I made a lot of drunken, questionable decisions, around sex in my youth, and I’ve regretted a few of them. But, there is one event from my youth that I can’t, for certain, claim was a result of my own decision. It happened over 20 years ago and somehow I managed to push it down completely until recently.
For the past two weeks I’ve been haunted by the recurring memories of a family friend cooking me mushrooms for breakfast, and the memory of walking out his front door afterwards. I have no other memories except almost falling asleep at a bar the night before, and waking up naked in his bed.
Just reading that back makes me feel sick. But that’s not the whole story.
I was 18; he was 26. I’d known him since I was three. We grew up together. He was like an older cousin, his mum like a second mum, his sister and I are still as close as sisters. I always liked him. I like him still; he’s a likable man.
But, he did some things that are intensely disturbing. I don’t know if it's the idea of ‘enthusiastic consent’ (which seems to be everywhere I look now), or the high-profile Brock Turner case being in the news, that has triggered these few memories, but I honestly hadn’t thought about that night for over 20 years and, outside the confines of this saga, had never mentioned it to a soul, until last week.
It had recently been eating me from the stomach out and I felt a deep need to offload – to get it out of my head - so last week I told the following story to my husband. I was expecting him to understand my “grey area”- my conflict. His response was a dropped jaw, a sad, kind look, and the words “that is awful”. Those words make me cry, now. He was right: it is awful. Kind of needing my “grey area” justified, I brought it up with my therapist two days later (the haunting has become almost unbearable since the talk, and has taken up every thought not dedicated to making sure my kids were clothed and fed). His response was a blunt “that was rape, continued rape and ongoing sexual harassment”. f*ck! That sounds so much worse than internal conflict and grey.
How can you forget your own 'rape' and still be “friends” with your 'rapist' and feel grey about it?
Well, here is the story as far as I know it…
My flatmate/father figure was on an overseas holiday and I just found out he was dying. I went out drinking in a nearby town to drown my pain. I ran into this trusted family friend - I'll call him Luke. He offered to let me crash at his house, so I shooed-off my ride home and went out dancing and to continue drinking. I was having fun. I have strong memories of that. I remember sitting at the bar, talking to Luke, nursing my beer and feeling a wave of sleep and queasiness engulf me. I have a vague recollection of asking to go home – but I can’t be sure of that. But I wasn't worried, I was in safe hands.
I woke up in a strange room under a sheet, naked. I remember thinking this is all wrong. What the f*ck happened? I was alone, the sheets were a dark red colour, there was a wooden cupboard to my right, the door was ajar. I remember thinking this has to be ok, it can’t not be ok. I remember I was dressed by the time I saw Luke again. There was a slight smirk on his face, I remember, but no indication of shame or guilt… This must be ok… My next memory is of him frying mushrooms in his little, light-filled kitchen. This must be ok. This must be ok. This is too easy and he’s too comfortable. This must be ok. Why does it not feel ok? I have one more memory: walking out of his front door for him to drive me back to the safety of my little village. I don’t remember the drive, nor his car, but I remember the walk towards his mottled-glass front door.
This is all I have. I can’t figure out why the handful of memories I have are so vivid, but no matter how hard I try there is nothing else that I can coax out of the missing hours. I keep trying. I want this story to be different. I want to remember enthusiastic consent. I want to know that it’s ok to think Luke is a good guy. I want to remember that it was a stupid, drunken, regrettable decision and not rape. I don’t have that - I don't have a name for it - just an all-encompassing feeling of grey violation.
So, he drove me home and life went on with that vague sense of violation for a couple of days until I got a phone call from his sister. She told me Luke had photographs of me from the missing hours. Naked photographs. She also told me that he and his flatmate had a collection of photographs from various sexual encounters with other young women (which I, maybe wrongly, now assume contained evidence of other girls’ missing hours). I can’t remember now if she’d seen them or just been told about them. But I do know that his flatmate was in on it (but I have no idea to what extent - did he take the photos, did he have sex with me too?) The phone call was confronting and felt a bit like I was being warned that these guys are not nice guys. But, the overwhelming feeling I had was that, even though I was floored and humiliated, surely there must’ve been consent. So, you made another stupid drunk decision that you must forget. He’s a nice guy, surely this is also ok... By the way, I have no idea how many people have seen me like that or what became of the photos. All I can do is hope they have since been destroyed.
A couple of weeks went by, and my flatmate/father figure died overseas – I never got to see him again – and it was the night of his wake… Luke’s mother led me onto my front porch and earnestly told me “Luke wants you to know that he didn’t use a condom”. What? Who else knows about this? Is his whole family in on the joke? They all think I’m a sl*t and that I asked for this. I had been drinking at the wake, my guard was down and I felt like there was a familial conspiracy to ensure my blame. Still, I think I managed to mumble something about feeling as if this whole situation was surreal, unfair and maybe not completely consensual. What I do know is that this whole experience led me to believe that I was somehow at fault and that even though I “felt like it was rape” I wasn’t entitled to name it that. I still feel that way. Although now I wonder why he wanted me to know there was no condom. Was it just a little game to tell me that he knew I didn’t remember and that he knew there was not informed consent; some kind of sick, power play?
A few years later, at a mutual friend’s birthday party, I saw Luke again. We sat on the edge of a gravel road a few metres from the party and I confronted him. I told him it “felt like rape” and he told me it wasn’t. There. Final. It’s not rape. Luke says so. You have no right to feel the way you do. It’s just another questionable, regrettable, drunken decision. So, why does this still feel different? Why does it still feel like rape?
I pushed it down, wrote it off and forgot about it eventually. And I kept it to myself. Who would I tell anyway? His sister (my sister) already knew and slut-shamed me for him. His mum (my other mum) already knew and slut-shamed me for him. He already knew how I felt, and slut-shamed me again for daring to even feel grey about what he called consent. All of these people knew more than I did about whether I consented or not! They still know more about the whole thing than I do!
Now it is invading all of my thoughts. I had a panic attack in the supermarket today when I saw mushrooms! And the two men I entrusted with my story (a slightly watered-down, even greyer version) have unequivocally named it 'rape' and I still feel grey. I want to hate him but I don’t. I still like him - I like him less today, but I still like him. He is a likable guy.
He has daughters of his own now. It won’t be long until they are the age I was then. I wonder how he would feel if the same thing happened to one of them? What would he name it then? I know what I would name it if it happened to my daughter. And I know what I would name it if it happened to a friend. I even know what I would name it if I read it in the news. So, why can’t I name it for myself?
