The other day, I walked back into my dorm building and was greeted by students running a program in the lobby, asking others to write messages to survivors of sexual assault.
Without even a second's hesitation, what came to my mind was "It is not your fault". And it isn't.
It is not your fault.
It is not your fault for wearing what you wore, going with the people you went with, acting the way you felt comfortable acting. It is not your fault that you were talked into it, coerced into it, forced into it.
It is not your fault that you were taken advantage of by a stranger, a friend, a lover, an acquaintance. An assailant. It is not your fault.
It is not your fault. The only person to blame is the person who chose not to care enough, know enough, or pay attention enough to recognize that what they did should not have been done. The only person to blame is the person who disregarded your needs in order to quiet their desires.
It is not your fault, and you are not to blame.
I think oftentimes, there is always some voice in the back of your head saying "What if...?"
What if I had dressed differently? Said "no" differently? What if I had walked away in the first place?
When it comes down to it, the only thing these "What if"s accomplish is that they make you feel worse, and they make you feel the guilt when none of the guilt should be falling on you.
Even if you had dressed differently, said "no" differently, or walked away, who's to say it wouldn't have still happened? In any of these scenarios, your perpetrator would still be the person that they are, with the same thought processes and same moral compass (one which is obviously compromised), and would have still been faced with the same decisions. When a bad person gets a bad idea, they will act on it. And there is no one to blame for that act except them.
So, it is not your fault. You made the best choices you could make given the extent of your power and capabilities in your given situation. You made the choices you felt best making, or maybe you weren't even given the opportunity to make those choices for yourself.
It is not your fault, and there is not a single reason why you need to believe that it is.