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I grew up in foster care, so when the time came to leave my abusive ex-husband, I was left with no resources or family support. I started dancing as a means to support myself, as my ex wasn’t paying child support and doing drugs with my bio parents; just to isolate me more. I was alone.
I was always apprehensive about meeting men from my job, but he insisted I could trust him since he knew my boss and played on the club's softball team. I was pretty burned out from being a single mom and took him up on his offer of Sunday night line dancing. Since I expected an older crowd I thought it would be safer. It’s almost like he knew, I had a feeling he couldn’t be trusted. He apparently paid the bartender's car payment for getting me drunk. I woke up the next morning in severe pain from the waist down. I couldn’t hold my urine and I was unable to go number two for 21 days because of the bruising and pain. He had raped me. The next day I called and asked, “WTH happened last night, I can’t even sit.” His response was, “you said you wanted it, who’s gonna believe you anyway, you’re the stripper with crack head parents, that was the tv that fell on you anyway.” I was shocked at the audacity and scared for some reason. Me and my therapist decided against reporting it as I was already suicidal and the public shaming I would have endured could have resulted in suicide. He was later fired from his tennis instructor job for being too aggressive with a married woman and busted for sleeping with a bunch of women and being inappropriate. He was shamed so badly for that, he has since moved away so I don’t have to worry about seeing him. This happened in June 2017 I still haven’t been out drinking and I live in constant fear of seeing him, not knowing what all he did to me that night. I don’t even want to imagine what all happened. I have guilt daily that I can’t report him. I fear he will hurt another woman, but I won’t survive what they will drag me though if I report him. I’ll always live with guilt now for not having the courage to speak out. -- Anonymous in Lafayette, Louisiana When I was 15, I lied to my parents and told them I was going to a party. At said party, I got extremely intoxicated and also had been smoking weed. I eventually blacked out and my best friend, for my safety, locked me in a bedroom in the basement to sleep since I was completely incoherent. A guy, who I was friends with, managed to pick the lock to that bedroom and began to rape me. I was too out of it to remember what was going on and to even try to stop it. I still don't remember a lot from that night, but I do remember the pain I felt from him forcing himself on me. It became extremely rough at one point as well, and I remember my head being slammed into the wall and another time slamming into the nightstand. Because everyone knew that I was sexually active at that point in my life, what came after that night was worse than the rape itself. Many people said that "she must've wanted it" and "a slut can't get raped, she'll always enjoy it." Some of this came from the people that I thought were my friends. I internalized a lot of what happened to me due to sexual bullying throughout high school and began to view myself as others were viewing me, a "slut." It has taken a major toll on my mental health and has led me into an emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship from 17 until I was 19. I also was never able to report anything that happened that night because my parents never knew I was there and I didn't want them to find out; I also just always believed that it was my fault for being too 'promiscuous' and getting too intoxicated. Thankfully, I have found a good relationship with a man that truly respects me for who I am and who I was. I am doing so much better now and have come to terms that, yes I do regret some things that I did, but there is no way to change it, so I choose to just accept it and keep it in the past. My sexuality does not define me as a person, and I will never let it define me again. -- Anonymous in Maryland
I was in the 9th grade when I was labelled a slut. I had had boyfriends before the 9th grade, but hadn’t had much of any sexual experience. Then one night, my ‘best friend’ got me drunk, pushed a condom into my hand, pushed me into a bedroom with the boy that I was dating, and told him to be gentle with me. I barely remember the night, but the next day at school, my ‘best friend’ told everyone how much of a slut I was. She later said she just didn’t want to be the only school slut anymore.
"It was a long time ago - 1972 to be exact. I was a freshman in high school, at my first house party when the parents were not home. I had had one drink (with almost no experience drinking) and was sitting in the kitchen talking with some guys, guys I thought of as friends. The subject of sex came up and I (stupidly) made the observation, based on ZERO experience, that it sounded pretty awesome. From that moment on I was a slut; and that moniker followed me throughout high school. It was a long, painful four years. My first name starts with an S so I was “S*** Slut” all thought high school. It was devastating, and surreal that I had gone to being someone who was terrified at the prospect of kissing someone to being a whore.
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