Lexi’s Story: Freshman Year

Editor’s note: All names have been removed in order to not identify the attacker.

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Unfortunately my story sounds a lot like like a million others. It happened four years ago when I was eighteen. It was a Saturday night during my freshman year of college. My roommate and I had met up with this group of guys who lived in our dorm. We didn’t really know them, but we went to a party with them and then decided to go back to one of the guys’ dorm rooms to hang out. At that point we were all pretty sober, but as soon as we got to the room we started taking shots and drinking a lot. At the time, I was really small, only about 5’3″ and 115 pounds, and I hadn’t drank much before college, so my tolerance for alcohol was extremely low. I got very drunk, very fast.

After that I don’t remember a whole lot. I know that at some point I got up into the guy’s bed, which was lofted a few feet into the air. I ended up falling off of the bed and smacking my head on the mini fridge, at which point a bunch more people came in to see if I was okay. I was obviously not okay, and a few guys helped me walk upstairs to my dorm room. My roommate decided to stay downstairs and hang out a little longer. I was so wasted that I couldn’t walk up the stairs and one of the guys had to carry me. We made it to my room and I laid down in my bed.

Once I was lying down in bed, ready to pass out, all but one of the guys left. The one guy who stayed (let’s call him T) said he was just going to make sure I was okay. I knew him more than they other guys because I’d met him once before.

As soon as everyone else left, I changed into a pair of sleep shorts and a tee shirt (with T’s “help”) and then got back into bed. I remember being confused when T got into the bed with me. Then he started making out with me and I was just thinking that it was weird. Eventually I stopped him, but he kept trying to touch me and kiss me. I just kept rolling away. Then at some point (this part is all really blurry), I remember him putting his hands up my shirt and wedging his knee in between my thighs. He was asking to go down on me but I said no. He pulled down my shorts and did it anyway, so I tried to roll away but I had basically no coordination so it didn’t really help. Then he put his fingers in me and I remember that he showed me his d*** and tried to put it in my mouth. I was disgusted by the whole thing and just wanted him to leave. Right when he was about to put his penis in me, I pretended to completely pass out. I guess that’s where he drew the line because he left the room a few minutes later. He had no idea that he had already completely crossed the line.

When I woke up the next morning I felt really guilty and gross about what had happened. I didn’t remember all of it, and I still don’t, though some of it came back over time. It never crossed my mind that it was sexual assault (I still can’t call it “rape”) and I just blamed myself for drinking too much and doing something embarrassing. I would see T around campus and avoid eye contact like it was a bad hookup. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that what happened to me was sexual assault and that it really wasn’t my fault. I was drunk to the point of throwing up, falling, and passing out. I said no many times and tried to move away from him. My message was very clear: I did not want to do anything sexual. He blatantly ignored that message.

I never told anyone about what happened and T is now happily graduated from college and living his life with a beautiful girlfriend and a great job. I sometimes wonder if he ever thought about that night and felt bad, like maybe at some point he realized that he had done something wrong. But the reality is that he has probably never thought twice about that night, a night that I think about all the time.