I Believe Her (And You!)

On Wednesday, the disturbing and disheartening news regarding the acquittal of the accused in the Belfast Rape Trial was released and there was an immediate outcry; the voices of countless people across Ireland and Northern Ireland rose in anger and anguish to denounce that verdict across various social media platforms – including Facebook and Twitter.

Mine was one of them.

The court proceedings were a blatant mockery, both of the courageous survivor – who stepped forward to name her rapists despite knowing the high levels of harassment and disbelief she’d face in reporting the incident to the police – and of the law itself. The court of law is where those who commit crimes are supposed to be convicted and sentenced and that isn’t what happened in this case.

It isn’t what happens in most rape cases that go to court.

This failure to mete out honest justice is one of the largest factors that fuels the continued silence of rape survivors and continues to fuel the confidence of those who commit acts of sexual violence.

That fact has never been a secret.

Yesterday, the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland rallied together across several counties to stand in solidarity, with each other and with the woman whose rapists walked free in Belfast. We shouted together and we stood in solemn silence together. We burned with emotion together. We heard survivors of sexual assault and violence speak out about their own personal experiences with having their consent and their bodies violated.

I was brought to the verge of tears as I was reminded of mine.

I’d like to discuss these experiences now:

The First Incident

I was still a child when an adult forced unwanted affection on me for the first time. Resistance was futile. She’d wrapped me up in a tight hug and I couldn’t escape from her. I wasn’t supposed to escape from her. She was related to me and it was her right to bestow hugs and kisses upon me whenever she wanted – whether I wanted that affection or not was immaterial in the equation. I’d witnessed her ignoring the blatant discomfort of the other girls in the house before and if I’d shoved her away, I’d have been reprimanded and punished for disrespecting an older person.

I now suffer from a form of herpes because of her actions.

Forcing affection upon children without asking their permission and refusing to accept their decline when asking permission is one of the various aspects of rape culture that we are surrounded with when growing up.

Forcing hugs and kisses upon children doesn’t teach them how to be affectionate. It doesn’t teach them how to respect other people. It teaches them that their right to decline sexual contact from another person doesn’t exist.

The Second Incident

I was fifteen. That was when a fellow student ignored blatant signs of discomfort and put his hand on me without consent. That incident feels as fresh to me now as it did a decade ago.

I was attending secondary, which is the Irish equivalent to a fusion of middle and high school in the United States. The junior certificate examinations were fast approaching – these are the first set of state examinations we must sit and are intended to prepare us for the leaving certificate examinations.

Normally, I avoided the back of the classroom. I knew that was where several troublemakers often sat and I preferred to sit at the front because I chose not to wear the distance glasses I needed at the time.

(I’d felt uncomfortable when wearing them because the same student involved in the incident described below – who’d been following me around outside of shared classes during the months leading up to that point – had made remarks about how much he liked it when I wore them.)

But there wasn’t a chair free at the front.

Reluctantly, I sat at the back of the classroom. I made sure to sit alone – as I often did. I didn’t like having people I didn’t know that well sitting next to me. It often left me feeling cornered and uncomfortable.

The class was about to start.

I’d just begun to relax into the unfamiliar space I’d occupied when the door opened and in walked the student who’d been following me around the school for months. I tensed all over again: I knew the last free space was right next to me and he made a beeline for it without even checking to see whether another chair might be available. He threw himself down in the chair next to me and I inched mine away, immediately, heedless of how rude it made me look as I increased the distance between us.

I didn’t want to be near him.

He closed the distance a moment later and I wanted to cry; I could have endured having someone else sitting beside me and remaining at a reasonable distance. But not him and never so close. The grip I had on a pen tightened. Shoulders hunched over in obvious discomfort. I avoided looking at him and tried to pretend he wasn’t there as the teacher at the front of the classroom began speaking, diving into the topic of the week.

That was when he touched me.

It was instinct that drove the pen I held into his leg, earning a pained noise from him. The teacher reprimanded me at once and I looked up instantly, startled and hurt that I was the one singled out and reprimanded when he’d just put his hand on me without consent. It hadn’t mattered that I was lashing out in defence: I was still the one at fault.

I went home at the end of the school day, still shaken. Expecting to receive some comfort and understanding, I told people what happened at school.

I wasn’t comforted.

I wasn’t understood.

No one wanted to march down to the school and demand that something be done with that awful boy, who’d touched me without asking and without taking how I felt into consideration at all.

Instead I received several reprimands from various members of the family, telling me how cruel I’d been. That I shouldn’t have lashed out like I did. Obviously, the student had a crush on me and was doing his best to express that fact. He just didn’t know how! I should give him a chance and see how it goes!

Let me get one thing straight: I don’t care whether he had a crush on me.

That didn’t give him the right to stalk me around the school and encroach on personal space during lunch breaks.

It didn’t give him the right to close the distance between us after I’d moved away; increasing the distance between us wasn’t an invitation for him to move closer to me. It wasn’t a game of “hard to get.”

