I’m A Gay Man Who Was Raped
Writing that title was harder than I thought.
I figured telling my story would be the worst part. Or maybe publishing it. But that’s the fun thing about trauma. It always surprises you.
I think I first spoke out about sexual assault thanks to Trump. In a gross way, we can thank the Access Hollywood tape. When it came out, it took me two days to find the resolve to speak up. It was the first time I became aware of my own triggering.
A post of allyship, right? Maybe.
What only my two closest friends knew was that I posted that less than two weeks after I’d told them I’d been raped. It had just happened that summer.
I didn’t call it rape at the time. I didn’t call it anything. I still have trouble with that word. My therapist has used it a few times, and so have I, but it’s such a powerful, ugly word that attaching it to me is still sometimes crushing.
I told my friends what happened after the first presidential debate. I’d watched it with them in their home. When I was done, I cried for the next hour while they sat on each side of me and held me.
It still infuriates me that people I know, people I may be related to, may have been friends with, voted for Trump even after hearing him explain with his own voice that he was a sexual predator.
I try to be understanding, but if I’m being honest, that’s something I can never forgive them for. I will always, in some way, hate them for it.
When it comes to sexual assault, anger and hate come hand-in-hand with shame and fear.
When that tape was released, my assault was still a fresh wound. What I wrote… that was all I could handle.
Now that wound has scarred over. It still tears open from time to time, but I can handle that. I’ve learned that through the tears, the panic attacks, the nightmares. And now that I’ve gotten to that point, I need to say…
This happens to guys. It happens to your friend, your cousin, your nephew, your brother, your son. You. Me. It happens more often than we admit. And that makes talking about it so much harder. Before we can even get to our stories, we have to ease people through the realization that this could even happen to us.
So let’s talk about this. I’ll start. I’ll share my story. All of it. There’s a lot I’ve got to say. A lot that I’ve felt. A lot that I worry and think about.
Hopefully it’ll reach someone who’s struggling with the same thing and let them know they aren’t alone. There are people out there who understand your pain and anger and all the turmoil of emotions you’re fighting.
It’s okay. I promise.
The Day It Happened
Summer 2016
Yes, I know the exact date. No, I don’t want to share it. I just learned it this year as I dug through old messages with friends.
Before that, all I knew was the year — 2016 — and the season — summer. In June, I mourned the Pulse shooting. In November, I went numb at the election of a sexual predator. Bookends to a miserable summer.
There are many people who’ve been assaulted who won’t be able to tell you the exact date. Do not ever try using it to poke holes in their story. I had an electronic trail to follow. Others don’t. Most probably don’t want one. I know I’d rather not have an “anniversary.”
But I remember that day. I remember going into the city with a friend to meet another friend at a bar. It was after his kickball game.
I remember the subway getting stuck on the way up to the bar, the car filling with brake smoke that smelled like the valve oil I used as a kid playing in the band. I remember that we got off as soon as it reached the next stop, walking the rest of the way.
I remember so much up until we made it to the bar. Then I run into a haze. I’m not sure if that’s alcohol or my mind trying to protect me.
When I think about what happened in abstract terms, I’m fine. It happened, I survived. I’m… if not stronger for it, I think it’s given more weight to who I am.
But if I try to brush away the haze to focus on the details, I get uncomfortable. And if I push hard enough, I get twitchy. My heart speeds up. My body panics.
It’s happening right now as I push through the odd mix of fuzzy moments and details seared into my memory. There’s that head twitch I run into when my mind hits something it doesn’t want to deal with.
I know I had been drinking, but I don’t remember having that many. I thought about that later in the day when it was over. When did I get that drunk?
It was the middle of the afternoon. Outside was sunny and bright; a warm summer Saturday.
The friends I’d gone to hang out with were… somewhere else in the bar. I was at a table with some folks I don’t particularly remember. Friends of my friends. I think I’d mostly just met them. Doing anything but sitting was difficult. The bar owner had come by a couple times to talk to us.
I don’t remember his conversations other than feeling that he was interested in me. I didn’t feel the same. Did I act like I was? Was it my fault?
