What I Learnt About Consent - The Hard Way
By Abby Davidson
Trigger Warning: This article will discuss a specific person’s experiences with sexual assault and trauma. This may be triggering to readers with similar experiences.
As a woman, living in a world where my body is objectified and sexualised daily, experiences of harassment, misogynistic comments and opinions about my body aren’t unusual, and sadly have become part of my, and many of my friends, daily experiences. Despite this fact of womanhood, I rather naively believed that I’d never be sharing a story like this.
I have always been painfully aware of how many people I know who have been victims of non-consensual sexual harassment and assault. It is conservatively estimated by the UK Parliament that 49 % percent of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. If you are reading this in a crowded room and you have not personally experienced any form of harassment, look to your left then to your right someone you see will have.
Although I have always been aware of the scale of this problem, until a few months ago I had never directly known what that felt like. That all changed in my final year of university.
The incident
Editors note - Should you believe that a description of sexual assault could risk triggering you. It is possible to skip to the next section.
I’d arranged to go and see a man who I’d be seeing somewhat regularly for a while at his flat. He was a fellow student at Queen’s and I trusted and felt safe with him having already had some consensual and fun interactions with him in the weeks before.
For the several hours I spent with him that evening everything was fine and consensual, and he let me stay the night as it was easier than travelling back home.
At some point during the night, I was woken up by some movement beside me. At first, I was confused as I was still half asleep and thought that he must just be restless in his sleep. I was lying on my side facing away from him, so I decided to stay still and quiet.
I started to feel strange once I realised the movement was continuing and it was repetitive. I suddenly realised what was happening. He was masturbating beside me.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I was frozen to my spot, afraid to look over or move in case he knew I was awake. The uncomfortable feeling deep in my stomach is something I will never be able to forget.
It seems to last forever, but in reality, it must have only been a few minutes. When he finished, he got up, went into the bathroom for a minute to presumably ‘clean up’ since I never heard him use the toilet, before coming back to bed. It was as if nothing had happened, he even cuddled me until I fell asleep again.
The next morning, I thought about confronting him. But a mixture of fear and uncertainty led me to leave it and I pushed the experience to the back of my mind.
The Aftermath
In hindsight I realise how problematic many of our sexual interactions were, both before and after this incident. More times than not, I was appearing at his place under the influence of alcohol, and he was more than willing to engage in any sexual activity during these times.
On one of these occasions, I was drunk to the point that I remember him remarking about how he was worried I was going to pass out on his floor. Despite this he willingly slept with me. It’s important to note that he was completely sober on most of these nights. This should have been a huge warning sign.
It was weeks after the initial incident when what happened really started to sink in. Our sexual relationship had ended, and I started to realise that some of the things that happened were not okay.
I shared my experience with several friends. All of them reacted with horror and one of them said ‘it sounds like he assaulted you’.
In my mind I struggled to accept that. From what I could remember he had never forced me to do anything, or touched me without my permission, so how could it be assault?
I started to research whether what happened was legally assault. No definition I could find included my experience. Although that didn’t change the fact that the act was non-consensual and that I was an unwilling participant in it, it did make me even more confused about what I should do next.
After a while I, perhaps stupidly in the middle of a heated conversation, decided to tell him that I knew what happened. His response was very defensive, saying that he would never do such a thing, that it was an awful thing for me to say and that I was making it up to make him feel bad about the end of our situation because I was hurt. He quickly blocked me on all platforms and made it impossible for me to contact him again.
My first reaction was to feel guilty. I even considered writing him an apology letter to say that I must have got it wrong and that it was all in my head. What was even more confusing was that I didn’t feel hatred towards him. I even missed him. This wasn’t how I felt like I should feel towards someone who’d assaulted me.
It took me several days to digest everything that had happened. I had given him so much emotional and mental power over me that I was doubting my own memory, but things eventually started to become clearer when I discussed the conversation with some friends.
‘Whether he was guilty or not, he was never going to admit to doing it’, one said. Another noted, ‘if he wasn’t guilty, he didn’t need to block you’, continuing, ‘why would you make it up, or why would you think it happened if it didn’t’.
Their comments made me realise that of course it was all real. I had to trust my own experiences and feelings. What happened was not my fault and I shouldn’t have been made to feel that it was. It was never in my head.
In the aftermath, the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I struggled to sleep, my appetite was all over the place, I felt constantly nauseous and on the verge of tears. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body.
Even now I’m far more on-edge and wary of people in public, especially men, and I’m absolutely terrified of running into him. There are places that I associate with him that I just don’t feel comfortable going to anymore. What’s worse is that so many people I know are connected to him and there’s nothing I can say or do about it.
After several weeks of emotional turmoil I came to the realisation that I needed to reach out for emotional support so I contacted Victim Support NI. They gave me an appointment to go in and speak to them about my experience. It was here that I was truly hit by the reality of what happened.
After speaking about the things that happened during our relationship and the recounting the times when I was clearly unable to give my consent because of how drunk I was, the staff member said, ‘I know you aren’t using the word rape here, but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s what happened to you.’
That was what made me realise that this was about so much more than that one ‘incident’, he repeatedly took advantage of my vulnerable state and he wasn’t stupid, he knew what he was doing.
An overdue conversation
This is why I decided to tell my story. Consent is far more complex than just the act of penetrative sex. Any form of sexual act that someone exposes you to without your consent is wrong and you have every right to feel that.
I’m not the only one who’s had something like this happen to me. It hurts me to say that I couldn’t count on my fingers the number of students I know who have been victims of sexual assault or harrassment and many of them at the hands of other students, some of whom were in positions of authority.
The consent conversation is one that we need to be having right now and it’s one that Queen’s University and Student’s Union need to prioritise. Many other universities have taken measures to tackle the issue, such as introducing mandatory consent classes for all students or a consent test.
The current system of reporting and support at Queen’s is also severely lacking. Where in this system is the university listening to the stories of students? It appears that it’s more about collecting data than helping people deal with their trauma. It’s simply not good enough and we deserve better.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can find support and resources at any of these services:
Domestic and Sexual Abuse 24/7 helpline
0808 802 1414
Nexus NI
028 9032 6803
The Rowan
24/7 Freephone Helpline: 0800 389 4424
Victim Support NI
Belfast: 028 9024 3133
Derry-Londonderry: 028 7137 0086
https://www.victimsupportni.com
Editors note: If you have had a similar experience and want your story to be told. Create a burner email (or using your own email address if you are comfortable) and contact the Scoops dedicated email address, thescoophotline@gmail.com to force this conversation.