Editor’s Note: The following contains discussion of sexual assault.

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Nico

Q:

Hi. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m already in therapy and on meds. Also, I’m a cis lesbian in my early 40s.

I’m nearly divorced and thought I could date around (see: slut it up) for fun and to get over my ex. The feelings are still overwhelmingly strong.

Short story short, the cis woman I invited to my home for a hookup wasn’t great with consent. “No” “stop” and “that hurts” were met with laughter and questioning the validity of my boundaries. But also, I came. I cried and she cuddled me, assuming my tears were about my ex. When later addressing the night via text, she disputed my experience of the event.

In truth, I ignored a lot of red flags leading up to her visit. “Jokes” about consent, that at the time seemed like sexy power play. I still made clear ahead of time that my “no” was firm.

I have now started dating a very nice, vanilla, non-threatening cis woman. I need to end it because I’m not interested. It’s not fair to her that I’ve glommed on because I’m not scared of her.

I’m reluctant to use the “r” word to describe what happened to me. I would use that word if I were talking about a straight cis man raping someone.

I feel like a “traitor” talking about “r” within the queer community. But maybe I’m not alone.

I miss companionship. I want to figure out how to move on (from the non-consenting event, from my ex). But maybe I shouldn’t be dating right now.

A:

Thank you so much for writing in about this and trusting us with a response. First, I want to say I’m so sorry you had that experience with this woman. It breaks my heart and makes me angry that she laughed at and dismissed your concerns around consent and your comfort level with what she was doing. She had no right to violate you in that way, and her violence toward you is a betrayal. It’s okay that you initially took her comments on consent as a “sexy power play.” What matters is that during your encounter you firmly said “no” and expressed displeasure with what she was doing and she ignored you. Consent is so important and vital in our sexual encounters and in everyday life. She didn’t have your consent and moved forward anyway, making her in the wrong.

I say this because I want to make sure you aren’t blaming yourself at all. Self-blame can persist for a while after something like this happens, but for me, it has always helped to hear from an outside party that “it isn’t your fault.” So I’ll say it again, this was not your fault. All the responsibility is on her.

Whether or not you feel comfortable using the r-word is okay, I’m not going to tell you that you have to use it. But I will address your note on feeling like a “traitor” for using it. If you decide to start using this word in the future, it does not make you a traitor. If anything, the woman that did this to you is a traitor. So much of the onus is put on the affected party to be cordial, to not rock the boat, to forgive, and move on. But where is that pressure for the person who committed an assault? We still rarely put the responsibility on the person who was in the wrong. You are not a traitor for naming what happened to you. If you decide that you want to talk about this with other people in your queer community, and they do or don’t believe you, you are still not a traitor. Whatever repercussions this woman suffers because of the naming does not make you responsible.

As a survivor of sexual violence, some of which happened in a queer relationship, I wanted to address this. My abuser was a self-described radical feminist socialist and still assaulted me. Just because they had all the right politics and said the right things about consent and assault in public didn’t make them any less of an abuser in private. I say this because people will always try to discount what you’ve said by holding up the perpetrator’s squeaky clean persona, but, as I’m sure you already know, abusers can be one way with an audience and completely different when they are alone with you.

I wanted to take my time with this question and rope in some reinforcements. I’ve consulted my former therapist and friend Cindy Crabb on this one. Here’s her bio:

Cindy Crabb’s zine Doris was highly influential in the third wave feminist zine culture of the 90s.”I wanted to break open the secrets isolate us,” she writes, “the difficult secrets but also the small secret joys that keep us alive.”

Her memoirs show us how to remain tender in a threatening world while covering such topics as sexual assault, consent, abortion, addiction, queer identity, poverty, depression & the death of family members.