I don’t know how many times he was at the table. The last time he stopped by, he grabbed my arm and led me away, saying something about getting me another drink. Why did we walk past the bar?
When I realized we’d gone into a storage room, I remember slurring out that I didn’t think there were drinks back there. I wasn’t being funny. I was confused.
I remember the dark walls, the dim lighting, the tables and chairs stacked behind me to make room for the crowds out in the light. The door was out of reach behind the man who’d led me in there. He stayed there until he was done.
For a long time, I hated myself for not getting out of there. I let it happen. Guys don’t get raped. It’s something that only happens when someone holds you down as you kick and scream and fight. I didn’t do that.
It was my fault. I did this to myself.
At the time, though, my soaked brain had a hard time keeping up with what was happening. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be with him.
I couldn’t pull my spinning head together enough to figure out what to do.
One thing I remember thinking was to let him know at one point that I was drunk. Really drunk. I couldn’t stand without putting a hand on the wall for support.
That was fine, he told me, he was drunk too.
I don’t think I believed him, but looking back, I also think he knew exactly what I was trying to say. And he was telling me my concerns weren’t important. It was fine. Just go with it.
Did he kiss me? That’s a detail I’ve never been able to recall. That thought disgusts me more than anything else.
I tried forcing myself to remember not too long ago. I was in the shower. Then I was back in that room. Then my arm was sore from where my panicked body had thrown itself against the wall.
When he was done, he slipped out the door and left me to get myself together, telling me to stay in the room a bit before leaving. We didn’t want anyone to see us together.
When I finally left, I told myself nothing had happened. It was a hookup. Find your friends, be normal. Don’t think about it. If you don’t think about it long enough, you won’t remember it. I felt dirty and wrong. I didn’t need the embarrassment.
The thing that I didn’t understand was that it wasn’t embarrassment that had hooked into me; it was shame.
I found my friends, or one of them? I’m not entirely sure. We left eventually. I didn’t see him again. I haven’t seen him since he walked out of that door. I don’t plan to ever change that.
I hate him so goddamn much.
People have tried to encourage me to let go of some of that, move past it, rationalize it down. And maybe I will some day. But I kind of hope I don’t.
Because whenever I question myself, I go back to that lie as he pulled me into the room. I go back to how he told me to hide there after he left.
What he did wasn’t a mistake. He made a conscious decision to go after someone he was attracted to at a moment when that person seemed least likely to resist.
I’ve learned that even if I don’t think I’m visibly drunk, friends and total strangers can tell within seconds of interacting with me. He runs a bar. I have no doubt that he’s learned to judge intoxication levels very, very well.
I go back to those things and my rage flares up again.
He can burn in hell.
The Aftermath
Later in the day, my mind finally caught up with the world. A friend and I were standing in line in a McDonald’s when reality came back into focus. Like a switch had been turned on, I realized I was fully aware of where I was and what was happening for the first time in hours.
A New York City McDonald’s is a hell of a place for a return to awareness.
But once my brain started back up, it tried shutting down what had happened. Push it away. Nothing happened. Don’t think about it and it’ll go away.
It stayed with me the next day at the beach; a darkness lurking in the back of my mind that I had to consciously hold at bay in the sun of a summer day.
It stayed with me all summer. I told myself I was intentionally upsetting myself by thinking of it. I was making it worse than it was. Bigger than it was. It was stupid.
It wasn’t until the end of September that I wore down enough to open up to friends. It sounds ridiculous to say I didn’t realize how traumatizing it was, but… I didn’t.
I finally realized something was wrong when I thought about it almost every day of my life, and that thought made me want to crawl into the shower and scrub myself bloody.
I shared after the debate only because my friends were in front of me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I paced for a time in their kitchen before I could start. Now they check in with me if they notice me pacing. It’s sweet. That day wasn’t sweet.
That day I cried and they hugged. They tried taking the blame for not watching out for me. It wasn’t their fault in any way.
