I want to make a disclaimer that I am using an individual experience to depict a larger, societal problem. This is not intended to shame anyone, please read this as an opportunity to do better next time if you find that you treated someone in a way that I am describing.

About a month ago, I was riding in a car with some girls that I barely knew when the topic of Brett Kavanaugh came up. I was in the backseat and planned to stay out of the conversation because I have a lot of thoughts about "Me Too" cases such as this one, but my thoughts can often be led by my emotions and I felt it would be best to just sit this one out.

I especially felt I should sit it out when thoughts like "he shouldn't be held accountable for things he did in college" and "she put herself in that situation" "you should expect for that to happen to you at parties" "what he did wasn't even that bad, all guys do that" were expressed.

If you read my article about my experience with sexual assault you can see why, and if you haven't I'll link it here.

Well, one of the girls asked me what my thoughts were (hahaha my life be like) and I did my best to share what I believe to be right. So I began by saying that I had a personal experience with sexual assault and that taught me how easy it is to think it could 't and wouldn't happen to you until it did. And how the situation I was in was not ideal, but I should have been safe there. And how I after this happened to me I had no more interest in the party culture of college, and I personally, thank God, saw a different way to live the rest of my college career, but that does not make it okay for guys to assault just because girls are at parties. I also shared how hard it is to speak up about being assaulted because of how people respond, and that no one wants to be thought of as a victim of sexual assault, so the likelihood of someone making it up is low.

I thought my response was good, and I was confident that they would rethink their stance. (Not that I go into every discussion trying to make people agree with me, but this is an area that I think we as a society need to rethink). Neither of them had compassion for me and my experience, which was hard. Then they stood by their opinions, and one even went as far as to say that, "Yeah my friend had experience and she's like the last person you would expect this to happen to so yeah it can happen to anyone even if she doesn't put herself in a situation to be assaulted."

This is deeply, deeply, saddening to me. It took me nine months to understand what happened to me was assault. Let me just tell you, if you take nine months to even understand trauma happened to you then you have a long road of recovery to walk. Then I had to one by one start telling people who I felt should know. That was about as fun as it sounds. And even still I have to tell people.

It's a part of my story and so if I have a new relationship with someone who I want to understand me I feel that it's necessary to share such a pivotal moment in my life. Had I known what would happen at that party would I have gone? Honestly, that's a hard question. It would be easy to say of course not, but I was a different person then. I was so empty, trying to navigate freshman year of college, a difficult roommate, rude suitemates, and only my high school friends as any semblance of community. So when they invited me to do something I did it because I was so lonely and so in need of approval from people.

All this to say, think about what it would be like to be sexually assaulted before you make assumptions. And remember that it is on the assaulter, not the victim. Victim blaming is continuing the cycle and if we continue the cycle, we as a society will continue to allow rape to happen.