Do I Have The Right To Call This Rape?

[dollroses]

-Long Post Ahead-

I've been lurking on this website for a while now, so I finally made an account and thought this place is safe enough for me to come clean.

Trigger warning: rape, alcohol

One afternoon I was hanging out with my best friend, who I'll call Sally. At the time I was 16, and she was 15. We were just hanging around doing nothing, and I was pretty bummed out. I have depression and I was just really down about being lonely. I wanted more opportunities to socialize and make friends. Then, I got a message on facebook from a 19 year old boy that was friends with an acquaintance of mine. I had met him only once. He messaged me telling me to go to the bowling ally and that a bunch of his friends would be there. I convinced my friend to come, and I was expecting to have a good time.
When my parents dropped us off at the bowling ally, there were only three people there. They were all guys. One was the 19 year old, who I'll call Evan, and his friend that goes to my school who was, I think, 17 at the time. I'll call him Rod. The other guy was one of their friends who was a stranger to me. I think he was around 16. I'll call him Zach.
Sally and I were not having a very good time. We didn't actually go bowling, we just stood around by the arcade and pool tables. It was kind of awkward and they didn't really seem like the type of people we'd hit it off with. They started making gross sexual comments to us, such as "Your breath is gonna smell like my dick in a minute". When Sally, who is more assertive than I, would say no, they'd call her a "feisty redhead". Evan, the 19 year old, kept whispering in my ear telling me to go out to his car with him to have sex. When I told him no, he'd say to me, "Why are you being such a bitch?". This happened more than once that night. They even kept grabbing me without my consent. They'd push me and grab my butt.
I didn't have my parents come pick me up because I still had some hope that I could just socialize and make more friends. I was feeling very lonely and isolated.
The 19 year old went out to his car for a little bit and came out with some alcohol. I wanted to drink. I, again, wanted to make friends. We all went into the bathroom and he poured half of a bottle of liquor into what was left of my soda. It was enough to make it taste disgusting. Sally and I were downing it. Zach, the 16 year old, wasn't drinking at all.
My memory gets kinda fuzzy around this time. I can't remember where the other two boys went, but it was just Zach (sober), Sally and I. As we were downing our drinks, he was talking to us about how he was "a good guy" and how we could "trust him" (which doesn't make sense because he was grabbing my butt without my permission that night). In a little bit, Sally and I were really, really drunk. We couldn't talk coherently and I was spilling the alcohol all over myself. My hands were covered in it and I got it on the table, on him, and the dress. I could barely even walk. I had been rejecting him all night when I was sober, but this time when he offered sex, Sally and I said yes. He knew exactly where to go. He walked ahead of us and brought us to the gazebo behind the bowling ally.
I don't really remember how it started happening, but he was on top of me and kissing me while Sally just sat there mumbling nonsense because she was drunk. Sally was on her period, so he didn't want to have sex with her, but she gave him a blowjob. So did I. Then he started having sex with me. And I know this part is kinda gross (I laugh at it to myself sometimes), but I feel it's necessary to add to show how drunk I was. I didn't have any control over my bodily functions, and I just farted really loudly. He kept going. I even farted again. He kept going and didn't make anything of it. He knew how drunk we were and how I could barely walk, speak, and I was spilling things on myself, but that too should've shown him how drunk I was and that he should stop.
Sally was just laying next to me while this was going on. I don't know if I didn't see this or didn't remember, (I know this because Sally told me the next morning) but Zach had taken off the condom and kept going. I didn't even feel a difference. After he was done, he brought us back inside the bowling ally. Sally and I were stumbling like 5 feet behind him and being really loud. I'm surprised and maybe kind of upset that no one else at the bowling ally said anything. Shortly my parents came and got us (at the time they said they would).
When Sally and I woke up the next morning, we were processing everything that just happened. I got a message from Zach saying "How's that hangover?". Sally and I immediately blocked all three of the guys that were there that night. Sally and I are feminists, so we're pretty knowledgeable on consent. We both know that someone can't consent when they're drunk, so she knew it was rape when she sobered up. I believe that too. I do feel for myself that it was rape. But my problem is, I see all sorts of stuff where people say instances like this are just "buyer's remorse", "just regretting it" etc. And it makes me feel terrible. I just kind of feel like I need validity from other people that what happened was rape. I know that in my state, legally someone cannot give consent when intoxicated, but it seems like a lot of people don't believe that...
I feel like I was taken advantage of. I was being sexually harassed, assaulted (the unwanted groping), and then when they brought in alcohol, one of the sober guys took advantage of it and had sex with me, even though we had been rejecting him all night. Because this is such a "gray area" I haven't really told anyone. Only a select few that I know I can trust. I am afraid to tell anyone else because what if they tell me that it's not rape? I feel like I really need support, but I doubt I would get it if I came out to anyone. But I want to see what people that know more about this subject think. Do you think I have the right to call what happened rape?

[Heather]

I'm glad you feel safe enough to bring this here.

I want to show you something you wrote so you can look at it again:

I was being sexually harassed, assaulted (the unwanted groping), and then when they brought in alcohol, one of the sober guys took advantage of it and had sex with me, even though we had been rejecting him all night.

