How Do I Talk About Sexual Assault With My Boyfriend?

Doctor’s Note: Today’s column involves discussion of rape and sexual assault.

Dear Doc,

I want to include a trigger warning at the start of this letter, in case you post it verbatim, that this letter discusses sexual assault and rape.

I am a rape survivor. To be clear, I’m not looking for advice on how to deal with the trauma of what I have survived. I have a therapist and go to group therapy to deal with that.

What I want advice on, is how to disclose a history of sexual assault and rape to guys I get involved with. I am struggling with it. I have triggers, I want and need to know I am safe. I am doing all the work on myself to get there, but I am tired of when I disclose to guys that their feelings about it become another thing I have to manage.

I understand it can be upsetting to learn that someone you care about was hurt that way. But that’s not the reactions I’ve received. What I get is either no reaction, or I have to demonstrate to them that I don’t think they are a rapist, or something, that they are a good guy, that #notallmen….

Or, they ask questions about how I acted, what I did wrong, why didn’t I do XYZ….trying to prove that what happened to me wasn’t that bad, or bad enough, implying my trauma is just something I’m overreacting to….why do I have to prove this? Why does it have to be bad enough? Why do I have to meet an acceptable level of bad for it to be considered something awful that happened to me?

The last guy I was with I thought was really enlightened, he could be really gentle and thoughtful, and had many women friends, and I informed him of what I had experienced, and still, one night, when he wanted to have sex, and I wasn’t feeling comfortable, he blew up at me and yelled at me for two hours, until I gave in and had sex, when I didn’t really want to. We are no longer together.

And all this disclosure is work, and it’s draining, and all I want is for someone to say, I believe you or what is I can do to support you?

These are some of the reasons the fellow members of my support group discuss not disclosing, that it’s easier than having to manage someone else’s feelings. And that disclosure is a big act of trust, and it becomes more difficult to trust someone when they react negatively when you share. We know we don’t owe anyone disclosure, but when you’re intimate with someone and have triggers, and you want to have a pleasurable experience, someone respecting your needs is important.

And the truth is, rape and the stigma and silence around it often eat us who carry that secret from the inside out. We want to be supported, and seen, as full human beings, not just as victims or survivors only. But for many of us, the trauma is something we navigate every day, in most of our interactions, and just the chance to be open about it, to put down such a heavy weight, to be supported in the ways we need by our intimate partners, is necessary for our empowerment and healing. 

What advice do you have for me, Doc?

Using My Words

First of all, I’m so sorry this happened to you and how difficult dealing with this issue can be.

This is a tough one UMW, because there are no easy answers, and it’s difficult to talk about without… well, without folks having that exact knee-jerk reaction you talk about.

In fact, let’s talk about that reaction for a second, because it’s honestly part of the problem and a lot of folks don’t get why. You know all of this this already, UMW – as evidenced by the reactions you’ve gotten from the guys you’ve opened up to – but a lot of men still have a Law And Order: SVU view of rape and sexual assault: the stranger-leaping-out-of-the-bushes view or the idea that it’s something that could be avoided with sufficient preparation or situational awareness or whatever.

Part of why this view is still tenacious is because of how well it lines up with a lot of restrictive and reductionist views of masculinity; in this case, the EDC/I’m-prepared-for-everything/this-bad-thing-will-never-happen-to-me-because-I’m-ready-for-all-contingencies idea of Batman-esque hypercompetence and toughness. It reduces the idea of rape and rape culture to something you can punch instead of recognizing that it’s a systematic issue. It’s much easier to treat this as a “bad dudes are bad, good dudes will stop them” scenario than recognizing just how much society doesn’t even want to acknowledge most forms of sexual assault as assault or reckoning with how much stuff men were raised to see as normal if not good.

It’s very much in line with how many men will talk about how they’d do anything to keep their family safe… as long as “anything” means violence instead of things like “doing laundry and cooking to make sure everyone stays healthy, “drinking less alcohol and not keeping a gun in the house” or even “wearing a mask and get vaccinated so you don’t bring deadly viruses home with you”. It allows the illusion of toughness and protection without having to actually reckon with things that might require acknowledging unpleasant truths or require actually grappling with issues about how men are taught to view sex and relationships.

