I played foosball with my sex offender. And we won

I was also 16 at the time of the events. I’ve known him since kindergarten, he was my first boyfriend in middle school, my first kiss and my first sweaty palms when I met him downtown to go to the movies. We meet again at a party with mutual friends. It’s time for the first holidays, first glasses of too sweet Manzana alcohol and spinning joints. He’s in a relationship, but the ambiguity between us remains intact, we don’t see each other often, but when we do, we’re quite happy to be together. A little uninhibited, we kiss as the lights go out for the rest of the house. The kisses continue and her breathing gets harder, heavier. Her hands wander over my petrified body, lying on an uncomfortable mattress, a few inches off the ground. I know I don’t want him or that. I say ” Quit “I say ” Stop, please “repeatedly and distinctly. And though it’s a difficult endeavor, I’ll say it again. Answer me ” Don’t worry “many times, continuing to leaf through my body and my sex, still petrified, almost inert.

“For 2 years I lived with this gray area in my memory”

I will definitely be told that I should have walked away, that I could have been more aggressive, that I could have used force, but I didn’t. I have often been ashamed of reason, but I think it was out of courtesy or docility. As a woman raised as a “stereotypical” woman, I was quickly taught to be kind, refined, and pleasant in society. I was taught to smile rather than speak my mind. And I was also taught that my body could be a threat to myself; whether it’s on the road, in transport, at work, and even in my bed as a teenager. All this to say I said ” Stop, please “ (with apparent courtesy, you’ll agree) and that he replied ” Don’t worry “. It seemed pretty clear at this point that respecting the consensus didn’t seem so natural..

After that night I felt weak, helpless, because I had failed to protect my body from these unwanted caresses and from being deliberately perceived as inaudible to the ears of my abuser / ex boyfriend / childhood friend. During 2 years, I have lived with this gray area in my memory to remind me that I would have to fight for my body to belong to me. Then one trauma sometimes saves another. A few years later I experienced more sexual assaults with my boyfriend and stopped thinking about it.

“I want to talk about that night”

This long story to arrive 8 years later, in a Parisian bar, facing each other, sharing a bottle of white. She contacted me on my birthday 2 months ago and we continued the discussion. I agree to see it. I don’t expect anything from him, because I feel deeply in tune with myself, I’m fine. He’s still just as big. The slight pounding of new encounters gives way to a casual discussion of our current life, our elementary school, and our childhood friends. So, I don’t really know how it goes on, but it gives something like: ” I want to talk about that night.”. There is no context, but we both know very well what we are talking about.

This moment, I never prepared for it, I hear it. He tells me that she blames herself, from the next day, for 8 years. He always wanted it and always remembered it ; alcohol, the mattress on the floor, mine “Uninterrupted”, of his hands that scared me, remember. She had nightmares, he thought about it every time a woman told him about a sexual assault she had suffered. He knows what he did that night and doesn’t ask me to apologize. Well, so she says, maybe subconsciously (or not), it’s a form of redemption to pay her shifts and face old demons. He goes on about the relationships he’s had since that night, and especially his point of honor in putting all of her friends on a pedestal: listening to them, cuddling them, and protecting all the women around him. He had hesitated to tell me about it because he was afraid of stirring up very bad memories. Well, you’ll understand, he did it anyway.

It’s my turn to speak. I don’t tell him I’m sorry, or that I thank him. I tell him that the water has flown under the bridge, and that even though there are still dams in my life, this memory is no longer a part of it. I tell him it’s important to have made it for him and for all the women he has met. I took his word for it, not to congratulate him, but to tell him we needed it, not us the victims, but we the society. How much we need to believe the words of the victims, how much we need men to change and publicly admit their mistakes.

Read also: My best friend has been accused of sexual assault and is fucking me

Neither forgive nor welcome the moral burden

After this discussion, we had a beer and went to play foosball. Things could have gone differently: I could have not agreed to see him, I could have still been traumatized, I could have blamed him, I could not have been so serene. But I’ve decided to learn to live for myself, not letting other people get in the way of my love for myself.

If I’m writing this story today, it’s in no way to forgive or empathize with the moral burden of a person guilty of touching, nor to downplay a trauma. Someone will be indignant, for me it is essential to be able to talk about it; talk about our stories and talk about them with our abusers if we express the desire or need. The “ordinary” stories of our attackers are, more often than not, those of our friends, our fathers, our brothers, our cousins, our colleagues, our relatives. Giving them that place in the public space is, for me, an opportunity to highlight the dizzying number of violence committed within a framework of trust. And breaking down the unhealthy idea that a perpetrator is typically a deviant outsider also means giving a voice to those people who have stolen moments from our lives. This feminist struggle is not just about women who suffer, these are men who grow up with problematic behaviors that make women suffer.

At that time, you may not be an abuser for life, but you were once. Acting against a person’s consent will never be juvenile behavior, it is serious and traumatic for the victim. We will never excuse it, but it is essential to change and act so that the people around us and future generations do not perpetuate this unbearable cycle of violence.

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