SEXUAL ASSAULT — I Can’t Call Myself a Victim — I Went Along with It

OPINION/NEWS/BLOG

Los Angeles (The Karney Report)

 By Shari Karney, Esq. March 16, 2019

“I don’t think I can call myself a sexual assault victim. I willingly participated.”

“My therapist sees it differently”—Emma P. Lives in Washington State and is in the fashion industry. At age 26 she has designed her own fashion label, and believes in giving back to the community.

Emma’s Story:

I fell madly in love with Joshua in high school when I was 15, and he was 17, said Emma. He was my first love my perfect love, and we both assumed someday we would get married. I was a virgin, and young for my age. Petite in size, sheltered by my traditional Indian family, I grew up in a bubble of love and safety.

Joshua was fun, charming, affection, smart. This was the kind of love I’d read about in romance novels and saw in movies. Always one step ahead of me, he seemed to know my every need and mood, better than I knew myself. I felt safe, loved, and special with him.

He’d watch chick flicks with me and I’d watch Shark Week with him. We cuddled while watching TV, made jokes, ate, talked. He told me how much he loved me, needed me, how special I was. That he could never be without me. I trusted him. He wept when I left for a five-day school trip to New York for Fashion Week.

Joshua and I lived in a secret world, just the two of us. He told me over and over, like a mantra, “Whatever goes on between us, must stay between us or the magic would be broken.” Other people would not understand our kind of love.” He’d make fun of my friends at school, giving them nicknames like “StarBust arm candy”, “Kentucky fried chicken legs”, “nerd-o”. Over and over he told me “Your family doesn’t understand you like I do.” “They are too old-fashioned.” “They live in the world of the ordinary, while we live in a world of the extraordinary.” He called my strong, opinionated grandmother, “feisty” “bossy” “bolshy”, my sisters, “bitchy”, my brother a “nosy nuisance” and a brat. When it was time for either of us to go home, it was if a part of me was being shredded and pulled away. My skin was incomplete without his touch. When I wasn’t physically with him, he was a constant in my head. Two halves of a whole, joined at the hip.

Joshua climbed the hedging of my family’s two story house to sneak into my 2nd- floor bedroom and leave a poem or a fashion magazine he had snatched from his dentist’s office. At school, he’d surprise me at my locker with treats, treasures, candy. A flower he thought would be the perfect palate for the prom dress fashion line I was working on. He was a confident dancer and talker,  smooth and elegant while the other boys at school seemed awkward and speechless.

We had secret spots, trails, trees, coffee houses, we claimed as our own. The first tree we first kissed under, the park bench on Whidbey Island with our initials carved.

We agreed to hold off having sex until I was 18. But we had constant sexual contact, open mouth kissing, his arm or hand always touching me, his body close to mine. He touched my face, my hair, told me no one would love me the way he did.

Going slow, handing me a smuggled can of beer or strawberry lemonade laced with Vodka from his backpack, to “help me relax” before introducing the next level of sexual intimacy. First, long kissing, stroking, then more insistent touching, getting more intense as time went on. His hand would drift to my breast, my butt. On other occasions, the kiss would lead to him pulling my long hair so I was off balance, trusting him not to drop me while he kissed and held me. He moved my hand onto his penis, and didn’t stop moving my hand until he was satisfied. He would rub me between the legs and then masturbate himself in front of me. Each sexual encounter went a bit further from the last. I didn’t say no because I thought I had no choice. I wanted to do something for him because of what he did for me.  It was subtle bartering. I was so in love with him.

After high school, I pursued the fashion industry with gusto, while he had taught himself computer coding and started an entry-level tech job in Seattle. I moved out of my parent’s home, and we moved in together.

We had intercourse for the first time when I was drunk and 20 years old. It was painful, he, impatient.

When my family called, Joshua would grab my cell phone and politely chime, “She’s in the shower” or “She’s still at work” or “Is drawing right now and can’t be disturbed.” Our life together got narrower and narrower, until it was just the two of us. He was never rude to my family; he just cut them out of my life, little by little. So too, with my closest girlfriends. They thought I was one of those girls who found a boyfriend and dropped them. My friend Janine once said that Joshua gave her the creeps. I made the mistake of telling him. I thought he’d laugh at it. He was livid and texted her from my phone saying I never wanted to see her again and to leave me alone. I never saw the text and couldn’t figure out why Janine had abandoned our friendship. Joshua told me that Janine was just jealous of us and wrote her off as a loser.

After our second year living together, I would wake up from a deep sleep with him on top of me, inside of me. He began demanding sex 4-6 times a day. When I was too tired, or sore, he’d mock me, insist I take a hit of his joint or down a shot of booze. He’d have sex with me anyway, like it or not! When I said no, it was meaningless. I stopped saying no. Even if I was laying lifeless, eyes staring up at the corner of the ceiling, out of my body he‘d be thrusting away at me. If he bought dinner for us, he’d demand that I give him sex in return or I couldn’t eat. Every occasional kind action or word, required sexual favors in return. If my family came over to visit, I would be his sexual prisoner for days later. He was insatiable and inescapable. I thought this was normal. I had nothing to compare it to. This must be love. He must love me so much that he has to have me multiple times a day. Love meant ownership. I drank more and more in order to have sex with him.

I was finally able to leave him because I started AA meetings for alcohol addiction. I made a commitment in AA to be celibate for a year.

It’s been 3 years since I left Joshua. My career and life are doing well. I’m taking care of myself, giving back to the community, and approaching wellness holistically. But I still cannot enter the dating world. All I’ve experienced and known about love, intimacy, sex, has been from Joshua. I don’t trust men. The idea of having sex with someone brings back painful memories. In order to have sex, I need to be completely sober. Drinking for me is associated with feeling out-of-control.

I still can’t say I am a sexual assault victim/survivor.

Maybe it could have been my fault, maybe I led him on, maybe this is what all couples do, maybe this is normal behavior, maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion, and maybe this is what love is.

I felt responsible.

Authors Note: This leads to the question everyone asks: What is sexual assault? What is the legal definition of sexual assault? How do I know if I’m a victim of sexual assault particularly if it happened in an intimate relationship, in marriage, with someone I knew and trusted, within my family, at college or in church?

In eight out of ten cases (78%), the victims know the perpetrator.

Young women are especially vulnerable.

Sources:

• The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010-2012 State Report. Atlanta, GA. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Stay tuned for another blog on “What is sexual assault”. What is it emotionally, what is it legally?