*Trigger warning about sexual assault*

Oh Bryce. For a while I thought you just somehow weren’t on Hannah’s tapes because you didn’t show up. Then we got to Justin’s second tape, and we saw you doing something wrong. You “allegedly” had sex with Jessica. We finally got to your tape and learned you did something else wrong. You had sex with Hannah.

But can we really call it just having sex with them? Was it really just “allegedly?”

No, it wasn’t just sex. Yes, it did happen. The girls didn’t want it. It was rape.

Bryce, you raped Jessica and Hannah.

But Jessica was asleep, she didn’t say no. Jessica let herself get really drunk, maybe she shouldn’t have drank that much. Hannah never said no. Hannah was just about naked anyways. Hannah stopped fighting him. It was just sex, that shouldn’t have made Jessica have an alcohol problem and shouldn’t have pushed Hannah to killing herself.

Now for those of you still reading this, don’t hate me. Those are just the excuses I hear all of the time about real life rape cases. The victims (or survivors) are so often blamed when they get sexually assaulted. The media, friends and family, and strangers all have blamed the survivor before, and not the one who actually did the assaulting. Hannah’s was fake. It was a TV show and a book. However, this happens all of the time. In real life. In my life.

It was clear as day from the TV show that these two girls were raped. I don’t think I have seen anyone react easily to those assault scenes or use any of those excuses I mentioned above. Why? Because we were able to see those rape scenes and we were able to see the pain in those girls’ eyes before, during, and even after the assault. Well guess what people? That’s real life. The mental draining, the bruises, the hurt, the excuses, the bad memories, everything. That is all real.

So was Bryce a rapist? Yes. If someone is asleep, that is not consent. If someone stops fighting to try and get away, that doesn’t mean that they have given consent. Just because someone did not say no, if they did not say yes then no consent has been given. If someone is too drunk to make decisions, there is no consent.

The only yes, is a yes.