ANONYMOUS TESTIMONIES BY SURVIVORS

Below are the testimonies and stories whose lives have been touched by sexual violence. Sexual violence does not only happen to women and it doesn't only affect women. It changes the lives of many people and shapes the entire community. Read the brave testimonies of people who have coped and survived with the effects of sexual violence. If you want to post your experience with sexual violence click here

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I was six when he started touching me. I didn't even know what it was that we were doing. It didn't feel bad, that came later. It was just something that happened. I brought him the newspaper and he touched me. Then he gave me candy, told me not to tell anyone about our time together, and let me go back downstairs to play. I never understood why the other kids refused to visit him, but I went in their place-at least I got candy. I hate myself for accepting that now, but I didn't know. I didn't know it was wrong, and I didn't realize that more would follow.

It wasn't until later that he started hurting me. Then I wouldn't let the other kids go upstairs. His fingers were all he could use at first because he was too old to penetrate my little body. He found objects later though that served the same purpose-massage rollers, the back end of his envelope opener, anything that had a handle for him and didn't leave perceivable marks.

I lost my mind a little then. Whenever I was with him, my mind flew away to beaches where my sister and I could play and where we would never have to see another soul again. I fixated on her as the one true and good thing in my life and I was consumed with protecting her. He knew it, too. He used to pretend to be interested in "playing" with her too and I would go nuts. He loved it-he would tell me it made him horny to see me jealous. God I wasn't jealous-I wanted to rip him apart for even daring to think about her. She was better than the both of us put together; the rage I felt when he said her name made me want to kill.

I tried to atone for the mistakes that I had made and the dirtiness that pervaded me by making myself perfect. I couldn't punish myself enough though to make the pain stop, and I could never be quite perfect. I tried to make myself skinnier and skinnier and more and more graceful and more and more diligent-but all it made me was bulimic, talented, intelligent, and lost. It did get me to a good school, but I couldn't be myself because I didn't know who that person was. I was a half-starved, confused, insecure shell of the person I should have been.

In my very good school, I became a very good student and wouldn't let myself be me. I tempered every word, modulated every tone and kept myself from every temptation, fearing that I would lose the tenuous balance I had found in my lifeand I was miserable.

I convinced myself that I was ok, but I felt like death inside, living in some kind of limbo, praying for deliverance from the painful disassociated feeling that pervaded my life. None came. Just more work and more pain and more loneliness and more fear and more playacting and more isolation. I stopped eating for a while and made myself resume. I thought about cheating on my boyfriend for a while, but found I didn't have the strength. So I beat up on myself and hated myself and worked myself to death and waited to live.

Is that what college was meant to be? Was I supposed to fear life and welcome sleep as some kind of temporary death in which I could hide my fears and forget my pain? Who was I doing this for? Was this all I was meant to accomplish? Did I pull myself out of pain and into success just so I could torture myself?

Do I even really care about myself anymore?

I care about other people's perceptions of me more than I care about my own happiness. I'm sick and I'm afraid to just let go. I miserably hold on to this ephemeral hope that everything is going to work out if I can push myself to be better-I'm still that little girl, shivering in a corner waiting for her abuser to come back and torture her again. God, I didn't even try to run away. I still don't. I'm paralyzed and mystified and feeling like I earned iteven now. Why can't I just fight back? Fight to be myself and value everything I have the potential to be. Rebel-refuse to be so good all the time. Let myself go crazy: dance around naked, fail a class, hook up with a random guy-anything and just not feel guilty.

But what do I do? I sit in my room screaming silently through the keys of my computer, doing crunches to keep my abs tight, dancing out my frustration to angry female artists' songs about rape and violation, putting on my happy face so no one can see how much I hate myself, and praying I will learn how to be free.

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I don't really remember what happened. I went to a party with friends. I knew guys at the house, I had been there before a million times. I was drinking and having a good time, I think, and then it goes blank. I woke up the next morning, there was a shirt over my face. It was my shirt. I didn't understand what was going on. But I hurt and I was naked. I was in a bed that I didn't know where it was. And I really hurt. I put on my clothes and left.

