What a Rapist Takes From You: An Open Letter to Both My Rapist and a Lost Friend.

1 in 6 women in Australia that we know of have been victims of sexual assault. I am one of those women. With the release of Lady Gaga's new song 'Til it happens to you' regarding rapes in American collages and her performance that included survivors taking the stage with her at The Oscars I found myself induced and encouraged to share my rape story.

For me, as someone who enjoys writing and lets the words flow naturally, I don't really know where to start which is probably why maybe two people in my life know what happened that morning. At the time I was seeing a boy named Luke, he was super tall, super soft and I remember being close with his mother. Luke knew my rapist, but luke never knew why I stopped seeing him all of a sudden and luke never knew I was raped the morning he stopped by unannounced. I remember screaming at him for coming over without calling me and feeling so bad that I did when he just came to see me, he was happy and I ruined that. Luke still doesn't know, he spent a lot of time insulting me and making fun of me on Facebook which upset me because I still liked him but I couldn't tell anyone what had happened to me that morning. I would like him to know, it's probably one of my biggest regrets is our falling out. 

Everyone in my group was friends with my rapist. I was friends with my rapist. Best friends even. We met through the Gold Coast hardcore music scene when I used to go to shows and liked guys in bands which funnily enough, luke was in a band at the time. 

I was living in a house in Burleigh, not a lot of people know that the house I was living in was a part of a program that took homeless youth and taught them how to get out of homelessness. I have fond memories of that house, the night before my rape I held a house party that nearly everyone I could think of in our music scene attended. I remember the pictures after it of a black car and all the boys standing out/in/around it, someone had crutches in the air. 

My rape wasn't violent. My rape was sad and pathetic for many reasons. It happened when we were joking around, which is what triggered me when seeing the film clip to the song 'til it happens to you' where she's playing around with a guy and then it happens. It happened much like that, except we were in my bed, which wasn't unusual as he was my best friend. I remember little chunks of it so forgive me if the narration to my story isn't story like. When it started I think I was mostly in shock. He was on top of me and I wasn't pushing him off, I was confused and had no idea what was happening. When the reality of the situation kicked in and the shock subsided I began to cry and cover my mouth, I couldn't speak. The jokes and lightness of what seemed like a second ago had turned into sloppy, nightmare, makes you want to throw up wrongness. I remember seeing him look away as I began to cry. I don't even remember him finishing or leaving. I remember however long after that, yelling at Luke. I remember riding my bike to my friend Quinn's house (who was in the same housing program) and telling her what happened. 

These days when I have sex, I can't do it without crying. When you've been raped it stays with you and I now have an unhealthy relationship with sex. I felt guilty about not being able to scream, to push or to do anything but cry and watch him look away. When I told my foster mother some years later she told me that 'that's just what happens when you share a bed with a boy'. I haven't seen or spoken to her since. She was the first person I told, and incidentally my room mate could hear what I was saying from her room and came in to comfort me in my confusion of what my foster mum had just told me.

I've seen my rapist since. I saw him one night at my work, a live music venue in The Valley. He actually apologised to me for what he did, he said he hasn't been able to forget it and knows I will live with it for the rest of my life. He said he had spent some time in hospital for the issues it left him with. I was polite and dealt with the conversation. I didn't scream and I didn't push him, I just went back to doing my thing. 

These days, my relationship with my body, my sex life and men are not healthy. I do what I can. The time since being raped to now have been filled with shame, anger, feeling embarrassed during sex, remembering what happened, being triggered and moved by anti-rape campaigns and the general feeling of wrongness and unease. You don't forget being raped. It's not always violent, it's not always by a stranger but you never forget being raped.

If Luke ever reads this I hope it makes a bit more sense to him, I hope he knows it wasn't him. I want him to know we could have been something great and he holds more of a special part in my heart and in my head than I probably hold in his. I understand his place of anger and why he retaliated to my abrupt breaking it off with him. I hope he understands my reasons.

I wasn't a feminist back then, I didn't know what rape culture was. I thought I was 'one of the guys' and that I didn't need feminism. I thought women had everything they needed to be equal. I didn't understand rape culture, I didn't need to be raped to understand it, but I feel like I have a responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else and if it does, like it is this very second, I will be there to support her as a fellow victim of rape.