College Student’s Story: Broken and Hurt

I am a sophomore in college and at the beginning of the year my friends and I decided to go out to the clubs to celebrate one of my friend’s birthdays. I was dancing and having a good time when I met this guy. We talked and he seemed pretty nice so we decided to go back to my room. We later decided to go to his room because I had friends in my room that were planning on staying the night.

We were in his room and we got into his bed and started to kiss. He asked me over and over if I wanted to have sex and every time I responded with no. He didn’t stop asking when I told him no every time he asked. I was getting annoyed and I told him to put a condom on because I thought it would get him to stop asking even thought I had no intent on having sex with him. I told him that I still did not want to have sex but he went and did it anyways. I repeatedly told him to stop and that it hurt and I did not want to do this but he did not listen. He stopped after a few minutes and I got up and left.

I found my friends and told them what had happened and we thought it would be best if we called the campus police. I talked to the police when they arrived to my room and explained what happened over and over and then went to the hospital to get a rape kit done. I spent the whole night in the hospital talking to different people and explaining what happened for what seemed like 100 times.

A few days later I decided to tell the dean of students at my university. I ended up getting a student conduct hearing in hopes of getting this boy kicked off campus. During the hearing the board asked the boy his side of the story but when it was my turn they were not interested and a lot of victim blaming happened. The end result was him being found innocent.

I now have to walk around campus not feeling safe because I know that he is still here and could attack again. College campuses are not taking sexual assault seriously and are bruising it to the side. Myself along with many other people are suffering everyday with our attackers being so close to us but no one seems to care. My attacker got off free and I’m left broken and terrified everyday to leave my room in fear of seeing him.