The first thing people would ask me were things like if I was drunk, what I was wearing, or why I didn’t fight back more.

When I was 15 I went to a party and someone who I thought was my friend decided to pin me down and touch me without my consent. I managed to get away from him before anything more could happen but it was still pretty scary. Though no one ever directly called me a slut after, I was still made to feel like I had done something wrong. When I would share my story with people, the first thing people would ask me were things like if I was drunk, what I was wearing, or why I didn’t fight back more. These are all things that I have no bearing on the situation and only serve to make me feel like it was my fault; like somehow HIS decision to assault me was something I was asking for. It took me an unnecessarily long time to really understand that it was nothing that I had done wrong, and feeling like it was my fault is a horrible effect of our “slut” and victim shaming culture.