By that same token, there’re guys who are aware of the systematic issues… but they want to believe that they, personally, don’t have to wrestle with those issues. They want to believe that they’re one of The Good Ones and if you’re One Of The Good Ones, then you can’t possibly have been a a part of the system we’re all swimming in. But to a certain extent they know that they aren’t exempt from the system – none of us are, that’s why it’s literally systematic – so they want acknowledgement and validation of their inherent Good One membership. And to be fair, it’s kind of understandable; nobody likes thinking about how they were part of the Matrix after all and it’s deeply, deeply uncomfortable to face shit like that. So it tends to be a stage that many, many guys go through as they learn.

Of course, that same tendency to want to affirm their One Of The Good Ones status also means they end up centering themselves in that conversation instead of empathizing and listening and believing. Again: this, sadly, is something that we all have to unlearn, and the unlearning process can be deeply uncomfortable. And as we’ve seen: a lot of folks would rather pretend the problem doesn’t exist than have a moment of dealing with complex, discomforting and unpleasant cultural issues.

Then there’s the fact that… well, frankly, guys have a hard time dealing with emotions and vulnerability. This is, again, part and parcel of those toxic and reductive systems of masculinity; we’re taught that expressing emotions are bad and we tend to be deeply uncomfortable with other people’s emotional displays because we don’t know how to handle them. So while we may feel empathy for someone, we often don’t have the vocabulary or even the basic knowledge of how to express it or what to do in order to comfort or support someone. Especially when most of how we’re socialized is to be a “solver” or a “doer”; if we’re needed to do something then we have value. But since listening and believing isn’t something we’re taught as “doing”, that’s rarely the first thing we think of.

And to tie it back to the first part, because a lot of guys have the SVU idea of sexual assault, it’s easy to not realize how prevalent assault can be or how different people will process it. So not only do we not realize how many folks in our lives (including men) have experienced some form of sexual assault, someone not fitting into the mental image of “this is what a victim of sexual assault” looks like tends to create that framework that makes it so easy for dudes to demand that you “justify” your trauma response.

To be clear: none of this is to say “and this is why men are blameless for not knowing how to respond”, nor is it “ugh, men suck”. It’s to say that this is a systematic, even endemic issue that makes everything more complicated and even folks who don’t want to make things worse will often trip over their own good intentions. Some folks, like the ones who want you to “justify” your trauma, are assholes. Others are under-educated, and all of it fucking sucks and makes it harder for you and others in similar situations.

But that’s the “why” of it all; let’s talk about disclosure and talking about potential triggers and so on. Which is, again, where things get tough.

I brought up all of that stuff beforehand, UMW, because it’s also why there’re few easy answers. Now, to be clear: my not having better answers doesn’t mean that there aren’t better ones out there, and I want to invite folks – especially people who have experience in navigating these discussions successfully – to share their experienced and advice in the comments.

So here’s my view: unfortunately, I don’t think there’re many answers that don’t involve your having to do a certain amount of work.

As I said: men in general tend to not be raised with the emotional toolbags that women are. While this is improving, for a lot of us, it’s something we learn later in life. So the odds are good that, even when you’re dating men who want to support you in the ways you need, they don’t know what you need or even how to ask how best to support you. So I think that one of the things that may help is to tell them what you need up front. And I mean this literally; tell them precisely what you want from them and what is most helpful, before disclosing this information about yourself. Giving them the template from the start – “OK, I need to tell you about something important and these are the things I need from you…” – can be helpful, even welcomed.

Yeah, it sucks that you have to do a certain amount of teaching, even if it’s “if you want to support me, here’s how to do it”. As you say: it’s exhausting and it’s constant, and the tension between the emotional labor of it all and wanting to avoid triggers and have a pleasurable experience is very very real. But laying out the “here’s what I need from you, here’s what will be helpful, here’s what’s NOT helpful” will, at least, give you more insight into the people you want to date. The folks who respond well, who listen to what you tell them you need and apply it, are folks who are more likely to be caring and mindful of you and your needs. The guys who don’t, who respond demanding to know how you brought this on yourself… those are guys who are telling you that you don’t want to date them.

