Something positive I have realized due to the Kavanaugh situation...

I have never posted in this group before, but didn't want to post this in the main forum.

My first time having sex was via date rape. I have shared this openly. I had just turned 17, and the guy was a very popular HS football player whom I was really excited to be out with. We were making out, and I wanted to stop, and said no many times, but he was big and strong, and I didn't try to put up a physical fight. I felt that since I didn't physically try to stop him, it wasn't rape, until I learned more much later.

I haven't really felt like I had any lasting issues from that night. I pretty much just moved past it. However, this week, I heard someone on MSNBC (I did not catch her name, but she had a very short black or dark brown hair with gray) say that it was not uncommon for an assault/rape victim to befriend or go on additional dates with a perpetrator to try to normalize what happened.

That stunned me, because that is exactly what I did, and why I have never told all the details to anyone. I have told close friends and even strangers online that I was date raped, but I never told anyone that we had a second date, because I thought they would think I was crazy for that. But in the mind of a very young, VERY insecure girl, if we became a couple, maybe it would all be all right.

Until I heard that woman on MSNBC, I had no idea this was not an unusual reaction, and that was really the only part of it that I still felt bad about, that I wouldn't even admit to friends. I feel like I let go of the last part of that experience that still bothered me when I thought about it.

I hate that so many people I know are feeling so triggered by all this. I wish I could hug them all.