50 Shades of Rape

We were alone. It was a rare warm, bright day in London when the lawns we usually sprinted by shuffling between pub, school and dorm beckoned us, and we sat obediently savoring the vitamin D. I had successfully avoided him for months, but the heat and my reclined position caused me to let my guard down. When our last buffer, Kabir, announced he was headed to the library I failed to jump up with my usual speed and announce my departure as well. I realized my error as I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around — all our friends were gone. We were alone for the first time since that night.

I sat fully upright and reached for my water bottle while wracking my mind for an excuse to bolt when he said my name. “Lola.” His deep Italian accented voice halted my movements. I looked up from where I had been shoving an Evian bottle into a wrinkled Trader Joe’s bag and met his gaze. I held his eyes for the first time in months as my stomach sank, “Matteo.”

He broke into the wide smile of a confident male to who the word “no” was an invitation, not a finality. It was the same smile that he had used that night, but now it was not accompanied with the words “c’mon” and “please”. He had already had his way with me. There was nothing left to take. “So how have you been?” he asked.

I broke eye contact and began to fidget with a blade of grass. “Pretty good. Busy.”

He flicked his fringe up his forehead and raised his thick, Chris Noth eyebrows that I had once found sexy. “Busy? Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” I didn’t expect this question. Was he being serious? Inside my voice shouted, “No you prick, I’ve been avoiding you because you raped me!” but to Matteo I said, “I haven’t been avoiding you.” The blade of grass was now shredded.

It felt like a reprise of that night. How did we get it so wrong? How was I sitting here and screaming inside while I once again put his feelings above my own need to speak my truth? To avoid an awkward conversation? To avoid being called crazy? Or maybe it was because despite my internal rage, I blamed myself for giving in.

He shook his head. That was not the answer he wanted. “I don’t understand you women. Everytime I have sex with one of you, you start acting strange toward me.”

I wanted to reply, “maybe it’s because you bully people into sex and have a nasty chode penis?” I bit my lip and shrugged instead.

I still struggle to understand what happened that night, but the conversations I’ve had, and the stories I’ve read in the post #metoo world have shed some light.

I remember walking out of his graduate dorm in a daze. It felt like I had just returned to my body after I left it while Matteo fucked my passive pussy. I flipped open my phone and returned a call from my bff Jen. “How did the date go?” she asked on the first ring.

“Oh it was fine,” I said, “I just kind of feel like he raped me.”

“Umm what? Are you serious?” her voice raised an octave.

“I don’t know. I mean. He didn’t RAPE, rape me, but I didn’t want to have sex with him, and I did, so that’s what it feels like.”

“Ok,” she paused, “well you can’t just use that word.” Her voice had lowered. Crisis averted and she would not need to accompany me to the police station.

Whatever my feelings were, what happened between Matteo and I was “consensual” sex. He didn’t hold me down on the bed by my wrists. He didn’t force his dick inside me. There were no physical cuts or bruises. There was just me: A lost young woman who equated her value with her looks and thought it would be easier to hand her body over to an aggressive man, then to get up, get dressed and leave.

The night had begun fine. Matteo cooked pasta and we had a nice dinner with his dorm mates before retreating to his sparsely decorated tiny room with a twin bed and desk. I was nervous, but when he leaned over to kiss me I was excited. He was hot, and wasn’t this why I was in London? To experience different cultures?

As our physical intimacy continued my enthusiasm soon wore off. He quickly moved past the sweet make out stage and began to grope my breasts. It was uncomfortable, but I allowed it. After less than a minute he reached down to put his hand in my pants. He was rapidly going through the foreplay checklist. I grabbed his wrist and placed it on my waist, in hope that he would get the hint and we continued kissing. Within seconds his hand was back down my pants. We continued this dance of two steps forward, one step back. I didn’t want to be there, I wasn’t into it, and I thought that if I kept politely resisting he would give up, we would say goodnight and that would be that. But that’s not what happened.

Eventually his hand made it into my pants and stayed there. Then my pants and underwear were removed and he ate me out. It felt sloppy and gross, but still I let it happen. My self-preservation goal posts moved and I decided that my hardline would be sex. Only it wasn’t. We had come so far, and I had allowed so much, that by the time he asked if he should get a condom for the fifth time, I gave in again, sighed and said, “fine.” I had already handed over my body’s sovereignty at some point between the rough fingering and the unwanted oral, so at this point, “what difference would it make?” I reasoned. Now coated with a sweaty sheen, Matteo gave a look of relief; he was finally going to reach the end of his checklist. He reached for a condom and then proceeded to thrust his short, chubby, squishy cock into my semi-dry, resigned vagina for approximately two minutes before letting out a tired, shuddering orgasm.

I remember how he peeled the condom off his penis, tossed back his fringe and shrugged before saying, “Too much foreplay, eh?” He said foreplay, I say the blatant ignoring of signals given by your a sexual partner until she is so broken down that she consents to unwanted sex. Tomato, tomahto I guess.

I used the word rape to describe what happened between Matteo and I to Jen because I had no other basis for comparison. Through media I had mainly been exposed to the two extremes of the sexual spectrum: violent rape or passionate lovemaking. Post #metoo I have read many brave stories by women who found themselves in similar situations — women who didn’t just leave the room. They have helped me comprehend what I experienced with a wider lens that includes terminology such as consent, power structure, trauma, bodily dissasociation and sexual assault.

As more stories are told I hope more women are able to detach their value from male desire. I hope they will know that while it might seem easier to give in, when you sacrifice your body, the psychological toll is real. I hope we can raise daughters who can state their needs and wants without shame or guilt, and raise sons who can respect and hear them.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash