Editor’s note: Jade Brockman is a pen name. Trigger warning: Sexual assault
There are some days when I struggle to believe I have the right to say I was sexually assaulted. In the very few conversations I’ve had, I find myself trying to downplay it, as if throwing an adjective in front of it will somehow lessen the pain or the shame. “A few months ago I was…” my voice trailed off, “I was…mi—” The voice in my head wanted to force my mouth to say “minorly” sexually assaulted as if this is a grievance whose severity should be treated like a burn—first degree, second degree, third…
It can not. It must not. Minorly isn’t even a word. And so, I forced myself to say it. I paused. Paused again, took a deep breath and said that I was sexually assaulted. The more I talked about it, the more my voice waivered. The details of the situation brought back unease. Guilt. Shame.
It was a Friday night.
I found myself in the Brooklyn apartment of a man I met a few months prior in D.C. I’d let him know that I’d be coming to New York and he asked if he could take me out on a date. I obliged. We went to lunch. We talked. Smiled. Laughed. He examined my figure from somewhat of a distance (he looked at my butt when I stood up to walk to the bathroom and then made a comment about it when I returned. I forced a smile). He made an advance in the elevator. I allowed him to kiss me. To let his hands grace below my waist. We hung out for a few hours more and then parted ways.
“Well yeah, let me know if you want to meet up later,” he said.
I was planning to meet one of my best friends at an art show in Brooklyn. Afterward, she wanted to drag me to L.E.S., but I had somewhere to be early in the morning. I told her I might hang out with this guy a bit more.
“So are you calling me an Uber…?” I texted him.
He said he would. The Uber pulled up outside of his apartment. It was a modest studio. You could hear the dancehall music bursting through the walls of the club next door. The bed sat in a little cove behind the couch and down the hall was the bathroom and what I assumed to be a kitchen somewhere. We sat. He offered me some Hennessy.
“Have you seen Master of None?” I asked.
I’d watched seven episodes on the bus ride up to New York. He hadn’t. We turned it on. He tried kissing me again. I went with it for a moment and then pulled back. I wasn’t trying to sit on his couch making out. Three episodes later, he asked if he could tell me something.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I really want to taste you,” he said.
I can’t tell you what my face looked like at that moment. Perhaps surprised. Disappointed that this is what it had come to yet again.
“Nahh,” I said. “I’d like to take things slow.”
I suggested we turn some music on. I tried to start up some small talk.
“So tell me about your past relationships,” I asked.
He shared a bit about an ex or two of his. I continued to nod and sip my Hennessy. I don’t remember if I shared any of my experiences with exes.
“Come lay with me,” he said.
I was irritated. I want to think that I said, “Nahh, I’m good,” again but at some point, we ended up in his bed. And then, he slipped my panties off. And began to eat me out. I did not say no. I admit, I am a sucker for head. There was a moment when I eased up and closed my eyes and laid my head back on the pillow. Then, it happened.
I felt him inside of me without even so much as a, “Can I…?”
Raw.
My entire body jerked away from his.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I demanded, kicking him out of me.
Cue the classic line of a privileged offender.
“I thought you wanted it,” he said.
“You didn’t even ask!” I said.
I don’t remember what was said next. I remember obliging to have sex three times.
At one point, he said, “I want you to think about me in the cab the whole ride home.”
I still roll my eyes at that line. Who says that?
It was late. I decided I needed to leave. I made him call me another Uber back to my friend’s apartment. It felt like quite possibly the longest ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan I’d ever experienced.
I stared out the window hoping that the scenes passing by could somehow distract me from the last few confounding hours of my life.
The next day, he texted saying he couldn’t make it to the event I was speaking at.
“Ok,” I replied.
On Sunday, he asked how the play that I went to see with my father was.
“It was good,” I said.
On Monday, I texted him:
“In thinking about the time I spent with you this weekend, what sticks with me most is that:
1) You slid in raw without consent. (Eating me out does not equal automatic consent for sex; also, classic example of male privilege).
2) I’ve not heard from you since Saturday. To me, it seems as though the lunch date + hanging out was just a gateway to get me somewhat comfortable with you in order to get me alone at your apartment. Yes, I chose to come over. Yes, I eventually consented to sex, but I am left questioning your motives and sincerity. Lines like, “I want you think about me the entire cab ride home,” say to me that you are more concerned about good dick than a good impression. Like seriously, who says that? (Also, male privilege/machismo again).
