• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Sexual Assault Why would he attempt rape but not do it?

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TeotlTrips

I've been sexually assaulted several times; the one that haunts me most (and causes me the most trouble) happened almost 3 years ago.
My ex (who I had never been attracted to, he knew it, we had "dated" so I wouldn't be alone in high school) wanted to stay the night at my house to cheer me up. I had recently found out I was pregnant, my then-boyfriend dumped me shortly after, and I was grieving the loss of several very beloved pets who had been slaughtered. My mom's abuse had also been escalating at the time. I was feeling alone, scared, confused, sad. I'd struggled with mental illness for years beforehand, and all of those things happening in the span of 1 week just bore down on me with tremendous weight. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts, dark and broken thoughts, so I let him stay. We had been friendly since breaking up 3 months prior, so it didn't seem like a big deal.
Then when I was ready for bed, he got in bed beside me. I told him to get out, sleep on the couch or the floor, my bed was too small to be sharing with him now. He refused to get up and told me I had to let him sleep with me because he needed the bed. He gave no better explanation, though he complained more as I protested. But I couldn't get him to move, I was already on the inner side and trapped against the wall, and I was exhausted. So I shared the bed.
In the early hours of the morning, before the sun had started coming up, I woke up to oral sex. It took a moment to register, as I just woke up and it was completely unexpected. I told him no, I told him to stop, I tried as hard as I could while tired and in shock to force him off of me. He held his place unmoving, like I wasn't even there. He ignored me like I'd never made a sound. I tried to push away but I was already against the headboard with no where else to go. He was laying over my legs, holding them down, so I couldn't try to kick him off. My mom was awake and I knew it, but I was too afraid to scream for help because I was afraid of what she would do to me if she found out. (17 at the time) I lay there defeated and scared and confused. My body reacted to the stimulation and I had an orgasm, and I hated it. I felt sick, I wanted to escape and vomit and purge my body of his touch. When he knew I had orgasmed, he pulled up and almost instantly he was trying to penetrate me. With some of his weight off of me I could squirm, and that's what I did. And I kept saying no.
He sarcastically asked me why, told me I would feel better if I did it, that I needed to do it. He kept trying to "convince" me and pressed himself onto me, ever closer to further violating me. I raised my voice slightly, telling him I didn't want to. He stopped. Then he tried to get me to reciprocate oral sex. But gave up as I headed toward the door quickly in decline.
I went to the bathroom and washed myself to the point of pain. I wanted it to go away. Three mirrors in the bathroom and I couldn't bear to look up, afraid I would see my reflection in one of them. I felt disgusting. I felt like trash. I felt things that I still cannot describe.
I stayed in there for a long time. When I finally went back to my room, he was dressed and acted completely normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
He robbed me of so much more than sleep that morning. It has taken me years to understand that I did not consent, that I did not enjoy it, that I was sexually assaulted. But why wasn't I raped? He had all of the control he needed, and he knew it. He knew I would have no courage to tell anyone. So what stopped him? I ask in ignorance; because I know that if he had gone any further, I would probably not be here to ask this question. Why would a predator let his prey go without a fight?
I have flashbacks. I have nightmares. I can't please myself without guilt. I can't engage oral sex with my partner without imagining that morning and freezing and feeling horrified and disgusting. I seldom can have sex at all without those memories ruining the experience. I often make up excuses to avoid sex entirely, because I don't want to say I would be reliving the assault if I did it. I write and research and try to understand everything that happened, everything I felt, everything it effects now; but I find healing comes with difficulty because I can't understand why my trauma ended so "easily."
 
but I find healing comes with difficulty because I can't understand why my trauma ended so "easily."
How would knowing why change your healing?

I get stuck on wanting to know why my abusers did certain things, but I have a friend who reminds me that sometimes it's good to not understand them. It means I am different.

None of can really say why he did or did not continue, only he can say why. The fact that you don't understand why a perp did what they did, is a good sign you don't think like perpetrators do. That's a darn good thing.
 
Easy.

He conquered you already by making you orgasm.

Getting someone to cum is a f*cking power trip. I'm not a rapist by any stretch of the imagination, but when I'm f*cking a guy, my goal is to make him cum and make him cum hard. And then I'm satisfied.
 
You'll only ever have a best guess as to why. But given you were telling him to Stop - that could well be why he stopped.

Telling him to stop was the right thing to do. Sometimes? Guys will stop when we tell them to.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top