One in four college-aged women are victims of sexual assault.
We all know one, even if they haven’t told us. Maybe they never will tell us. The issue is a private one in many lives, but significant and painful nonetheless. As a woman, I feel it is my duty to lend a hand to every woman who has taken on the heavy burden of sexual assault.
I won’t tell you whom it is that I know. Maybe it’s my mother, maybe it’s the girl behind me in math class, maybe it’s my best friend or maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s you, my reader, seeking solace and community in someone else’s words.
The point is that this article is written for her voice—the voice of the every woman. She is the woman who hid her experience from the people she trusts the most in the world, the woman who felt like she really did ask for it, the woman who still feels shame nearly a decade later, because it is every woman’s voice (assaulted or not) who needs representation. And not until we stand together and take back our strength, our dignity, and the sacred ground of our beautiful bodies will we ever be able to put an end to sexual assault.
We as womankind are beautiful and powerful, and as the old proverb goes we are wonderfully made. And as a beautiful, powerful, wonderfully made woman I am using The Odyssey as a platform to broadcast this message to you, though you may have heard it a thousand times:
It is not your fault.
There is no reason for you to feel shame. You did what you had to do. You did not ask for this, no you did not. You did not ask to feel this way or to have someone take their own share of your perfect body. You did not invite them. Now for something you may not hear so often:
You can take back all of the control.
Just because something so dark and so terrible happened to you does not mean that you are ruined, or damaged, or have to wake up and feel guilty every morning. We all know consent is crucial and special. Consent is our weapon, men and women alike. Consent makes a partnership. Consent is love. Consent is the first step to having really great sex. Now think of it this way, maybe in that moment they thought your consent didn’t matter, but boy, were they wrong.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt.
You are in control of every day of your life after that tragic event. You are in control of what you do with this. Your attacker did not take your dignity, they did not take your innocence, but instead they gave you a new power. They gave you the power of experience. Though you faced something no one, man or woman, should have to ever face, you took this bullet so someone else wouldn’t have to. You can speak. You can use your voice. You can use the evil of your attacker to create a better world, to change someone’s life, and to let someone like you know that they are not alone.
You are loved. I promise you are loved. You are beautiful, and powerful, and wonderfully made. You have a big, loud, beautiful voice. You have powerful fists and even more powerful thoughts. No matter what happens, or what did happen, your body is still sacred because it is yours. No one can ever take that away from you, no matter what they do or say; because your consent is something you must constantly give. Don’t consent to feel ashamed. Don’t consent to feel guilt. Don’t consent to let them dictate the rest of your life.
End the power of sexual assault. Consent to be strong in the wake of destruction.
