Let's Talk About...

I realize this post is really disjointed and unorganized, more so then usual for me, but this has been very hard for me to write.

I want to talk about rape.

I want to talk about why we think it's okay to joke about something that's so... I can't even find the right word. Oppressive? It just doesn't seem to cut it.

I want to talk about the perception that it's always this incredibly violent activity that leaves bruises and scarring, that means a week long hospital visit.

But how? How can I talk about this?

Of course, just open my mouth right? Or rather let my fingers do the talking for me in the context that this is a blog.

But I can't. I can't because I can't find the words to do so. Maybe because of my own perceptions and misconceptions of what rape is, I have a problem admitting that I was.

I can't tell you how troubling it was for me to just write that now, the knot that curled up in my stomach when I said it made me want to hurl.

I have been a sexually active man for 10 years now, but I probably shouldn't have been. I was young, and I was naive, and someone really took advantage of those things when I was 17. Someone that I never should have known in the first place.

It wasn't violent, there was no physical force involved. But in the situation I was in, I felt like if I hadn't gone down on him, that I was going to get left on the side of some random country road, without a way to get home.

He even told me that the reason he took me out there was because he wanted to be my first. This guy that I didn't know.

Why did I get in his car in the first place? Because I didn't want the first gay person I had ever met to think poorly of me, I didn't want him to think I was young and stupid. I wanted to be mature and worldly.

I'm so angry, to this day I am angry. Angry that I put myself in that situation, angry that i got in his car. Angry that I met some 36 year old man off the internet for coffee. Angry that I did this to myself. Angry that this asshole thought it was okay to relive his youth, by taking away part of mine.

When I got home I threw up for about an hour, I took a bath so hot that I could barely get in, and I cried for the rest of day, and I actually slept in my closet that night.

I'm angry that I convinced myself that what had happened was all my idea, and thought it was cool that I had had sex. I am angry that I started havng sex with a hell of a lot of inappropriate people after that.

I'm angry that I didn't talk about it, I'm angry that I couldn't find anyone to talk about it. I'm angry that there was no one there to actually listen to me. I am angry that there was no one to protect me ever. I'm angry that it turned me into a person who constantly sought out people to protect me.

I am angry that I still let it turn me into a mess whenever I think about it. I'm angry that I can't just forget that it happened.

I am filled with anger, and I live with this every day. I rarely ever talk about what had happened, because I don't like the look I get when people know.

I started this blog because I wanted to start my healing process. I've been living in a fog for too long, and it's time I find my way out of it. I want to be a successful person, and I believe that part of being successful I need to let a lot of stuff go about my past.

I am not a very nice person, a part of that is because I'm angry all the time. So I'm trying letting it go. It might not go all at once, but I need to let it out, so I can be me.

I am forgiving myself for what happened, because I know it wasn't my fault. I need to forgive myself so I can move one and grow up. I'm emotionally stunted and I need to get past that. I am forgiving the people that should have protected me from this, because it wasn't their fault either. And I am forgiving the man that did this, because there must be something very troubling in his own past, if he felt the need to put me in the situation that he did.

So no, rape, it's not funny. To the people it affects, it affects them for the rest of their life. It's not to be joked about, it's not to be laughed at.

I will never forget what happened to me, but I choose not to hold the anger in anymore