And even once I decided to tell them, I still didn’t understand how much it hurt until I opened my mouth. I hadn’t spoken about it before then. I hadn’t cried before then. Emotions I didn’t know tumbled out with those words and with them…
Sharing my story had unlocked something in me that I’d been holding at bay. I had a nightmare a few nights after. In it, I had been locked naked in a car trunk. Some nameless dream captor opened it and pulled me out.
He had a sledgehammer.
When I refused to have sex with him, he hurt me. And I felt it. I felt every limb he shattered. He asked me after breaking each one whether I‘d reconsidered.
It’s one of a handful of nightmares that’ll stay with me until the day I die. Some dreams are hard to figure out. That one, not so much.
Moving Forward
Spoiler Alert: This is not where I tell you everything was suddenly rainbows and kittens. Life was different.
At first, I made a couple attempts to go out with the friends I told. Then I didn’t. It wasn’t a conscious choice. I just… stopped going with them if they went anywhere.
Again, I didn’t realize how traumatized I was. I didn’t even understand at first that I was scared to go out. I think my friends realized before I did. They never pushed me, but eventually I caught on and pushed myself.
It took a good half a year after the assault for that.
It took a good deal longer before I would let myself have more than a drink or two. And I did not let at least one of my friends out of my sight for more than a few moments. That lasted… a long time. It’s still a relief to know where they are.
They did their best to re-acclimate me and support my healing, but it wasn’t easy. Going out has been forever changed.
Trauma doesn’t just fade away in a straight line. It took time to learn and accept that. I’d make progress, think I was back to “normal,” then something would happen and I’d stop going out again.
It’s happened when I’ve lost track of my friends.
It’s happened after trying to force myself to be okay with kissing a guy in a bar.
It’s happened when someone’s been too aggressive, or hasn’t listened to my discomfort, or when a bar’s atmosphere doesn’t feel safe, or when the Me Too movement took off.
Sometimes it’s lasted months, sometimes less. Eventually I move on and start trying again, but it’s still frustrating.
There have been times I’ve arrived at a bar before anyone else I knew got there, only to circle around the block over and over until a friendly face finally showed. I’d then pretend that I was just arriving.
Sometimes I would have full-blown panic attacks. Sometimes they would be something more.
I ended Pride the following year crying in my friends’ apartment. I’d gotten too close to the bar where it happened. I saw the doors and froze on the street corner. I couldn’t even let anyone know I was leaving. I didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t going to be there.
I was proud of myself for not literally running away. I was proud of myself for holding it together as I walked to my friends’ apartment. I was upsetting myself for no reason. Just calm down, it wasn’t that big a deal.
When I got to my friends’, though… I don’t know if it was the relief of seeing someone who knew what I was going through, or the safety of the apartment, but I couldn’t hold it together any longer.
It wasn’t just fear, or panic. Not that they’re just anything, but that night, everything I’d been holding in over the past year came pouring out again. I cried in front of my friends just like I’d cried when I first shared my story.
In those moments, it feels like the tears won’t ever stop. It feels like there’s nothing you can do to get them to ever stop. It’s a wave that crests over you, and all you can do is hold on and wait for it pass, feeling like it’ll drown you at any moment. But it doesn’t drown you. And it does pass.
Sometimes you just have to get through it.
I hate that I’ve spilled so many tears over this man, but that Pride wasn’t anywhere close to the last time it happened.
Hating Myself
For years my friends encouraged me to join them playing kickball. I told them I didn’t want to. That wasn’t entirely true.
The excuses I gave them weren’t lies, but a huge part of my resistance came from what had happened. The league they played on was insanely social. Joining kickball meant going to events without them by my side. It meant venturing out on my own. It meant alcohol and bars and meeting new people.
I couldn’t do it. But I wanted to.
I wanted to feel like I belonged and wasn’t just a tag-along. I wanted to be a part of a community instead of just following my friends along in it, afraid to join.
It took years to push past that fear. Years I feel like were forever lost. Years that make me hate the man who pulled me back into that room even more.
When I finally did join, I still stuck by my friends when I could, but I started pushing myself to venture out on my own more.
