Trigger Warning: this blog post is about sexual assault. If you believe you have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed you can seek support from the following numbers:
Australia – 1800 737 732
New Zealand – 0800 044 334
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U.S.A. – 800 656 4673
The year was 2009. These were the golden years for my circle of friends. I was promiscuous. I liked to think of myself as bold and adventurous. That as long as I was safe and single it was my body, my rules.
During this time, my friendships were becoming strained. My best friend and a few others could pierce the disguise of a thick-skinned independent single and see that I was deeply troubled by being alone. I was going out more and more and getting drunk almost every time. It was almost no longer about the men I was with and more about the story I could tell afterwards.
One evening I got chatting to this guy on Gaydar.com (let’s call him Tate). He told me he and his partner (call him Dale) wanted to have some fun with me. The conversation went into specifics about toys and kinks we both shared and he warned me not to say anything to his partner, because Dale was pretty vanilla. They were fairly harmless kinks by conventional standards, but nonetheless I agreed.
That weekend Tate invited me out to Palms with Dale and a group of friends. Palms was a trashy favourite of Oxford St where people could dance to cheesy pop music like ABBA and Spice Girls.
When we met, Tate told me that as far as his friends were concerned, I was his work colleague. We hung out and danced as a group for a few hours. Several hours later I was very intoxicated and all their friends had left. Tate and Dale approached me to head back to theirs. Sitting in the back of their car (I still wonder to this day if they would’ve passed a random breath test), they drove through a MacDonalds drive-thru. It was that kind of night. I had no idea where I was but Tate said he’d drive me home the next day.
When we got back to their place the two of them took me to the bedroom. Halfway into things, Dale decided he was too drunk and left the two of us to continue.
Tate said good night to his partner of 13 years and then closed the bedroom door. He grinned and said something.
“So you’re a kinky boy hey? Well now we can do some things without Dale knowing.
We continued being intimate in the ways we had discussed previously but something didn’t feel right. Perhaps I was too drunk or perhaps I felt something else was going on.
“Oh fuck I need to go to the toilet” He said halfway through what we were doing.
What I experienced next was disgusting, horrifying and entirely unpleasant. I refused it.
“No!” I said, “Can we not do that?”
Tate forced the act onto me. I was shaking and squirming but too drunk to fight back. I cried and almost passed out as that and other unspeakable acts were carried out on me.
When he was done, I was confused, disoriented, yet relieved. I had no idea where I was and I was in no state to do anything about it. He told me to stay in that bed and he would go join Dale. I think I slept for about two hours, mostly because my body had shut down.
The next morning Dale greeted me with an orange juice. He apologised for being too drunk to continue the threesome, and said he had to go to work. Tate would drive me home. I caught Tate giving Dale a goodbye kiss at the front door. He then walked towards the room. I sat up quickly and clutched onto my orange juice.
“You gonna show me where you live so I can drop you off?” Tate said.
I didn’t say a word. I put on my clothes and reluctantly walked out to his car.
Along the way, Tate was talking to me but I was in another mental state. I do remember two things he said.
“Yeah, there’s no way Dale can know about any of what we did because he’s pretty vanilla”, Tate said, “But you seemed to have a good time and that’s the main thing.”
Again, I didnt reply. I made sure Tate dropped me off about 500m away from home so he didn’t know where I lived.
A week later I told some friends the story over the phone. It was very different though. By now I had convinced myself that it was my fault for getting drunk and being slutty. I focused the conversation on something else. That Tate would hide this stuff from his partner of 13 years.
I want to make it clear that nobody in this life is responsible for the terrible behaviour of men like Tate. What we can learn from this is how to be strong as a result. When I am drunk these days, I am surrounded by at least one person I trust. I always ensure I know how to get home and I’m to take note of the red flags people send out. Tate had repeatedly asked me to maintain lies of his. Being a friend from work for example, and hiding things from his partner. These are the acts of someone who wants to control a script and more importantly, wants to control his reputation. If someone has to lie to achieve those things, we should ask ourselves, what is the ugly truth they are hiding?
But most importantly, it’s okay to make mistakes. I have ignored many red flags and had terrible experiences in life since. But no-one will ever use my body in a way that I don’t approve of ever again. My body, my rules.
I haven’t repeated this story until now.
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Disclaimer: my hope is that by sharing this very private story is to remind others they are not alone and that we can heal and be strong together.
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