Anonymous Story: “It Happens”

I’m a straight guy who 20 years ago as an adult was subjected to several weeks of sexual assaults culminating in a man raping me. I’ve never known whether he realised I didn’t want him to have sex with me.

At the age of 20 I qualified as a massage therapist and attempted to set myself up working from home. I had a few clients but not many, so I was pleased when a man contacted me saying he was looking for regular treatments.

He came for his first treatment and it was all fine, he booked to come again a week later and he paid me extra, not asking for change. As I finished his second treatment he asked if I could also include his chest. But as I did it I began to suspect he was enjoying it a little more than appropriate. This is where I begin to feel angry with myself that I didn’t end things and tell him to leave but I was a young man, didn’t have the confidence back then.

Then on his third treatment as I was doing his chest again I felt his hand on my leg. Again: why didn’t I stop him?

His hand stroked up my leg and then he touched my privates over my trousers. I said I’d rather he didn’t, and at that point the treatment was over.

The next few treatments went the same way but I stopped saying I didn’t want him to touch me.

Then came the day it happened.

He was about to leave at the end of a treatment and he went to kiss me. As I recoiled I tripped slightly over the leg of the massage couch and he laughed and tried again, grabbing me and pushing me over the massage couch face down. I don’t know how he got my trousers down but he did and I just remember feeling his breath on my skin as he panted trying to get my underwear down. I remember as clear as day as he tried to enter me with no lubrication he winced in pain and laughed before spitting on his hand. His laughter was awkward, and that’s why I’ve always felt like he thought I wanted it too but I didn’t. I’ve never felt pain like it as he entered me, and I can still feel his weight suffocating me as he lay on top of me grabbing at my body. He finished inside me, got off me and pulled his trousers up. I immediately scrambled up to pull up my trousers and it’s so strange the details you latch onto in your memory, but I remember the embarrassment of farting as I stooped down to grab my trousers and you know what I did? I apologised! I said sorry! And his response? He laughed and said “it happens”. It happens? Well it happened to me! You had anal sex with me and never once considered whether I wanted it, and I had days of bloody diarrhoea followed by two decades of soul searching and struggling to work out where the guilt lies. Even presuming that as a man there was somehow more guilt on me for not having said no than there would be for a woman. But that’s not true. No one should be able to take control of another person’s body.

I confided in my parents and my girlfriend at the time that he touched me, but I never told anyone about the fact he buggered me. I now don’t even remember his name and have no way of tracing him. I just need to continue with life, but I carry my anger with me every day that by staying silent that it was partly my fault and did he realise I didn’t want it.