I went home and showered. I showered a lot then. I felt so stupid. How did I let this happen? I felt like I should have known not to drink so much. And my friends, I wondered where they were. I called them, and they said I left with a guy. They knew him too. We all did. That night would come back in flashes. I never remembered much, but I could feel it in me what had happened. I never told anyone. No one would believe me. I couldn't even remember, why would they think it happened?

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i appreciate this form, because i don't know if i could tell this story at the rally, but i will definitely be there.

rape is simply unconsented sex. so i've been technically raped. it's hard to say that out loud because i've forgiven him and i'm dating him again.

i went to my ex-boyfriend's party, already drunk, and after a few more drinks it was really easy for him to get me into bed. i'd already told him i didn't want to sleep with him anymore. i remember getting into bed, and then i remember looking up confused, not knowing if i had actually had sex with him or not.

so technically i was raped.

men can rape without understanding that it is rape.
women can be raped without understanding that it is rape.
that doesn't mean it hurts any less. sometimes it hurts more when it's someone that you trust.

i've forgiven him, and he is only beginning to understand what it did to me. but it still doesn't make it okay.

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It was mid-July when I met him. He worked in a store down the street from me. He asked me out on a date for that Saturday, and said we could do whatever I wanted. I told him that I would love to go to one of the little towns along the shore and walk around on the beach. He smiled and said, "sure."

He was late picking me up. I had packed sunscreen and snacks and other beach things in a bag to take with, and I waited for him on my porch, holding the bag. I don't remember if he said anything about it, but after we got into the car he drove us back to his apartment. I was confused. We went upstairs. We made some small talk, and then he started touching me. I resisted and said, "Wait. If you go any further, this counts as rape, doesn't it?" He hit me in the face, really hard. Then I just lay back. Later he took me out toeat and then home. I didn't know what to think. I had this rough feeling that something bad had happened, but I also felt guilty that I had let it happen. When I unpacked the bag that I had put together for the beach that morning, I cried for being so naive.

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5 years old. diagnosed with various STDs. i don't remember any of it and my medical records were destroyed so as to not embarrass my family; my uncle ran the town clinic. my father let his mistress commit suicide, even though everyone in town already knew.

9 years old. flash memory, one of the few that i have. i am in the air, naked, being thrown from my father's bed and i hit the corner of the bed with a lot of force, right in my chest immediately below what would eventually be my right breast. the scar remains to remind me of that memory.

12 years old. my throat is torn apart so badly that i can't speak. i tell everyone that i have strep throat. in july. i didn't know that it was my duty as girlfiend to orally please my boyfriend. he decided to show me through pressure, and a lot of it, shoving his erect phallus so far down my throat that the gag reflexes couldn't even respond. the cuts took 4 weeks to heal.

17 years old. its the second time this week that he beat the shit out of me for misbehaving. usually he didn't bother; he referred to reprimand me shoving three of his fingers so far inside me that i could feel the tears. but this time, i didn't quite know what i did wrong - i was only trying to take him to the hospital. he had downed the bottle of absolut and could barely move. but when i tried to get him to the car he broke the bottle over my head.

its hard to heal from the continued pain, and you learn to be numb to it, or at least i did. and when the numbness wore off, alcohol and a few of its friends provided a good cushion. its funny because, growing up with the PC police, i found the most un-PC activity to give me peace and let me learn to love my body and develop meaningful relationships. i found that being paid to be sexy, being paid to please, being paid to teach folks about sex allowed me to slowly regain composure and truly appreciate myself once again. it took quite a few years, sobriety and prostitution, but i can now stand on my own, smile at the sun, and stand up to my past. i wish the same for all other survivors, regardless of what it takes.

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It's painful to watch, and to know. It's mostly painful because i know her and i can see the difficulty in her eyes, or through her eyes, glazed over from another round of coke, topped by another shot of vodka, trying to make it through another night, knowing that it's coming soon. You see, she knows the ritual. He is her father and this has happened so many times before, from before she could remember and enough times that she has lost count. And it happens to her sisters, and her mother, and God only knows who else. She's in college, but it doesn't matter because there are always vacations. And she knows it will be all right, because there is always coke. And when there is not, there is always vodka, or pot, or anything else. Because this is college and drugs are there. And when they aren't, she can take some from her mother's collection, or her sister's. They don't talk about it but they all know, they know through the glazed eyes.