Cindy Crabb is a therapist, licensed professional counselor, somatic experiencing practitioner and group practice owner in PA and the author of the zine collections Doris Encyclopedia (alternately titled Things That Help) and Doris Anthology. She is the editor of the book Learning Good Consent which has been translated in whole or parts into French, German, Spanish, Hebrew and Flemish. She and her sister conducted the interviews for the zines Masculinities: interviews and Filling the Void: interviews about quitting drinking.

Now, here’s Cindy’s response to your letter:

There’s so many elements to this – Overriding a “no” “stop” and “that hurts” by laughing and questioning the validity of boundaries is so far beyond not being great with consent, it is sexual assault, regardless of whether or not you use the r word. Personally, I call this rape. I have found in my work with rape survivors that this type of coercive, dismissive, diminishing type of sexual assault and rape is just as damaging as rape that includes physically overpowering the person.

In a vast majority of sexual assaults and rapes, there comes a time when the person who is being assaulted capitulates. This may happen by dissociation (detaching from the body), or compartmentalization, such as temporarily locking away the knowledge of the assault in order to “act normal” or get it over with to attempt to avoid an escalation of violence. These are deeply ingrained biological survival mechanisms, on the fight/flight/freeze/appease continuum, and ways the psyche tries to protect itself from the betrayal of interpersonal violence.

Having an orgasm does not negate the fact of the assault or rape. Our bodies are designed to respond to stimulus and in these incidences the body can override the cognitive response. Many rape survivors experience this. This was not your fault, nor your body’s fault. Both your brain and your body were trying their best to protect you.
Ignoring red flags and engaging in sexy power play does not make it your fault. People who rape and sexually assault others are making a decision to enact violence and steal your power.

It is essential that we do name rape in our LGBTQIA+ communities. You are not alone. A number of studies have shown that the rates of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence are as high if not higher in LGBTQIA+ relationships as those that identify as heterosexual. The silence around inner-community sexual violence stigmatizes survivors. Talking about rape and sexual assault in our communities is heroic, not traitorous.

Now, I want to spend a little time myself talking about the nice woman you’ve met. I’m not going to tell you to not date, what I will tell you to do is to interrogate why you are dating. You seem pretty self-aware in this letter, as you’ve acknowledged that you are dating this nice woman because you are not afraid of her. I agree with you that it’s probably best to break that relationship off. But, if in the process of healing and coming to terms with what happened to you, you discover or find someone that you really like, like really like and vibe with, who treats you well and practices good consent, I see no harm in pursuing a relationship with that person.

Honesty will be very important in your dating life. So being honest about the fact that you were hurt previously and need to be treated with a little extra care will be helpful to know for the next person you date or have sex with. Be honest on your own timeline, I want to emphasize that. You don’t have to tell anyone until you are ready to, until it feels right. You may be triggered during your time dating, experience flashbacks during sex, and other things that occur after a traumatic event. That is all normal and understandable. If you decide you want to continue dating, or if you decide to take a little time to heal and tend to yourself, it will be crucial to have the support of your therapist and your chosen community during this time. Lean on the people who are already in your corner before you go searching for someone new. That’s the best advice I can give you as someone who’s been through something similar before.

I think it’s important to care for yourself in the aftermath of this violation, so I want to recommend some reading to you. These books cover a lot of things from abusive relationships to sexual assault, but I think they will help you find words for what happened to you and move forward, and do this without triggering you. If you do find that any of this media is triggering, you can step away and come back to it. You don’t want to rush into anything and do more harm, be patient with yourself and your healing.

1. Dissociation Made Simple – Jamie Marich (therapist recommendation)
2. The Sexual Healing Journey – Wendy Maltz (therapist recommendation)
3. Learning Good Consent – Cindy Crabb
4. In The Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado (for a queer perspective)
5. This Refinery29 Essay 
6. This piece in Huffpost 
7. This podcast episode about dating after sexual assault
8. This podcast episode from Our Sisters House

I hope you find some of these helpful.

Thank you for writing in. You are not alone. Sending you love

xo
Dani Janae

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