It’s like time and time again I try to give “nice guys” a chance but the physical seems to supersede any real chance for anything else. There was no “taking it slow” from you. I am reminded why I don’t even bother with dates because it can rarely remain just that—a date. Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps I should’ve left it at lunch but I like to think of myself as a woman who does not date for free meals.
I am not distraught, heartbroken or “in my feelings.” I am getting this off my chest because it’s been on my mind.”
His response:
“Hey, what’s up Jade. Few things:
I apologize for going in raw in the moment. Just curious, why aren’t you bringing up my male privilege as it relates to me eating you out?
I said, “come over if you’d like, if not, no worries, just let me know,”—you decided to come over Jade. I was chilling in my robe watching ‘Law and Order’ lol. I just thought we had a dope day just kicking it and talking.”
Me:
“I could’ve also tacked male privilege to you saying that to me while we were watching TV, you saying no & then you trying again on your bed…but didn’t feel the need to pick out every instance.”
Him:
“Wow. Just wow. Now I have male privilege. The revisionist history here is crazy. If you wanna chalk up YOU deciding to have sex with me to male privilege be my guest. Unlike you, I’ll take the L and won’t blame my actions on anybody else.
If you still want to be friends, cool. I’d love that. If my male privilege scarred you or left a bad taste in your mouth and you’d like to put distance btwn us, I understand that as well.”
It is my conviction that far too many men don’t know how to take no for an answer.
“No,” to his first advance translated to him as, “No, not now, but you can ask me again in a few minutes. Just keep asking till she gets tired of saying no. Till she has a few more drinks. Till she gets tired of putting up a fight. Till you can slip in.”
I remember feeling relieved when my period came. I did not allow him to finish inside of me, but regardless, we had unprotected sex. I thought about texting him to let him know. Why would he even care? I hadn’t heard from him since our last text exchange.
I don’t remember telling anyone about what happened. I think I was still coming to terms with it myself. I blamed myself for even going on the date in the first place. “If you hadn’t, none of this would have happened,” the little voice inside my head said. I think I might have been in shock. Did that actually happen? Was I actually sexually assaulted? Was it “enough” to say so?
Then I remembered that 80% of rape and sexual assaults occur among people who know each other.
I struggled to believe that I’d become a statistic. That night, he didn’t verbally ask for my consent to have sex. Consent requires a person to ask another person permission to perform a sexual act and for that person to verbally give permission for it to happen while being fully conscious, un-coerced, of age, and not intoxicated in any way (no drugs, no alcohol). In California, sexual assault is defined as engaging in sexual intercourse, oral or anal sex, or even slight penetration (including with an object) without the other person’s consent.
When he verbally told me he wanted to eat me out, I said no. He wore me down until he had his way.
Now some of you all may be thinking that there’s no way in hell I could have the audacity to complain about that night because we ended up having sex not one, not two, but three times. I get it. Sounds crazy. Why did I have sex with him? Why didn’t I just, at that very moment, put my clothes back on and leave? Why did I stay?
I can’t count the number of times I’ve asked myself those questions over and over and over again. I still don’t know the answer. Perhaps I lacked the courage to do so. Perhaps I didn’t want to “make it awkward.” Perhaps I didn’t respect myself enough to stop the situation, right then and there. I am realizing that the answers to the questions I’ve repeatedly asked myself over the past few months do not matter.
No means no. It does not mean later. It does not mean rephrase your question. It does not mean you can instead try to just a hit a home run because you couldn’t make it to second base.
Men can no longer be allowed to redefine “no.” They will guilt you until you give in and then become outraged and convince you it’s your fault. They will rape women like you and have fathers whose plea is asking if “20 minutes of action is really worth ruining” his precious son’s life. “No” is a complete sentence.
I saw the guy again in New York for a brief moment while at his job. In the deli around the corner, he asked if he could kiss me. I said no.
“Why?” he asked, “Is it because you don’t want to mess up your makeup?”
“No” still apparently is not good enough.
“Yeah,” I said, and left it like that.
I did not have the energy to yell. To explain to him that no is a complete sentence. That he shouldn’t even have asked in the first place. That doing so just might remind him of his male privilege and the alleged “revisionist history” he thought I attempted to create.
I am thankful that I don’t have physical scars from this. That I can still give birth and I didn’t have to take Plan B or that he didn’t forcibly make me have sex with him. I am not quite yet free of the guilt and remorse.
I think of women just like me whose “no”s were not good enough and instead turned into screams, cries for help, abortions, miscarriages or funerals. There is a particular burden we carry as women, one that can neither be fully articulated nor understood. That burden is called survival.
My name is Jade Brockman, and I am a survivor of sexual assault.