And to be sure, the ones who respond well aren’t a guarantee. There’re plenty of folks who say the right things and seem to do the right things and end up being shitheads anyway. But giving that initial heads up and saying “This is what I need from you”, at the very least, makes it a little easier for your future partners to support you in the ways that you need from them.

Like I said: it sucks, and honestly, I wish I had better advice for you than this. Again: I invite folks who’ve had experience in navigating these conversations to share their experiences and what’s worked for them.

In the meantime, I hope you have more success finding the right partners, UMW, the ones who can and do support you in the way you need.

Good luck.

Hello Doc,

In these past six months I have gone through an experience that has left me feeling pretty low but also seeking truth within myself. A young woman who for the sake of confidentiality we can call D, was a coworker of mine who I became deeply infatuated with from the beginning. I did not know if she had a boyfriend or not so I would politely make small talk with her. I then asked if we could chat about her work, she is an indie filmmaker and also a producer’s assistant. I admit that when I asked, I did want to know what advice she could give but also get to know more about her. We exchanged numbers and we then just started texting non stop. The texting would be everyday for the first month. Sometimes all day. She was in a serious relationship with a guy and lived with him. I didn’t  want to seem too eager because I wanted to respect the fact that she was in a relationship. We exchanged info about our troubled childhoods, shared old family photos, talked about being in therapy. She even called me one night on the phone just to talk. We would hang out at work when we could. She invited me to a script reading for her new film and it was a great night. I met her friends and boyfriend. We all drank til the wee hours of the morning and then I headed home. And after that is when things started to change. 

I noticed the texting tapered off very quickly. When she did text, the tone had changed. There was not as much investment or interest. A week later she got engaged. This was right around the holidays. I noticed my mood started to depend on when I would get a text from her or not. We texted everyday for five weeks and now that had all changed.  I was constantly battling my feelings about trying to be a friend and not letting my infatuation come through. We would still talk and hang out at work just not as much as before. She still called me a friend. I got her a Christmas card and made her a little comic book for Christmas. I got all my friends and family cards. Over the two week holiday break we both went out of town and I heard from her a couple of times. 

I started to notice another change in January. We were still friends but she seemed preoccupied with other things going on in her life. It hurt my feelings because I used to have so much of her attention. I then texted her one night asking her a question and she didnt respond. Then she followed up a few days later with a question that was on a completely different subject. I voiced my irritation that she should have texted me back and she got defensive. I apologized to her in person and in text. She was a little awkward in person. Then she went distant. I didn’t hear from her for two weeks. I finally reached out and we hung out at work the next day. Then a few days later I saw her at work but she seemed distant again. Two weeks went by and then she texted me again just to chat. I finally wanted to just talk with her to see if there was a problem between us. I texted, “I just wanted to talk because we used to talk everyday and now we barely do. If there is any conflict or issues between us I think it would be good to talk about it. Hope life hasn’t been too stressful.”  She texted me the next day giving me reasons why she didn’t respond quickly and said we could talk next week. She became very avoidant after that. Only saying hello but not stopping to talk.  Now I am emotionally devastated. I feel lonely, abandoned, and even guilty because I feel sometimes that maybe I ruined the friendship with my own selfish feelings. We started texting again but I don’t think the friendship will ever be what it was. In fact, we were texting and then she wouldn’t stop to talk to me in person when she saw me but just kept walking. My therapist said I was trying to have an intimate relationship with someone and I couldn’t. I did become attached. 

It is painful to see her be so friendly with other people at work and then be different with me. She has a week left of working with me and she has a lot of other things going on. Film festivals, wedding planning, etc… I just don’t understand why she went distant and then she didn’t want to talk about it to resolve the friendship. It’s been clouding my mind a lot lately and I am wondering if you have any tips that can help? Also, should I try to fix this friendship in some way? 

Best,

Loved And Lost

That’s a frustrating experience, LaL. It can be difficult when it seems like a friendship has started to drift away and you have no idea why. It’s the sort of question that can really haunt you, especially when you have that lingering feeling that it’s your fault somehow and you’ve done something wrong but you don’t know what.

Now, without being a fly on the wall or observing everything like a relationship-focused Richard Attenborough documentary, it’s hard to say precisely what went wrong. However, having been where you are and having had similar experiences, I can at least make an educated guess.

