'Bad Survivors' of Sexual Assault: Validating My Own Experience

Content Warning: sexual assault, rape, gaslighting

In the aftermath of my assault, I treated it as I believed a “good” survivor should. The following day I bathed twice – scrubbing clean the besmirched areas; I sobbed down the phone to my sister; I sent my assailant a well-worded message of disparagement. In the weeks that followed, I told a counsellor; I always used the word ‘survivor’ and never ‘victim’; I even made artwork about it in a diluted attempt at catharsis. And yet, I still felt very much like a “bad” survivor. Because despite my outward acts of strength and measured disgust, I could not help thinking: “I am so lucky I wasn’t fully raped”. He had not put his penis inside of me. So really, I had lucked out. I was mentally overwhelmed by these toxic untruths, all of which I would have previously scorned others for vocalising. Prior to my assault, were a friend to proclaim their ‘good fortune’ at not having been non-consensually penetrated, I would surely have responded in shock – of course you weren’t fortunate! You had your sexual agency revoked, your body was invaded, and rape should not equate to penetration as this is reductive and heteronormative.

I believe the previous statements to be true, and yet I still felt a nauseating sense of relief. Had I really been tutored so heavily by a patriarchal society to have such low standards for my body and my freedom? I was regarding and accepting unwanted sexual interaction as a pre-requisite to being a woman and I genuinely believed that I had escaped the worst form of this because I had not been penetratively raped. 

In my post-trauma brain, I was also a “bad” survivor because of the guilt. This I had heard of before – the feelings of self-blame and denial experienced by survivors. But I wasn’t prepared for this to make me feel as though I could have prevented my assault – a niggling sense of having let some playful fumbling go too far. Had I not been exuberantly kissing this man, whilst scantily clad in his bed, he would never have been able to cross my boundaries as he did. Once again, were a friend to raise these self-accusatory concerns, I would silence them with vehement obstinacy and assure them of their complete blamelessness. Because, of course, a victim is blameless – and let’s call us victims for a moment as a reminder that a crime was committed against us. Not just a blurry injustice, not playful fumbling gone too far; but a criminal breach of personal autonomy.

I also felt guilty that I had shaken my assailant’s world with my eloquently scolding message, followed by his panicked, disbelieving response. “Would you be happy to phone so that you can explain what you think happened and I can do the same because I really want to get to the bottom of it” was his request, which although I ignored, made me question my reality for a long time after. I felt as though perhaps I had exaggerated my claims – over-emphasising a temporary experience of discomfort. It has taken months to undo his gaslighting and reassure myself that there was no grey area here. There was no “my side” or “his side” because sexual assault is not open to interpretation. It may sound laboured at this point, but as some people are still getting it so wrong, allow me to reiterate that no means no. There are no blurred lines.

I felt “bad” because rather than retreating into myself, the months following my assault were some of my most sexually active, across several partners, and I did not feel unsafe with these new people. I thought sexual agency was something survivors were supposed to regain after years of recovery in the form of abstinence. Which, of course, is the path for some. But my way felt wrong – as though my retained sexual exuberance was indication of lack of offence. I struggled with the notion of being comfortable with my sexuality following an attack on this very same part of myself. I started to wonder if my sex drive was increasing, post-assault, as a way of reasserting myself and reclaiming sexual autonomy. Maybe it was, but this seemed so alien and misguided to me, despite the healing I experienced from letting myself trust others and enjoy the sex I chose to have.  

 Was it “bad” however, that I hadn’t reported my assailant to the police or the University? Was it somehow on my shoulders to prevent him from re-offending with other guilt-prone women? It didn’t even occur to me to report this man because I was not prepared to undergo what I knew to be an emotionally strenuous and structurally unsound process. Was this “bad”? Or was it actually the best act of self-care I have ever practiced?

It is a year, one month, and two weeks later and I have decided I am not “bad”. The system which treats women as fortuitous if they have not been penetratively raped is bad. The rhetoric that women who act or dress in a certain way are to be held partially responsible for violent crimes against them is bad. The notion that sexual agency should be hard-fought is bad. The pressure placed on survivors to report their assault is bad. My assailant’s judgement was bad. The education system that did not give him mandatory lessons in consent is bad. The lessons in pornography that equate “no” with “convince me” is bad. No survivors healing patterns are bad.

With this in mind, I hope to move on.

If you have been personally affected by rape or sexual assault and are in need of support, please use the following sources as a point of contact: Rape Crisis Scotland and Rape Crisis England and Wales.