics around the events.

Why didn't I push him off of me? Why didn't I ask him to stop? What I felt was afraid. If they could set me up like this, what else were they capable of? I was in an all male dorm. Were there more friends waiting? I couldn't imagine John doing this, setting me up. So at that moment, the man that I thought I knew didn't exist. This was a different man and I had no idea how to calculate what was the next move. Before this, you could not have paid me to believe that he was capable of such a thing. So I felt like I had no defense.

And if I had tried to push his friend off me, would his ego then have made him hurt me even more? What was he capable of? Had John told him I was willing? Or was this a collaborative scheme? All I knew at that moment was that I had a naked man three times my size on top of me. By the way, he also had a girlfriend and they were quite the item on campus. #ForReal.

His penis was hard from the moment he got on top of me. There had been NO foreplay between us. His mind and body were ready for this. How would he have handled that rejection. And then would outright defiance cause me more pain.

How does a man continue to "have sex" with a woman that is not talking or moving? I was lying there like a bump on a log, which made me believe after that that all men really needed was a hole to put their penis in. At that moment all he was concerned with was getting off. And when it was over, there was no conversation, he just got off me and left the room leaving me there in my shame like nothing had ever happened.

And then, they both actually walked around campus like nothing had happened. I started avoiding John, and eventually, he stopped calling. But how does he not know it's all related?

But where was my backbone? It was covered in shame. I felt like a fool. I believed that somehow in my mind I should have foreseen it. But there was no way. I replayed it over and over in my head. I trusted HIM. I had no idea he was an animal. I say it all the time, I hope what you think you know about your partner is true otherwise it could be a cost way too high to pay.

It's easy for people to say what they would have done in any given situation, but at the end of the day, until you are faced with it, you just don't know. You have to weigh all the circumstances out in a short amount of time and do it with other emotions, such as fear, betrayal, shame, shock, survival and powerlessness. And I promise you they all dominate the thinking at that very moment.

And if I had told, what would have happened? The first thing most people would have said is, "She had no business in an all male dorm that late." I didn't want to be labeled a whore, so I buried my secret.

I replayed the events over and over. I felt like I made the best decision to get out of that room with the least amount of damage, especially physical.

At the end of the day, John had set me up. He knew I had not consented to have sex with his best friend. He KNEW. He was WRONG! He made a decision about my body that he had no right to make. He took away my choice and at the moment of violence I had to make the best decision I could for the least amount of damage to my body and spirit.

For me, taking away my power was just as bad as the physical. My so called boyfriend had made a decision about my body without my consent. He left me vulnerable and scrambling to make the best decision for me at the time. And that powerlessness turned into shame. I began to rethink over and over in my head if could I have done something different. I blamed myself for the rape and my shame overshadowed how I dealt with it in the aftermath.

But truly, this isn't about what I did ... It is about John and his friend and how men leave women in powerless situations and then we have to clean up the mess in body, mind and spirit.

See, I know what you all are thinking: I would have done this ... I would have done that ... Ain't no way I would've let him ... I would've ... or ... See, you have already started BLAMING. Yep, the focus here shouldn't be on what I did or didn't do, it should be on the cruelty of John and his friend and how they took away my power. The conversation here should be about how we teach boys who then become men to respect another person's body. Stopping sexual assault must begin with how we view it. It's enough that victims blame themselves. John and his friend had no right to my body. They took away my power and they took away my backbone leaving me in shame. They just washed their dicks off and kept it moving.

PostScript: We are wearing this light teal, turquoise color this Friday in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Tweet and/or Facebook me your pictures for the photo album.

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