And i ask her to report, but she can't, and i understand that. Her father is a powerful man and she is powerless in this broken system.

She decided to seek help this time, through the almighty 12 steps. She knows the ritual - she has tried this ten times before. Maybe this time will work. But it's almost summer and that means returning home. So i bow my head and hope that maybe this time will be different, because i feel so powerless here, no way to really help.

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I have never been sexually assaulted but I have friends and family who have experienced assault to different degrees.

During my freshman year, two friends had confided in me their rape experiences that happened within days of e ach other. One of my friends had called me right after her assualter left her room. i didn't know what to do and gave her a couple of phone numbers to call and said a prayer for her...but i felt totally helpless, and i think she didn't want to trouble me, so we hardly ever brought up the subject again. The second incidence happened to a friend of a friend of mine. This male friend of mine confided in me that two of his friends gang-raped one of their girlfriends. We both felt totally helpless. I wish i could've done something more..been more vocal about all this. But the thing about rape is that you want to protect the ones who have been raped, and if they wish to be silent, you want to maintain the silence for their sake. i think we need to change the way we view the silence. There's been enough silence, and we need to break it.

Just another story... i have a sister who's always been shapely. Numerous times i have heard guys say nasty, lewd sexual remarks about her body, and have even witnessed complete strangers cop a feel at my sister. i would always tell myself, "If only i were bigger, I would chase them down and beat the shit out of them." Is it any wonder my sister has a low self-es teem and has trouble trusting the men in her life? Is it any wonder why I don't trust the men in MY life after witnessing all this?

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I'd actually prefer not to talk about it just yet. Partly because I just don't want to believe it really happened, partly because I still blame myself for it. I fought her off as much as I could, but there is a point where you just stop trying and then kick yourself afterward for not fighting harder. The real reason I wanted to post, though, was to bring attention to something not everyone might think of: Sexual assault can happen between same sex couples. I'm not saying it is a common occurrence, by any means, and I certainlydon't want to shed any negative light on the strides gay activists have made thus far. But I do want to say that if you autmatically think you're safe because it is another woman (or man) you're with, and you just don't think it can happen, I want to tell you it can. And it did.

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I'll speak this at the rally tonight, but I saw the posting of a friend and wanted to post as well. . .

When I was 14, I went on a family vacation, a Spring Break trip to India. My parents immigrated from India and I was born and raised in the States. We used to go every 3 years or so and I'd get to meet my grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.

We started the family tour in Delhi, where my mum's sisters and their families lived. Instantaneously became best friends with one of my cousins who was 19. He was cool-- rebellious, fun-- we had the same taste in music and similar philosophies of life. Within a day, we started hanging out all the time. We'd go for rides on his motorcycle and stuff-- exchange secrets, talk, talk, talk. Great fun.

3 days later was his birthday. Big event at his house arranged by his parents. We hung out in his room, going through his music collection. Said something about a birthday present from me. Wanted a kiss. A real one. I laughed. An angry look quickly passed through his face. He asked why not? I said, "You're my cousin." He asked what if we weren't related. I said that wasn't an issue, because we are.

Within a day, no longer requests of kisses. Forced kisses and much more. It escalated every day. My parents and his parents were in the next room and I was too scared to say anything. I think if I had actually been raped, I would have said something, but that didn't happen. . . at least I didn't think so at the time. Technically, any penetration is rape, but I didn't know that at 14.

I became physically ill. Woke up in the middle of the night to throw up. My parents continued their vacation, leaving to shop during the day, visit friends. He, the selfless one, said he'd take care of me since I was sick and stay at home with me. There was one day I remember being so terrible that I ran into the kitchen looking for a knife, but didn't find one. I knew I would get out of there, I had to hold on for a few more days before we'd go to the next city. Meanwhile, I started believing him when he said it was my fault and started saying things like my breasts were too small or I was too fat, etc. (I was actually at least 10 pounds underweight).

