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When it happened, I refused to believe it was true.
He had been a friend of mine. He had come into a room knowing I was in a vulnerable, drunk, half-naked position. He entered the room with the intention of harming me. Raping me. And he succeeded.
I tried to fight him off. After a few futile pushes and protests, I was frozen in fear. Embarrassed by my lack of strength. And suddenly aware of the blood smeared on the inside of my thighs. After a while, I stopped trying. I just knew to lie there and accept what was happening. And that what he was doing would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.
I remember being in the living room with my parents, months later, when Brittany Higgins was raped by a colleague in Parliament House. Then-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, made a public speech concerning her allegation, stating: “Jenny and I spoke last night and she said to me, … ‘what would you want to happen if it were our girls?’… I’ve reflected on that overnight, and listened to Brittany, and what she has to say…”
I had always known that what happened to me was as much cultural as anything. I just didn’t understand how deep the misogyny ran. But it is intrinsic. It is embedded in our nation’s core. The society I grew up in raised men to believe that rape is an option, just as it raised little girls to be weary of what they wear, where they go, who they befriend. If he hurts you on the playground, it’s just because he has a crush on you.
I will never forget that sinking, sickening feeling, after hearing what Morrison said. I was utterly defeated. My country’s leader didn’t see women as human beings. We have to be someone’s mother, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, before any rape is met with empathy.
*
November 2020
Someone’s mum’s beach house.
A room, upstairs from the Schoolies party.
A bed.
“What are you doing?”
“But I’m your friend,”
“No, I want to go back downstairs,”
“Everyone will be looking for me. Let me go.”
“I’m friends with your girlfriend. It’s weird.”
“I don’t care that you’re on a break, it’s still weird.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“No, stop it.”
“Stop, get out of me! Stop it! No!”
“Just give me 5 more seconds, and I’ll stop,” he grunted.
*
March 2021.
Brisbane City Police Station.
A Senior Constable’s office.
“If you do choose, to proceed with pressing charges, I should warn you,” she paused, lowering her laptop screen.
She looked directly into my eyes and told me that although I had a strong case, and she completely believed I was telling the truth, the court process would be “a total nightmare.” She was right.
*
In Queensland, at the time, consent was assumed to be given. This meant that a lack of consent must have been proven by the victim, rather than the perpetrator prove that consent was given. This makes it virtually impossible to win a case.
As if this wasn’t enough trauma for teenage me, his parents spent tens of thousands on a top defense barrister. This same barrister has gotten murderers, gang members and serial rapists out of being charged. As I was a victim, the government gave me a lawyer – he had received my case the day before, and was missing documents. My rapist had been able to plan his story with his lawyer for months. Obviously, this was unfair, and would happen in almost all rape cases, as the victim will always be given a lawyer from the state services, who will likely only receive the case in a similar time frame.
And a tiny detail. He was 17 when he did it, but 19 by the time we went to court. Any criminal conviction would be immediately wiped from his record. So it was pointless – based on principle. On ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘getting justice’. But the trauma that the court process took on my teenage self is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
*
May 2022.
An Australian Courtroom.
The Fifth Hour Of Questioning.
“May I suggest, Miss, that you never actually said no to him?”
“May I suggest, Miss, that you never said any of those things to the defendant?”
“May I suggest, Miss, that you were just embarrassed to have had sexual relations with him, so you’ve created this story to make yourself feel better?”
“And, may I suggest, Miss, that the series of events that you’ve claimed of today, didn’t actually happen at all?”
*
I was cross-examined for nine hours total, 6 on one day and 4 the next. The defense barrister picked me to shreds like a vulture – he was good at his job, I’ll give him that. He had this condescending air as he glared at 18-year-old me and called me a liar.
Taking him to court was meant to be empowering, getting justice, getting my strength back.
I will never forget how dejected, belittled and small I was made to feel, sitting in that chair.
May 2022.
An Australian Courtroom.
The Ninth Hour Of Questioning.
“Your honour, I just have one final question for the witness,” he started.
“In some of your messages following the incident, you mentioned feeling as though it was ‘your fault’. Can you explain why you’ve said that?”
“Um,” I looked down. My fingers had started to turn white from gripping the chair so tightly.
Don’t cry. My eyes felt hot. i hadn’t cried all week. I’d been ‘strong’.
My vision started swimming from the tears brimming in my eyes. Don’t you dare cry.
“I guess that – I think that I said that because,” I trailed off, choking on my words.
My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was scratchy, high-pitched, thin.
I cleared my throat.
Hot tears spilled from my eyes as I blurted out one final statement:
“For a really long time afterwards, I thought that it was my fault for being in the room in the first place or for wearing what I did or for going to the party or for being too friendly to him.”
“I blamed myself.”
It was a complete, cathartic release; a volcanic eruption of emotion; a total breakdown. All I could taste was hot, salty tears mixed with snot; disgusting, yet I didn’t have the energy to care anymore. I knew they could all see me in the courtroom, but I couldn’t fathom how to stop or attempt to compose myself.
“Thank you, that will be all.”
*
I had been 18 for 20 days. My entire adulthood – my relationship with myself, my body, sex – has been defined by recovery from what happened. Consent education reform, legal reform and change in the attitudes of Australian men is so vitally important.
*Names of people have been omitted for privacy reasons, as per the author’s request.
Written by Anonymous.
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