Please note that all names have been changed for anonymity
Emily had just started her first year at university and was settling into the supposed best years of her life. She was enjoying her new course and had already made some great friends. She had even met a seemingly nice boy who she had started to bond and spend some time with.
However, the fairy tale start would soon come crashing down, as a few weeks later Emily was enjoying a night out, when the same boy invited her back to his apartment. She obliged, and the pair soon after left the club and headed back.
The next morning Emily left first thing, holding back tears, and went on to spend the rest of her day alone in her room, struggling to deal with what had just happened. For Emily was now one of the “1.6 million individuals in the UK who had experienced sexual assault by rape or penetration.” (Office for National Statistics. 2021)
Here is her account of that night:
“Everything seemed normal when we first got back to his, we were a little drunk and started kissing.
I really liked him, and at that moment, I was happy to sleep with him.”
The pair engaged in consensual sex, but Emily soon found that her partner was too rough and aggressive, forcing her to do things she did not wish, such as slapping or trying to choke her.
“It was really uncomfortable and painful, I asked him to stop […] it was really hurting and he just ignored me.”
Once the nightmare had finally ended, he continued to emotionally discard her, as he rolled over and went to sleep, leaving Emily lying there next to him, numb and in pain. The thoughts swirled round in her head, and as she pieced them together, she realised.
“This wasn’t just rough sex, this was rape.”
Emily didn’t manage to sleep that night, and she left first thing in the morning while the boy was still asleep. She went straight home, fighting back the tears, and locked herself away in her room for the rest of the day, unsure of what to feel or how to process what had occurred the night before.
“I remember everything was just a blur of emotions and I was just constantly running it all back in my head; was it my fault, could I have avoided it [….] but the truth is, I shouldn’t have too. And it just shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
Emily struggled for a long period of time following on from this ordeal. She had blocked the boy on everything and tried to move forward, but often she found that she was still haunted by what had happened and the fear of running into him whilst she was out and about.
“It just made my life a living hell, and I even thought about leaving uni and going back home, just as I wasn’t sure I could actually deal with it anymore.”
Emily has now managed to come to terms with what happened, and although she hopes she never sees the boy again. She believes that a large part of what happened is actually down to his mindset towards sex, and how pornography could be to blame for this.
“I think he felt that he could do that to me, because he’d seen it in porn, and therefore it was normal, and that was how sex was supposed to be.
Almost everything he did to me, you see regularly in porn videos […] and as much as he is still to blame for what happened, I think a big part of it, is also down to what he sees as normal sexual behaviour with a girl. When in reality, it couldn’t be further from that.”
Emily is not the first person to question whether pornographic material can aid ‘rape culture.’
As Dr Elena Martellozzo, who is an Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Middlesex, said to the Guardian in a recent interview:
“Unfortunately, the pornography that is widely available online can be graphic and aggressive, and the women depicted on some of the sites are getting younger and younger, borderline to being illegal.”
This same ‘Rape Culture’, made headlines earlier this year, following a string of testimonies from UK secondary school and university students on the EveryonesInvited website. Where thousands of detailed accounts of harrowing sexual assault and abuse were uncovered. In what was described as an “epidemic” of sexual abuse by former home secretary Sajid Javid, who had led a report into the testimonies.
As for Emily, the police said there was not sufficient evidence to press charges, and due to the fact that the sex started off consensually, it was a case of ‘he said, vs she said’, which would make it impossible to press charges of that nature.
She also believes that better sex education is needed, in order to help prevent situations like hers and to help individuals from having the wrong behaviour or view on sex and consent, especially whilst at universities.
If you have been affected by anything within this article, then please contact the following agencies for support and advise.
The Survivors Trust - 08088 010818
East Kent Rape Crisis Centre Canterbury - 0122 745 0400