It has taken me a long time to fully come to this point and speak out, because of how our society has been I have kept quiet. When I was 15 years old I had a boyfriend who was 2 years older than me. I thought I was the cool sophomore because I had a boyfriend who was above my grade. I was naive, sheltered in a Christian home. The thought of sex was new to me, and I still thought it was scary/gross. I had never seen a penis in person, other than the random unwanted ones I’d get from insecure boys in my grade. Anyway, I remember that day planning to experiment at home with alcohol with my best friend, who was a girl. We had that mindset back then to be like the older kids, because that was the cool thing to do. My boyfriend drove me home that day and he had told me he wanted to check on me that night, and I specifically told him, “alright, but I don’t want to have sex or anything” because I had heard of girls getting taken advantage of in that state, and as stupid as I was, I wanted to be safe. That night we had one shot and went out to dinner with my best friend, my boyfriend, and his friend. We had soup and then went back home to continue our night drinking. He stayed a while “monitoring” me and my best friend while we drank. He went to take his friend home because it was getting late, we let them out and locked the door. I remember him coming back, I remember her and I telling him to leave and then laying down on the floor because it was cool tile. I remember him dragging me across the floor. I remember asking him where my friend was, I didn’t want to be alone with him. I look back now and realize she couldn’t have helped me if she wanted to. I remember him taking off my shirt and video taping me. (I know now the video was deleted). I remember telling him, “I don’t want to do this” “I can’t see you”. But because I didn’t scream “stop” it was okay. I remember laying back and being violated. I remember crying, and then passing out. I woke up sore, and no longer myself. I had texted him that morning trying to figure out if what he did was a dream...No, it wasn’t and his response? “Yeah, don’t you remember? It was great” I spent that entire day trying to convince myself that I asked for it, because that’s what he told me. That I wanted it. But I didn’t, I know I didn’t. I stupidly continued to date him, and he continued to do horrible things to me. At one point he locked me in the car with him and proceeded to jack off and not let me out. When he finished, I grabbed my bag, got out to get away from him and he left me in a parking lot. After this, I left him.. it was hard for me because I believed that all of this was okay. I finally decided to tell my mom, her response was angry of course because I had drank underaged and lied to her. She also reacted to the rape, she told me that it was my fault, she told me that I let him do this to me. She was mad at me for a year because I lost my virginity that way. 2 years after it happened, I talked t a therapist about some of it and she reported it. It turned into a big ordeal and the investigator turned around and told me that it’s a “he said, she said matter” and it wasn’t worth fighting for. He was in the marines and most likely would win. To this day I have nightmares. I have thoughts about how disgusting I am because of that experience. Our system isn’t right for letting this go, yes it was late in the game, but I don’t believe that someone who has been sexually assaulted should ever be shoved to the side. This is why we need to speak up, this is why we NEED feminism. We don’t need to teach our daughters that this is their fault, because it’s not. No girl/woman/boy/ or man should have to “get over” their sexual assault. They shouldn’t have suicidal thoughts because their body has been violated to the point of disgust with themselves. We shouldn’t be afraid to speak up. #metoo

I shouldn’t have to say this, but please don’t criticize the decisions I made all those years ago.