I was 19 years old and in the military. I met a guy on Tinder and after a few days of talking he invited me over to his house one night, so I went. He led me upstairs and into his bedroom. He had LED strip lights close to his ceiling, so the whole room was illuminated red. Although I wondered if we might sleep together, I had not gone into the encounter expecting any particular thing to happen. We laid in his bed and watched T.V., I think Ozark or Yellowstone was playing. He started kissing me and stuck his hand up my shirt. I immediately felt uncomfortable, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want him to be upset at me or think I was a tease. After some time he slid his hand down my chest and stomach and into my pants. He started touching me between my legs, and I knew I didn't want to go farther with him so I pulled his hand out of my pants and let it rest on my stomach. Immediately he pushed his hand back into my pants and started touching me again. I froze, I was so scared, and I felt like I was watching everything happen outside of my body. I don't know how much time passed before I was able to move. When I could I jumped up, grabbed my purse and jacket off of a stand he had by his bedroom door and ran downstairs. I threw on my shoes and ran out to my car, locking the doors immediately. I spent the entire drive back to my dorm terrified that he was going to follow me home. That was the first time I was sexually assaulted. I didn't have any family who lived in the area, or close to it. I was knew to the base so I didn't really have any friends yet. I felt so extremely alone. I felt like I did not have anyone to tell or talk to about what happened. After the assault my life began to spiral out of control. I became hypersexual, putting myself in situations that could quickly become dangerous. I got drunk every single weekend, and sometimes drank on week nights. I did reckless things like driving 120mph down the highway at night. I contemplated killing myself, but I was too scared to do it, so I fixated on doing things that could result in an accident that could kill me. After a few months I began to get my act together again when I met a guy who worked in the same building as me. He had lots of friends, everyone at work loved him, he got countless awards and praise, he was into fitness, and seemed like the kind of person I needed in my life. I desperately wanted him to like me, and I could see a future where we were a great couple, going to the gym and hiking together, doing all the things "functional" couples do. One evening he was in my dorm room and we were laying in my bed talking. He asked me if I wanted to have sex with him, and I shyly told him no. He asked me again to have sex with him and I told him I didn't want to because I thought I had a yeast infection (a lie.) Ignoring my concern, he asked me a third time if I would have sex with him. I didn't know what else to do so I told him that we shouldn't have sex because I thought I had chlamydia (another lie.) He looked me in the eyes and told me "it's a risk I'm willing to take." I felt so weird about this, and I told him that we should because I would feel so bad if I gave him "chlamydia" to which he finally relented. He stayed late, so I let him spend the night in my dorm. For context, my dorm room was one of four that had one shared wall, so sometimes you could hear my quad-mate next to me playing videogames loudly. I was woken up in the middle of the night by the guy punching the wall and screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP," at my quad-mate who was apparently playing videogames too loudly for him to sleep. He hit that wall so hard it shook a painting off my wall. This terrified me. I had been lying right next to him, and the fact that he could go from zero to screaming and hitting things over something so little was scary. After that things started to shift between us. He became increasingly more controlling, wanting me to spend the night at his dorm every night and driving me to work in the mornings. He had a pushiness about him, and even if I didn't do anything wrong conversations always came back around to how I was a bad person, how I was wrong, or something was my fault. He made me feel like the worst person ever. Like I was a negative, dark cloud over people's lives, and I was mean, and the choices I made were inherently wrong or bad. There was a general pressure for us to have sex that I tried to subdue by making out with him, or I even went as far to blow him to get him to stop pressuring me to have sex with him. The day I was raped, we were in his dorm, sitting on his mattress on the floor. He began kissing me, and I kissed him back. He took off my shirt and pants and started kissing my chest and touching it more sexually. The feeling of him kissing and sucking on my chest made me feel so physical, viscerally ill, I desperately wanted him to stop. I abruptly interrupted him, saying "stop, stop, I don't like that." He stopped, looked at me in such an unkind way, and asked me why. I said I didn't know why. He asked me again why I didn't like it. I said I don't know, I just didn't like it and it made me feel weird. He looked at me critically, he looked upset, before he moved quickly down to put his head between my legs. I didn't know what to do. I was scared that he would be upset at me and he would be mad at me and tell me more awful things about myself. I was also scared that he might get angry and physically hurt me. He was much stronger than me and had all his clothes on still, I only had underwear on. I didn't know what to do, I tried to ask him to stop and nothing happened, so I thought that I could minimize the damage if I just went along with what he was doing. If I just had sex with him he would stop pressuring me and bugging me about it. He would still like me if I had sex with him, and we could still have a relationship. So I just gave up, and gave in. I didn't resist or ask him to stop again. In my head I tried to think of anything that could take me away from what was happening. But I couldn't ignore the fact that it hurt when he pushed into me, or that he wasn't wearing a condom, or that he finished inside of me.

I confronted my rapist. I called him in my therapist's office, and the call went nothing like I expected. Almost immediately he started crying, escalating to the point where he told me he was "having an emotional breakdown." He kept saying he was sorry, but he wouldn't say what for, he was just "sorry." When I asked him why he did it all he could say was "I wish it hadn't happened," and when I asked him again he gave me the same answer. He kept stating that he felt that I was "giving him mixed signals" throughout the entire encounter. Conveniently his tears would stop and start throughout certain points in the conversation, and the entire conversation kept coming back to him. At one point he asked me, "do you want to know what I thought about everything?" On top of everything he took on a weird role of telling me my feelings are valid, and saying I could call him in the future if it would be cathartic for me to talk to him. I could really dive into the conversation and make all these points about how he was being manipulative, centering the conversation around him, and more, but I don't think it's worth it. I think there is a certain point in time where picking apart the conversation is only proving a fact I already know: he is not a good person. He raped me because he only cares about himself and getting what he wants, there's nothing else to it. If there are any readers that have similar experiences with a *somewhat* non-violent, more coercive rape and you get a chance to confront your rapist there are some things you should keep in mind. 1. Anyone telling you that you were giving "mixed signals," knows what they did was wrong. Anything other than an enthusiastic, clear "yes" is a "no." A mixed signal is a "no," and there is logically a reason why it was a mixed signal- because you were too scared to say no, or because your no wasn't respected, resulting in a forced (unwanted) "yes." 2. Prepare yourself for any number of reactions, and really understand what you want out of the encounter prior to going into it. If you have a therapist, absolutely discuss doing this prior to doing it, for your safety and health. 3. Do not let your rapist make you doubt your experiences. They might not admit to what they did or make excuses, it does not mean you are wrong. If you are like me, your body knows what a consensual sexual encounter feels like and what a nonconsensual one feels like. Your body knows what happened wasn't consensual- trust it! 4. Do not expect this to be a quick fix for your symptoms. Having that conversation with my rapist reduced the amount of fear I feel around him/his name/places I went with him, etc. (With medication) I can better tolerate being in places that remind me of him, but I still struggle with PTSD symptoms, anxiety, depression, self harm thoughts, and my eating disorder brain. Calling them will not solve your eating disorder, it will not take away your desire to die, or the jumpiness. It will create small changes that will eventually lead to big changes, but this is NOT a quick fix, and you might feel worse afterwards. There is so much more I could say, but I think theses are the most important things right now. If you do confront your rapist, be proud of yourself. You might not feel it, but that is an insanely difficult thing to do. It takes a lot of strength and courage.