Michelle Solomon

The first time I realised it was actually rape was the day after it happened. I didn’t want to think about it. It was easy to ignore what had happened, because we didn’t live in the same town. But now I have to face him. I’m moving back there, to where he lives. And I’m terrified.

I knew it was rape, but I wouldn’t believe that it was. Not until I started reading the columns and news stories during the 16 Days of Activism against Women and Child

Abuse. That’s when I knew it was rape.

While denying what had happened to me, I participated in all the protests in the 1-in-9 campaign. I taped my mouth shut for 24 hours in solidarity with the eight out of nine rape survivors who, because of social pressure, never report their rapes. I fought for the rights of rape survivors, I prayed for them, and voiced my anger at the denial of their justice. I cried with them and laughed with them.

Now, three years later, and here I sit denying myself my own justice. Because I am too shit scared.

He was a friend of mine, my ex-boyfriend’s best friend. He was my closest friend’s ex-boyfriend. He was a serial womaniser who treated women as the means to satiate his sexual desires. I once heard he had slept with over 70 women. I am now one of them. How many others also said, “No”?

We were friends and I tried to support him through his break-up with my close friend. But, because I have breasts and a vagina, he saw my support as sexual flattery.

I told him then, months ago, sex between us would never happen. It was too complicated; too many people would get hurt. “It will never happen,” I told him.

How naïve. He told me he wanted to do ‘naughty things’ to me, but if I didn’t want it, he would ‘control’ himself. Even when I told him the sexual jokes and comments he said made me uncomfortable, he continued with them.

So I avoided him. I wouldn’t go to see my friends in the town where he lived because I was scared I would see him. He asked me why I wouldn’t visit. In jest, I told him it was because I didn’t trust him.

“You can trust me,” he said, “but not when I’ve been drinking, ha ha.”

I told him again and again it would never happen between us. He said he understood. He said,“You’re still my super journo friend whom I respect whole heartedly (sic).” I believed him.

How stupid. How absolutely incredibly fucking stupid. He came to my town; I suggested we meet up for drinks for old time’s sake. I was lonely, vulnerable in a new town, and wanted a friend to hang out with at a bar. Afterwards he came to my house, so I could introduce him to my dogs. I love my dogs—they mean everything to me. I was black-out drunk when we got home. I don’t remember much.

I do remember he kissed me. I do remember he carried me to my bedroom. I do remember he undressed me.

And I do remember saying no. I do remember stopping him. I do remember telling him that too many people would get hurt if we did this. I remember telling him I cared too much about my friend. I don’t remember what he said in response, and I don’t remember what I said then.

But I know he didn’t stop. The next day my thighs and my vagina hurt. I lay on my couch all day thinking about what happened. I showered twice, cried and hugged my dogs. I slept on the couch that night, because I didn’t want to go near my bed—the scene of the crime.

I considered laying a charge at the police. I have written evidence that I had told him, months prior to that night, that I didn’t want to have sex with him. But would they believe me? I was drunk, he was at my house where I live alone with my two dogs. I took him home the next day. He had a reputation for sleeping around. Would anyone believe that I had said, “No”? That I tried to stop him? That I physically covered my vagina with my hands and told him, in no uncertain terms, I did not want to have sex with him?

No one knows about that night. If I laid a charge against him, my friend will know. I don’t want to hurt her.

Everyone will know about that night and they’ll make my life hell by saying it wasn’t rape. They’ll question why I only reported it now, months after the fact. They will question, question, question.

Now I am moving back to the town where he lives. It’s a small town, and we have the same friends. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I feel like I am betraying the cause by not charging him with rape.

But, God, I am so scared. What should I do?

Michelle is an anti-rape activist in her home town. When not doing rape awareness and education with young men and women, she is a media studies student and academic. She works with other rape survivors against rape and gender-based violence. In solidarity.