It was me saying, quite clearly, “don’t come near me.”

That he might have had a crush on me didn’t give him the right to ignore that. It didn’t give him the right to put his hand on me without asking. It didn’t give him the right to ignore how uncomfortable I was around him.

It didn’t give him the right to do a single thing to me.

I wasn’t obligated to accept his advances or reciprocate his feelings.

But declining his unwanted advances still made me the bad guy, somehow. Coming up with pathetic excuses for those who violate consent is an aspect of rape culture. Blaming the person whose boundaries have been ignored and whose consent has been violated is another aspect of rape culture.

The Third Incident   

It was the summer of 2016.

I’d joined a dating site: talking to people in person wasn’t a strong suit of mine and online dating seemed like the easiest means of getting to know people and finding someone that I’d be compatible with.

I thought I’d found one.

He was German and we got on well together – which was a good thing, since he was planning to come to Ireland for his Erasmus. Reading through the questions I’d answered on the site informed him that I was a questioning submissive and that delighted him: he was a Dom with more experience in the BDSM world than me.

I had no experience.

The incident didn’t occur straight away, and the lead up seemed innocent enough in the beginning. It all started with a conversation about sexual fantasies I might have had and then an instruction to send a picture to him. It wasn’t a big deal – I was starting to get better at taking decent selfies and I’d gained some confidence in how I looked in headshots.

I sent him one at once.

He told me that I was a good girl for doing so. He told me that I was cute. Immediately, I experienced a rush of warmth and I realised I liked it when he said that. I liked being told that I was cute – it wasn’t something that I often heard.

But I liked being told that I was a good girl even more.

The next picture he instructed me to send was a full-body, one where I still had clothes on. I was embarrassed. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in how I looked below the chest region and I wasn’t great at taking pictures broader than a headshot. But I took one and sent it to him anyway; I wanted to do as he’d instructed.

I wanted to be good.

He praised me again and I experienced that warm rush all over again.

He ordered me to send a shirtless picture the next time. I experienced some mild hesitance at that point. I wasn’t uncomfortable at the thought of sending him a picture with that specification. I was just nervous. It had been a while since I’d shown breasts to someone and I didn’t know this man that well. We weren’t dating, per se. But…I decided that I had great breasts and I shouldn’t be alone in appreciating them. I snapped a picture and sent it to him proudly, because it was a damn good shot.

The praise came once again.

And then he instructed me to send something else: a recording of me stripping – among other things – for him. I tensed at once. A large knot of dread settled inside me. This instruction was outside the comfort zone I’d developed. I didn’t know or trust him well enough to send him a video like that.

I did what I knew I had to do: I told him I wasn’t comfortable.

But he insisted.

I grew even more tense.

Breathing became difficult at the thought of recording and sending him a video like that.

But I could tell that he wasn’t pleased with me. I felt cornered. I knew that he’d be pissed if I didn’t obey, and I didn’t want that. Anger scared me then and it still scares me even now. I didn’t want to face that. I didn’t want to be punished for not being comfortable with his instructions. Fighting the urge to throw up and trembling, I set up the camera and I did what he’d demanded despite the sick feeling churning inside me.

Shame wrapped its vines around me and squeezed like a vice as I waited for his response.

The response that came added to one of the worst moments I have ever experienced in the two and a half decades that I’ve lived on this earth. There is just one other experience that outweighs this one and that experience has scarred me for life.

(That experience is a discussion for another time.)

Basically, he told me that I was hideous – and this from someone who’d said I was cute on several occasions beforehand. He told me that it would be impossible to have an erection around me.

That I was un-fuckable.

He blocked me mere moments after he’d traumatised me and I was left to sob until I passed out. I’m still traumatised. I’m still struggling to look in the mirror. Perhaps there are things I could have done…or should have done…but that doesn’t negate the fact that this man pressured me into doing something that I told him I wasn’t comfortable with.

I told someone at home what happened. Their response was to place the blame upon me:

• I should have known better.
• I should have behaved better.
• What else could I expect from someone I’d met on the internet.

Some will say, “You should have used a safe word.”

I would have.

But I didn’t know what the standard safe words were at the time. I knew nothing about that world apart from a few vague ideas of what I might like to experience with someone I managed to develop a bond of trust with.

He never discussed safe words with me.

“Your body, your temple” is what he’d said to me in the beginning and then he proceeded to ignore me when I spoke up to protect that temple.

I am not to blame for what happened to me. The woman in the Belfast Rape Trial is not to blame for what happened to her. The burden of blame does not rest upon survivors of sexual assault and violence.

If we are to move forward as a society, then the burden of blame must be placed upon the shoulders of those who commit acts of sexual violence. We must hold rapists accountable in and out of the court of law for their crimes.

We must stand up and shout on behalf of survivors.

I believe her.

I still believe her.

And I believe you (cis and trans, men and women, and non-binary) too.