#MeTooOnCampus

TW: rape and sexual assault

I know we all saw that thread of men being exposed for rape and sexual assault on Twitter last week by @africanhateyou. Being someone who has been a survivor of rape and sexual assault, the comments surrounding that thread were quite distressing to me. Mainly because of the sheer ignorance being displayed by some people. It was painful tbh.

Some of the comments to list a few:

“Why didn’t they fight back?” “Why didn’t you just leave?” “If you had sex while drunk it’s not rape”.

The shit was exhausting.

One of the main reasons I never went to the police is because of the circumstances of how my rape happened. It was in my house with someone I knew. In my head, those things could have been used against me. Because I’d let him in, it couldn’t have been rape or whatever. But the minute I said stop or get off me and he didn’t stop, it becomes rape.

It’s extremely hard that people cannot grasp the concept of consent. REGARDLESS of a situation, if someone says no, stop. No ifs no buts. If someone is drunk or under the influence of drugs, they cannot consent. It is simple.

Another thing that was hard to deal with is the fact that the first thing people say is “Why didn’t you tell the police?” The internet exists people. Google is free. You can access police statistics. In 2017-18, the Crown Prosecution Service brought 2,822 rape charges which was the lowest number in a decade, despite the fact that the number or rapes being reported went up. Juries convict less than a third of men prosecuted for rape. A simple google search will tell you that. But people would rather chat nonsense on the TL on such a sensitive topic.

I was extremely triggered. It was mainly disappointing and further reinforced my reasoning for never telling my story fully. People were immediately poking holes in people’s experiences. It takes a lot to come forward about something, out of purely unselfish reasons, for people to vilify you and criticise you. I’m sorry but no one is lying about being raped for “clout” and if they do they’re fucking disgusting.

People need to understand the sensitivity and complexity of this issue. This is real life. It happens all the time. We need to be more aware of people and how their experiences affect them. As much as I want to be strong, I can’t pretend that it hasn’t affected me. And this blog gives me a way to cope. So if those women cope by protecting other women, then more power to them.