did my boyfriend rape me? (or am i overreacting?)

[himawariuu]

hi everyone,
im new to this, very new. and im really scared about sharing my story, because i feel like it’s not important or im just overreacting. im hoping maybe this could help me seek closure for either.

it’s quite long, so if you stay to read, i personally thank you.

it was back in May 2018, I started dating a guy who was 19 and in the military (or training I should say) at the time. I was 17 year old junior in high school. we met through a mutual friend, and everything was good. his base was about an hour away from where I lived, and my parents agreed that we would pick him up every friday to have him stay for the weekend and drop him back off at his base that sunday evening. it would be like that all summer so we could be together. it started off really well, my parents liked him. he was kind, sweet, anything you would want in a boyfriend. being a sneaky teenager i was, i snuck him from the living room couch to sleep with me on my bed on those weekends, my parents scolded me for it of course. but they said it was fine as long as the door was all the way open. we never did anything at first, it was my first real relationship after all and i was a virgin too. my first experience of being uncomfortable with him is when he brought up if I was a virgin or not, i told him i was. and he reacted.. what’s the word? prideful? excited? he kept talking about how he couldn’t believe he would be the one to take my virginity, i played it off but was very clear i was NOT interested in sex and if i wanted to be sexual, i needed time and to take it slow. he said he understood.
it’s about a month now into the relationship and we decided to go to a drive in movie for our date that night (natural set up for a couple, i know) so we go. the movie is playing and we were actually in the front seats of my car, not the back. i was wearing shorts and a long shirt, and I had my legs placed up on the dashboard. he placed his hand on my thigh and started caressing it and getting closer to.. well, you know. I’ll spare the details, but we ended up leaving early to find a secluded road. turned off the car, and got in the back. it was going fine and as couples do, he was on top on me and asked if he could go inside me. in my mind, i was hesitant. i really did not feel ready for sex, but i said yes (we had a condom). after a few minutes of him trying, i kept telling him to stop because it hurt so much. i started to cry because of how bad the pain was, he held me close to his chest and told me “it’s okay, you’ll do this because you love me.” and he went inside of me, even tho i told him to stop. there wasn’t anything i could do. i just laid there in the back of my car, bloody (down there), and tears streaming from my face. i wasn’t moaning, he probably thought i was. but it was grunts of pain. after it was over, he was very happy. i just felt numb, but i plastered on a fake smile and laugh to go along with him. but with that drive home, i was hurting. but i didn’t think it was rape, your boyfriend CANT rape you, right? i said yes, but.. then no. i pushed it in the back of my mind.

it got worse. he started to abuse me mentally. when we were out at night and he asked for sex and i said no (multiple times) he slammed his fist on my dashboard and i flinched. he mocked me like he was going to hit me. and what did i do so he would stop? have sex. in the back of my car. while he had the time of his life, it would feel meaningless, almost wrong for me. he got upset/mad almost EVERY time i said no to sex. there was maybe one time i actually wanted to and enjoyed the sex out of our entire time together. one night, he brought a bottle of jack and a whole box of condoms and said “we’re finishing this whole box tonight.”
when i say we had sex, i don’t mean once that whole weekend he would be over. it would be multiple times everyday. in the morning, evening, night. just so he wouldn’t be mad. i would wake up to him having his hand in my underwear and him wanting sex.
one morning he woke me up at 6 am wanting sex. i denied it, i was tired (i was tired all the time during sex, i hated it) and he got mad. very mad. he told me i didn’t love him, that “I was being such a bitch” and tht sex was a stress reliever for me and i should know that. i cried as he went back to bed, angry. he woke up angry, and then we some how ended up having make up sex just so he would be happy.

we broke up that october, he was the one to break up with me. and when he did i cried a lot that night, but I felt... relief? i felt like a weight had been lifted off of me.

the sex thing had always bothered me. i never thought about it until i saw so many people with a similar situation come out. but i always thought, “no, it’s my fault. i didn’t say no” or “im not a victim, i let him” but it truly terrifies me that I look back on how he treated me and how much he used me only for a sexual outlet.

i let someone I would come to know i didn’t love, inside of me.

was all of this sexual assault, abuse, rape?? what is it? am i wrong?

im sorry if you’ve read this far, but again, i personally thank you for your time.

thank you again,

h.

[Mo]

Hi himawariuu, welcome to Scarleteen. I'm glad you found us, and that you felt up for telling your story here. It sounds like it was hard to write about, but thanks for trusting us enough to share it here.

I think the most important thing I can say here is that you aren't overreacting at all by being upset about what your ex did to you, or for wondering if this was abuse or rape. From what you've described here, it sounds like the entirety of your sexual relationship was built on abuse and on him sexually assaulting you. It sounds like he did a few different things; he ignored you when you said you weren't interested in sex, when you asked him to stop, when you were clearly in pain. He used threats, anger, and coercion to get you to agree to sex sometimes, but "consent" obtained under these circumstances isn't true consent at all.

It sounds like you're doubing yourself because you didn't say no every time, or you allowed it to happen, but it sounds to me like you did make it clear, several times, that you didn't want sex or wanted him to stop, and he chose to ignore that and to use intimidation to make you afraid to push back too hard. I'm really sorry that he chose to do that to you, but these violations were all choices he made; you didn't cause any of this to happen by not asking him to stop in the "perfect" way. Unfortunately, I think this is a person who just didn't care at all about whether you were consenting or not. I'm glad that you're not longer in a relationship and have been able to get some distance from him.

If it helps to read about what we mean when we talk about consent, and what sort of conversations & consideration needs to happen for sex to truly be consensual, this article may be helpful to read when you have some time to sit down with it: Driver's Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent. It might even be useful to look at that and think about how much of these guidelines for navigating sexual consent your former partner completely ignored or actively acted against.

How else can we support you right now?

[Amanda F]

Hi himawariuu,

Thanks for bravely sharing what happened to you. Talking about these kinds of experiences can be really difficult.

Mo is right. You aren't overreacting; your partner coerced you into sex. (Even boyfriends can do that. You aren't ever obligated to have sex just because you're in a relationship). And - importantly - none of this was your fault. Not even a little bit.

You have the right, and deserve, to have sex only when you want to. You deserve to have sex that doesn't hurt. You deserve to have sex that you feel safe and comfortable having, without any pressure from your partner. You deserve to have sex that is enjoyable and pleasurable. All of these were true before, and will be for the rest of your life.

I was wondering whether you've had a chance to speak with a counselor or therapist about what happened to you? If you'd be comfortable doing that, it could be helpful to discuss (confidentially) how you're feeling, and what you'd like to do going forward. In the meantime, RAINN has some wonderful resources for survivors of sexual assault, including a hotline you can call 24/7 for support.