I suspect that what happened is that you wanted more from her than she could give. You had a crush on her from the jump, and honestly, I suspect she knew this. Most people don’t have the poker face they think they do and give off “I’ve got a crush on you” vibes like Cupid blew up in Pripyat. So while you were doing your best to respect that she was in a relationship, I suspect your relationship with her was hitting levels of intimacy that started feeling a little more intense than she necessarily wanted or was comfortable with. One of the things you mention – that you noticed your mood was dependent on whether you heard from her or not – was probably pretty self-evident. Even under the best of circumstances, if someone starts feeling like a friend’s mood is entirely dependent on them? That can be pretty intense and off-putting, especially for a friendship that’s only a couple months old.

Now, I think that it’s significant that things started tapering off around the time she got engaged. I suspect that… well, to be blunt, but I suspect that the tone of your interactions changed, even if you didn’t realize it or intend for it to happen. One thing I’ve seen over and over again – and, again, been there, done that myself – is that when someone has a crush on a person in a relationship, there’s a certain amount of hope. Yes, they’re dating, but y’know, there’s relationships and then there’s relationships. When the person being crushed on gets serious with a partner, such as by getting engaged, the hope that they might still break up and be available dies. Yeah, engagements and marriage aren’t always forever, but there’s still an emotional difference between someone having a boyfriend and someone having a fiancé.

Often when this happens, there’s a shift in behavior from the person with the crush. They tend to be moodier or more easily upset and it doesn’t really take Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or Charles Xavier to figure out why. And once that happens… well, it gets much harder to want to maintain that friendship because it starts to feel a lot less like a friend with a (manageable) crush and more like someone who was hoping that they still had their shot and now they don’t. And for the person with the crush? Well, that’s when the intensity of things can change and there’s a desire to try to hold onto that hope or rekindle it somehow.

I mean, beyond your moods – something that she’d probably notice at work, at the very least – there’s the fact that you made her a comic for Christmas. Having made comics myself I can say that this is NOT something that one does on a whim; even mini-comics are pretty labor intensive. The fact that she got the comic and a card when your other friends and even family only got cards… well, it doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to catch the vibe.

And then… well, then you kinda had a bit of a snit over not having more of her attention. That, I suspect, was the final straw. The combination of the not-hidden crush, and, bluntly, wanting more from her than your friendship warranted at that point and making a fuss about not getting it is what likely made her decide that it was time to start letting this relationship go. Giving the reasons why she didn’t respond as quickly as she used to was a way of giving socially plausible reasons that you could accept without her calling out your crush – a confrontation she almost certainly didn’t want to have. So, instead, she chose the fade-away. Is this the best way of handling the situation? No. Is it understandable why she chose it? Yeah, unfortunately. Like I said: I’ve been there and done that and the “look, I know you’re into me and it’s never going to happen” convo very rarely goes well for anyone. So rather than deal with the possible fallout – especially seeing as you two are co-workers – she chose the less-confrontational path in hopes that things would just fade into the past.

Unfortunately, it leaves you in a shitty place, emotionally. And I empathize; I’ve felt that way more times than I care to think about. It always hurts, and it always leaves you feeling like shit because it feels like it should have been avoidable. But there’s a reason why hindsight is 20/20: it’s a lot easier to see how the dominoes fell after you got the end result. When you’re neck-deep in the moment and you’ve never dealt with a situation like that before… well, you’re usually too close to see it and don’t always know what to look for in the first place.

My suggestion? You need to let this go. There’s not really much you can do here that isn’t going to just make things more complicated and certainly nothing in your current state that’s not going to just make things worse for you. The best thing you can do here is to treat this as something to learn from so that you don’t make the same mistakes in the future – something, I might add, it took me a few more failures and heartbreaks-in-miniature to learn.

But the other thing you need to do is forgive yourself. Yes, you could’ve handled things better, but you were making the best decisions you could at the time. Now that you know better, you will make different decisions going forward. The past you – the one who made these mistakes – should be seen as someone who, as the sage says, loved not wisely but too well. Forgive yourself for that, resolve to learn from it and move forward, a little sadder but wiser for it.

There will be others. You’ll be ok.

All will be well.