See, to me, you sum up exactly what happened based on what you described. And nothing about that, or that as your assessment of this situation, strikes me as murky or unclear. I think you have accurately described exactly what happened here.

What do you feel like -- as one place we can start -- you need to feel more strong in that assessment? What do you think might give you more confidence in your own evaluation (which again, seems spot-on) of what occurred?

Also, when you read things like people using phrases like buyer's remorse and other such ignorant things, what do you feel like you need to emotionally -- since it sounds like you know better intellectually -- recognize those things as statements coming out of rape culture, and a rape-enabling way of thinking?

[dollroses]

What do you feel like -- as one place we can start -- you need to feel more strong in that assessment? What do you think might give you more confidence in your own evaluation (which again, seems spot-on) of what occurred?

Also, when you read things like people using phrases like buyer's remorse and other such ignorant things, what do you feel like you need to emotionally -- since it sounds like you know better intellectually -- recognize those things as statements coming out of rape culture, and a rape-enabling way of thinking?

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that sees this as rape. I think the stress that I'm feeling is because when I was drunk, I said yes. I feel like even my rapist doesn't know it was rape. I feel like most people wouldn't see it as rape. That just makes me feel so invalidated and scared to talk about it. To be honest I just feel like what would give me confidence is more support and validity. I've been looking around online to find stories that are similar and the person calls it rape, but I haven't really found any. I know I'm not the only one who has experienced a thing like this, but I feel like I'm the only one who is calling themself a rape victim because of it. It makes me kind of victim blame myself. I get to this cycle of calling what happened to me just "buyer's remorse" and that I should get over it. I feel like I don't have the right to call it rape because other people have gone through what seem to be much worse experiences.

It's weird because I don't really know what I need to do emotionally when people use those phrases and victim blame. When they say it about other people, I call them out and get angry. But I also internalize it and feel bad. I am very against victim blaming and I'm vocal about it, but I don't apply it when it comes to myself...

[Heather]

The thing is, legally and practically, someone drunk saying yes is meaningless because they are intoxicated and impaired. It might help to remember that "informed" is part of the picture of real consent, and we can't be informed when our brains are mush.

I disagree with you that most people would see...well, rape as rape. Not only is what you described here rape by federal and state law, all around, but understand that a lot of people who have been raped don't call it that for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with what something was, and more to do with where they're at in their own healing and dealing process, you know?

If it helps, I've told more than one person (by far) over the years that I find this idea of defining what was or wasn't trauma based on someone else's trauma or experiences busted. To me, one of the clearest illustrations of that is very personal: I have survived both the kind of rape that pretty much everyone unitlaterally says and agrees is, of course, rape (what Whoopi Goldberg in her maddening ignorance once called "rape-rape"), and so, so awful, and other kinds that don't fit that same experience. And yet, I know that I was raped more than once, and know that that one incident alone was not the only rape I survived, because what rape is is someone doing something sexual to or with you without your express and real consent, not just a group of people being overtly and intensely physically and sexually violent to a very young girl. I also know that I have had other kinds of trauma in my life which have been harder for me to heal from, so the idea that there is trauma that is universally "so bad" and others which are "not so bad," is not sound: how and what kind of trauma impacts all of us is very personal and varied, and no one can really say, save for themselves and about their own experiences, that one kind of trauma or one incident of trauma is 'worse" than another in a broad way.

So, I disagree with you: you calling your rape rape doesn't make that one assault of mine I am talking about, for instance, as I'd probably fall into that group you're taking about being concerned with stepping on, any less so or at all get in the way of my own healing and journey. Hope that helps you let go of that some, because I really think the only person whose healing that's going to get in the way of is your own.

You say you need some more support: have you yet sought out any before posting here? Have you looked into, for instance -- and are you open to doing so, if not -- counseling or support groups expressly for survivors? If not, would you like some help seeing what might be within reach for you?

[Heather]

I actually came back because I want to make as clear a statement about this as possible, given your topic title and the conversation. I just want to see what I can do to give you something strong and clear to support you in this.

You DO have the right to call a sexual assault whatever words for sexual assault are the words you want to use and that you feel best describe that experience.

In your case, the word -- rape -- you want to use matches up with most legal definitions, including current United States federal law. In other words, what happened to you would indeed be considered, by law alone, to be criminal behavior that is sexual assault/rape (which language is used legally is a little arbitrary).

But even if it did NOT, you would still have that right. Everyone has the right to use words to describe their own life experiences that they find most reflective of those experiences, and that they find to be the words they are most comfortable with or, even if they are not so comfortable, the right words to use.

I think it's important to remember too, that words are not indictments. While you would have been -- and still would be -- well within your rights to report these crimes, if that was something you wanted to do, you still would not be the person who is responsible for what happens after that. You lack the power as an individual, alone, to indict someone, to charge them with rape, to push this through the justice system. Your words here are for YOU, and for you to use to best reflect your experience and help you do what you need to to heal from it. The person your words with this have the most impact on -- and almost the only real impact on -- is only you. That's who they are for, so that's who to concern yourself with when choosing them.