"That doesn’t sound like a rape to me. That sounds like a horny teenage boy."

Contributed by Nicole Russo (Twitter: @UnbrokenBarista).

[Trigger warning: The following includes graphic material about a sexual assault.]

At 17, I met a boy online. He lived close to me, about twenty minutes away, and he told me he was a Christian. At the time this was important to me. We talked for a while and he was pretty great, and we decided to meet in person. I agreed to meet him at his house, alone. The night before I was with my ex-boyfriend, whom I now realize was borderline abusive. When he told me that he knew the boy I was going to meet, and that he was a "good guy," it eased my mind a little. I realize now that it should have alerted me that something wasn’t right. Later that night the boy texted me, telling me if his mom’s car was there the next morning, to not bother coming in. I wish I’d have seen the red flag there as well.

Nicole Russo today.

The next morning when I arrived at his house, we started kissing. I was okay with that. Then he took off my shirt. I was uncomfortable but didn’t say anything. Soon, he was removing all of his clothes and we were lying on his bed kissing. He asked me if I wanted to "go lower" and I said no. He asked me a few more times and each time I said no. Eventually he stopped asking. He pushed me towards his genitals and I got the hint. I did what he wanted, I performed oral sex, and I didn’t put up a fight. I dissociated. I can remember the physical parts of what happened, what he said to me, what I did, but I can’t remember what I was thinking. I was an outsider looking in. When he ejaculated in my mouth without a condom, the taste brought me back.

We started kissing again and he tried putting his hands down my pants. I kept pushing him away, telling him no. He only stopped when I told him that I was on my period. At that point he climbed on top of me and started moving against me. He said, "You know, if you were naked right now, we’d be having sex." The thought terrified me and spurred me into another dissociation. I was brought out of it this time by him biting my breast. He bit so hard I thought he was going to bite part of it off. I had a bruise for a week after and I couldn’t lie on my left side because it hurt so badly. Eventually I left, and when I did I took a sip of the drink I brought with me, which washed away any remaining evidence, 30 seconds after I walked out the door. When I got home I immediately brushed my teeth, wanting the taste of him out of my mouth.

Despite how dirty and disgusted I felt, I didn’t realize that what happened to me was a crime. It wasn’t until friends and multiple therapists validated what happened to me and told me that "no" was enough that I realized I had been victimized. I didn’t realize it because I had never heard of someone being assaulted the way that I was: being forced to perform oral sex on another person. When I did, the panic and the PTSD set in. I can still hear his voice, even now, nine days away from the fourth anniversary of the assault. It’s like an audio tape that I want to stop, but there’s no stop button, no pause button, and the mute button doesn’t always work.

I didn’t immediately report it. I didn’t want my name dragged through the mud. I didn’t want to be called a whore by my closest friends and family because I "regretted a decision." I never had a decision, I never had a choice. I didn’t want to go through the reporting process without a promise that he would be locked away for what he had done to me, for what he stole from me. I didn’t talk about it to many people for a long time. It wasn’t until about two years after I realized what happened that I was comfortable divulging details from my attack to my friends.

When I told one friend his response was, "That doesn’t sound like a rape to me. That sounds like a horny teenage boy." It wasn’t bad enough that I had questioned for so long what happened, what it meant, if any of it was my fault, but now I had to deal with the fact that once I told others, there was a possibility they weren’t going to believe me. Just a few months ago I told my story to my friend and her grandmother. Her grandmother insisted that I needed to report it because, "What if he does this to someone else? How will you feel then?" - as if his potential other victims were my fault.

I did eventually report it. November 1st, 2013 I walked into the police station in the jurisdiction it happened in by myself and sat shaking like a leaf waiting for someone to take my statement. Finally an officer brought me to an interview room. I sat alone with two male uniformed officers and gave them my statement, just as I have given it to you here.

Those officers never outright called me a slut. They never used any slut shaming language. But their body language, their subtle glances to each other, said it all. They didn’t believe me. They asked questions like, "How did he force you?" "What did he threaten you with?" and "Did he have a weapon?" The fact that I had said "no" wasn’t enough for them, just like it wasn’t enough for him. Slut shaming doesn’t have to use words to effectively make the person being slut shamed feel horrible about themselves.

The truth is, "no" is enough. No other physical threat needs to be present. The moment that a person says no and their partner doesn’t stop, it becomes rape. I wasn’t believed because I wasn’t threatened, because there was no weapon, because I waited to report. But I’ve found my voice and now, no one can keep me silent.

I am more than a number on a case file that’s been filed away in a police station no one’s ever heard of.

I am more than a statistic.

My body was a crime scene. My mind is often times a war zone. But I’m a survivor and I’m here to tell my story, to inspire others and to tell them that it gets better, no matter what friends, family members, law enforcement officers, or society says, it’s never a survivor’s fault, you’re never "asking for it," and you’re not a slut because someone stole something from you. You’re not a whore because you didn’t fight back.

You deserve healing. You deserve to live a life of joy again.