But whenever the socializing moved to the bar, I would make some excuse and disappear. And it moved to the bar a lot. Everyone loved it. I. Fucking. Hate. It.
But I couldn’t speak up. I couldn’t face it. I wanted to meet new people, but they couldn’t know what happened to me.
Navigating the triggers, the panic attacks, the fear? That’s just one part of life after assault. There’s also the shame, the humiliation. There’s feeling small and weak.
I still struggled with feeling that I let it happen. That it was all my fault. That I was letting it bother me. That I was making it bigger than it was. People had been through far worse than me. Stop whining, stop crying, stop panicking. Don’t let people know what a cheap, weak little fag you are.
If I was treating myself like this, how could I expect others to be any kinder? They weren’t in that room with me. They didn’t hate that man with every bit of themselves. They loved going to his bar.
Get over it. Get over it. Get over it.
Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Until you can’t.
Finding My Voice
I wish I could say there was a magic moment that healed me. There wasn’t. I don’t know that I’m healed. I think I might be forever healing.
I do know that talking about it helped.
I’d started therapy the summer of 2019. But that fall was still rough.
The bar seemed to be everywhere. Every week. Every person I met. Every conversation I had. I’d thought I was doing better, but it just kept hitting me over and over and over again.
I cried at my friends’ after half our kickball games while the rest of the league was out living their lives. I’d start the day feeling good, having fun, then everyone would move to the bar. I’d freeze and run off.
I felt cut out of the world I was just starting to feel comfortable in. I felt helpless, frustrated, tired. I was so goddamn tired.
That’s when an idea lodged in my head and refused to budge. So I pushed myself again.
And I shared what happened on Facebook.
It was a (much) shorter version of it than this. I didn’t use the word “rape.” And I hid it from a number of people, including those whose grief at learning what had happened would be too much for me to handle.
I just about had a panic attack when I hit “post.” I couldn’t check the post for hours.
But the support I got from sharing my story made me stronger. It was amazing. It made me realize that I want this topic to come to light. I want to share my story so others understand it and me better.
If you’ve been reading through this, thinking this is is the part where I name names and places, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Though it is something I agonize over.
Was I his only prey, or has he hurt others? Were there others in that room with him who wanted to be there? Who didn’t? Before me? After? Will there be more? Should I tear his fucking world down? I don’t know the answer to these questions.
Telling my story is one thing, but naming him, the bar, putting it into writing? That opens me up to something I don’t know if I can handle. His attention. Attacks against me. Attacks from people who love the bar and don’t want anyone “ruining” it.
And what if, that tiny part of me still whispers, I’m the one who’s to blame?
I feel like a coward saying all that.
I think about this a lot. I have had dark, dark dreams about it. About how I’m the only one who can save people being hurt, being held against their will. Made to do things they don’t want to. When I wake up, I can still hear their screams.
But I can’t, I’m sorry. Not right now. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know where I’ll be. I don’t know where that bar will be, especially these days.
Doing this is all I can handle right now. I know soon I’m going to have to push through my fear and hit that “Publish” button. I’m still terrified of the next step, and sharing this with my loved ones. Letting them know that this is a crucial part of who I am.
But this needs to be talked about more.
I’ve gone through this. I’m going through this. I know others have gone through this too, especially in the gay community. And that’s something I want to get into more in another article. But for now, this has to be enough.
If anything like this has happened to you, you don’t have to share your story with the whole world, but talking about it at all makes a huge difference.
And if you aren’t ready to share it yet, that’s okay. Just as it’s okay to break down. It’s okay to panic. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel angry and helpless and scared and weak. You aren’t weak. You’re a survivor. You’re okay. And you’ll make it through. You aren’t alone.
I can’t promise that it’ll all go away eventually. I don’t know if that’s true for me, but I doubt it. But so what? We learn, in time, that we can handle it. Every day, I’m reclaiming my autonomy, my body, my sexuality in ways I’m still figuring out.
I’m wounded, scarred, still full of anger, still, a small part of me, ashamed, but I’m still here, and I’m fighting back.