We left. I haven't been back, although my parents have. They still don't know. I always had an excuse of some sort-- too much school work, too much something or the other, and I hated myself for not going back and facing him.

Tried to cope by myself. Went through suicidal periods and cutting periods and starving myself periods. After a while, started to trust again, started to eat again, talked to people, started to date and understand that enjoying physical closeness does not mean that I will turn into him. . . got involved in activism in college, organizing Take Back the Night rallies, bringing speakers, speaking on panels. Heard many stories from friends, frightening stories, but lived-- most importantly lived and continue to live.

Initially, he wrote a few letters to me, veiled, full of subtext so other family letters reading the letter wouldn't understand, but stopped. This past fall, he started to contact me again, over email. Every day. Just "Hi, how's it going?" or he'd send a forward or on Valentine's Day, a cute e-card. It sent me back 7 1/2, 8 years. I finally snapped and sent a "How dare you write me" email. He asked for forgiveness because he's changed. I felt sane, having confirmation that it had happened (every so often I felt so removed, I thought I might have made it up) and felt justified for years of pain. It was the proof I needed in case anyone ever doubted me, my story. I told him everything I had to say to him and felt I had closed that book. He didn't write for a few days beyond, "I'm sorry" then started writing a few times a day, every day. I set a filter and decided to go on with my life here and now.

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This is not as bad as what many others have experienced, but it must be bad to some degree, because I'm still coping with it. Once, at a party, I drank a lot, and after returning home with my live-in boyfriend, certain things happened. It's hard to tell exactly what, because I was so drunk I subsequently couldn't remember anything, only two flashes, one at the beginning, and a second one spaced far enough that I know there must have been a lot going on in between. It involved something that he wanted and I didn't, and had told him so previously. I also remember telling him that I was really very very drunk. But who knows, I might have started things. The point is that it's not okay, because the next day I couldn't remember. I told him that, and he was shocked. He tried to tell me what had happened, and I told him that it wasn't me, that it wasn't okay with me, because when someone is drunk, tells you they're drunk, their spoken or even physical consent doesn't mean anything. Well that's not what I told him, but that's what I know now.

The funny thing is that in my previous school, there was a well publicized event about an alleged date rape case where the woman could not remember a thing, and the man claimed that she was not only consenting but convincing him to do it. At the time, I thought the man was not to blame: how was he to know that the woman would have memory loss? But he knew from the start she had been drinking. What I know now is that it doesn't matter if you've been married for 10 years or just met at a bar: if the other person has been using alcohol or drugs, THERE IS NO CONSENT. And you can really mess up an otherwise good relationship by making a mistake there, destroy trust and confidence.

That's my story. I don't think badly of my ex-boyfriend: I would have done the same in his place, and probably have done worse things to other people. But I also don't know how to heal myself, let go and be comfortable with myself. I have almost completely stopped drinking, and I am very watchful of myself, I never let go, even with my new boyfriend, and we've been together a long time. He knows about this, I hope he understands.

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hi! i don't if it's a good idea for me to talk or not.i almost tried 2 years of my life to forget what had happened to me.and still when I think of it,it hurts.

I WAS ABUSED BY MY BOY FRIEND.he wasn't like that at first or atleast for 1.5 years.but after 2 years he was changing so fast & i couldn't stand & saw him became like that.so i decided to leave him,althought it was hard for me.he made me stay,he promised & sweared to be changed to be him self again.so i stayed cuz i loved him & i stayed to help him.but after a month he forgot his promise & continued his way in life.finally after 5 months this time i sweared my self to leave him & never come back for him cuz he wouldn't change.

i never ,NEVER forget that night,he found out that it was my final decision so he abused me(raped me) & i was crying & even after that he walked out of the house when he was saying that he was the one who left.so i was remained there all night crying,nothing but crying. the next morning i went to my parents to live with them for a while,i told them that i was torn & crying because my relationship with my boyfriend was over.but the main pain was because i was abused & i couldn't tell any one except one of my closest friends about it.

finally after 3 months crying,nothing but crying i began to believe it & accept it as a truth in life(a very unfair truth). mow after 2 years i have dated a boy(maybe a very good one) but the problem is that i can't trust any boy ,any more.i'm scared to have sex with a boy cuz i still remember that experience.it hurts me even more to like some one or love him but can't let him get close because of my abusement in my past.

