W’s Story: The Last Thing a 14 Year Old Boy Expects

My name is W.

At the age of fourteen, I got into a fight in my school changing rooms after school hours with a soccer player from another school. It started as three strangers picking on me, nothing out of the ordinary in my area. They started talking trash, calling me a faggot (I’m 100% straight by the way) and throwing my stuff around.

I wasn’t an angry kid before this day, so it took a lot for them to provoke a reaction. I eventually lost my temper and called the “main guy” a short-ass. His two friends laughed and tried to stir the pot, asking him “are you going to take that?”

This resulted in him punching me. I fell to the floor and thought to myself “I asked for that”. He started shouting at me, I can’t remember everything he said but the word faggot reared it’s ugly head again before he kicked me one last time and stormed out with his two goons following.

I picked myself up and continued to get changed. A minute passes and I hear a huge thud, making me jump. He returned, this time alone. I thought to myself “here comes round two”. I raised my hands to protect my face, but he punched me in the gut. He proceeded to punch my body from the waist up. I laid there and was honest with myself, I couldn’t do anything at this point.

He stopped hitting me. I was laying on my front, expecting him to leave. Instead I saw something that will stay with me until the day I die. His belt being thrown onto the floor next to me. It was a polyester belt, I can barely look at them in shops now.

I had no idea what was about to happen. “Maybe he’s getting changed?” I thought. Surely that’s why he’s back in here. I then felt his fingers tuck underneath the elasticated waistband of my tracksuit bottoms. Within a second he pulled them down. I refused to believe any of this was happening. Surely not? I’m a 14 year old boy, he’s about the same age. That doesn’t make sense.

“I’ll show you what a little faggot you are.” A sentence that haunts me to this day. He then proceeded to rape me. I won’t say anything graphic, but it was violent. I froze. I just blacked it out, I refused to believe this was happening.

He didn’t “finish”, it was over in thirty seconds. But it felt like a lifetime. When he got back to his feet, he said “that’ll teach you, you asked for it.” Another sentence that haunts me.

When he left, I lay there for a good few minutes, trying to process what was happening. Climbing to my feet was a struggle, I was in immense pain. I was in an indescribable state of shock. At this point, I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t aware in a sense. I couldn’t understand what had just happened. I stared at my bag and began to pack my stuff.

I then found the courage to check myself for injuries. Upon seeing the blood on my fingers, it sank in. I began to hyperventilate. I dashed to the showers in the changing room that nobody ever used. I pushed the button repeatedly, desperately hoping the water would start to stream. Instead, the coldest trickle of water began to flow.

Still clothed from the waist down, I lowered my bottoms and began to frantically clean myself. It was then that the tears came. I felt like this was a nightmare. This actually just happened.

I redressed and crept out of the changing rooms and found refuge on a wall just outside the school sports area. I tried to get myself together. I put all the clothes I had been wearing in my bag. By this point I had missed my bus home, so I walked the entire hour home in the pouring rain.

When I got home, I knew I had to put on a brave face. My Mum was surprised I got home this late, I explained that a few friends and I had been hanging out and that we would be meeting up again in an hour.

I made my way to my bedroom which I shared with my older brother. He and his girlfriend were sitting on his bed. I started the usual conversations, pretending I was okay and that it never happened.

An hour passed and I left to “meet with my friends”. Instead I made my way to a local forest area that I often went for peace and quiet, people rarely go there. I then emptied the contents of my bag onto the floor, spraying it with deodorant before lighting it up. The residue from the rain made it hard to set fire, but eventually it was up in flames.

Watching the flames, I decided at this moment that I had to forget what had happened. Burning the evidence was my way of erasing the event. I spent the next three and a half years in silence. Never once mentioning it to anyone.

It was only last year (now in my 20’s) that I finally went to the police, but not knowing the name of my attacker and not having any evidence meant no case for me. They referred me to a service that offered support for male survivors of rape. I’ve been attending their counselling for half a year now. It is helping, but it still messes with me.

It’s taken me a long time to understand that what happened to me wasn’t sexual. It was violence. It was an attempt to belittle me and make me weak. To tear away my masculinity and strip me of my manhood.

I want people to know that their rape doesn’t define them and that it is not their fault, no matter the circumstances. I hope by sharing my story (albeit anonymously) I can help people understand that the key word in sexual violence is violence. There are many myths about rape that poison our society. Let’s change that.

W