SO I HOPE NO ONE EVER SEE WHAT I'VE EXPRIENCED IN MY LIFE.

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i was in a relationship with a man i trusted, it was my first relationship that I actually felt was real, i told him on several occasions that i did not want to have sex with him he said that was ok i told him over and over again why I did not want to have sex with him he told me he would wait ten years if he had to that sex didnt matter I was content that night i came to his place and wetalked we talked about how i did not want to have sex he tried to take off my pants i pushed them back on he knew that i was afraid of penisis he would take my hand and make it touch his i would pull it away he would pull it to i gave up he would finger me till it hurt and bled and he would keep going i could not goto the bathroom for days i gave up i kept on saying what is going on i was confused asking what was going on he said we are going to have sex let me get a condom i said no he said let me get a condom i said no i said no because i did not think he would have sex with me if he did not have a condom i was wrong I should have resisted more but i couldnt i did not know what was going on i wished he would just cum so it would all stop i did not want to make him mad it hurt it hurt a lot i do not remeber the pain i do not remember how it felt all i remember is the blood that was everywhere, there was lots of blood he kept on going i kept on crying I disappeared all i was thinking is what is going on I was in shock i asked him what is going on he did not responded i cried and isappeared he spread my legs wider he flipped me over i tried to roll over to pull away he pulled me back i gave up he did it again and again and again until we were both injured from intensive friction i rolled over and continued crying he he moved his body over mine so that his pelvis was on top of my head i opened my mouth to stop the penis from pressing on it (that i am pissed about but at this point i guess i had just completely given up - and it is acts like these that make me feel responsible) i do not know why i did not bite he thrust it into my mouth and the back of my throat back and forth on my head i just sat there and dry heaved i was having trouble breathing, i was just praying that this would end i disappeared and that is why i do not remember the majority of that night, I do not know if i did not resist enough he finished I cried i was mad very very very mad and disappointed in myself i kept on thinking it takes two to have sex i have to assume responsibility i wish I hadnt become numb in the head i wish i had realized what was happening i had never had sex before he kneew i had never had sex he knew that i was afraid of getting intimate with males he knew a lot but it didnt matter i didnt want to i felt so guilty for having sex and couldnt see what really hapened that i went back i tried to make it right i didnt i came home and i tried to convince myself i wanted it i told my friend she called the rape crisis lines i convinced her she was wrong i went to bed i woke up i went on with my life my period did not come and then i freaked i should have beenstronger simple as that

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In my country, it is a tradition to mutilate the genitals of children. I was forcefully restrained and had my sensitive parts painfully attacked with a knife. There was no anesthetic used and I screamed out in agony while my genitals bled profusely.

Not only were nerve endings amputated, but the structure of my genitals was permanetly altered. My sex life will never be the same.

I am angry that I was forced to undergo this traumatic mutilation, against my wishes. I am angry that my body has a scar on it that I see every time I go to the bathroom, and that my sexual sensitivity has been diminshed.

I was a victim of sexual violence, yet in my country they consider it "cleaner" to be mutilated in this way. Even some doctors recommend it!

I am a man and was born and raised in the United States of America. The country where infant boys are routinely mutilated against their consent. It is euphamistically called "circumcision." People think that the foreskin is just a "dirty flap of skin" since most of them have never even seen one, let alone know about how it works and why it is important for natural sexual function. These men do not know what they are missing. The foreskin makes sex more gentle and frictionless, pleasing both partners. It also protects the penis so that it doesn't become calloused, and preserves the partner's natural lubrication.

Why is it that in this country it is illegal to mutilate baby girls, yet it is legal to mutilate baby boys? One is felony, the other is tradition. It makes me so angry that this type of sexual violence against men is condoned by society!