In June 2020, while a global pandemic kept everybody at home, eight women from different countries, including me, had an Instagram live chat to catch up and share what it’s like to be a woman in their cultures and societies. The goal of the meetup was to brainstorm ideas for a transnational feminist media brand.

In this first meeting, I told the girls: "I have recently experienced a sexual assault and I'm going to make a podcast episode about it."

I could tell the girls didn't know how to react for a brief moment, which was exactly what I expected.

Thinking back, when I revealed the sexual assault event to the girls, it was like the scene in the show I May Destroy You when Arabella casually told everybody in a professional meeting that she was raped. That information was shocking to others, but she was slightly smiling through her powerful disclosure. My friends were stunned by my “bad news”, meanwhile I was wearing a “bitch-resting face”. That was the scene I had imagined. That was the scene when it happened.

I've been thinking about I May Destroy You a lot lately, obviously. I even thought about that show that night, too. That night when I was assaulted.

[Triger warnning]

The moment when this guy put his penis inside of my vagina after I repeatedly asked for a condom, and I had to push him away to stop him, I was thinking about the show and a question gradually generated in the back of my mind:

Did I just get raped?

There is one scene in the show, Bella and a guy are having sex. Just when Bella turns her back to the guy, he takes off the condom then ejeculats inside of her. Apparently, Bella doesn't know until she finds an empty condom on the floor.

I was thinking about that part of the scene and holding back the question when I was at the guy's place, lying on my back after I pushed away his penis out of me. We even had a short conversation after he wanked himself off and finished. The truth was, I pushed the question to the back of my mind because I didn't want to answer it.

In that specific situation, I wanted to de-escalate the tension and get myself out safely. And I still didn't want to ask myself that question. 

The next morning, I told my roommate what happened but focused on the part that the guy had difficulty getting his dick hard so maybe that's the reason he didn't want to use a condom. I realized later that I was justifying his misbehavior instead of focusing on my feelings as a woman and as the victim. Maybe by justifying him, I could tell myself, "it wasn't so bad."  

I did say to my roommate though, if you're a man, and you're having a hard time getting your dick hard, it's not your fault, and I'm not leaving you just because of that. Because it's not your fault, you didn't choose to have an erection problem or a small penis. But if you choose to abuse a woman against her will to satisfy yourself, that is your fault. 

At that moment I said to myself, you are a woman, this type of thing happens. Unfortunately when you're actively looking for a partner, it's only a matter of time until you run into these things. The only reason that it hadn't happened before was just pure luck. 

Was it luck or bad luck? I met this guy a year ago and we have been meeting twice a week lately. He is a social worker helping out small businesses. He reads the news and seems to be  “woke”.  Everything was fine until we moved to his bedroom. How could I have known this was gonna be someone who would sexually assault me? 

Then I realized I was having this internal monologue because I felt I had to justify myself so I would not blame myself for experiencing a sexual assault. Even though nothing needed to be justified because I did nothing wrong, I still wanted to answer that question: “why did this happen to you, not someone else?” 

The victim should never be asked to explain why they are the victims, because nobody chooses to be one. I hated the fact I knew this shouldn't be a part of the conversation. But I still went down the victim blaming rabbit hole. I was hesitant to label it a rape. I was hesitant to label myself a victim. 

Did I really experience that? I wish I hadn't. But the truth was like a beachball in a swimming pool, the harder you push it down, the higher it will bounce back to the surface. Because a beach ball is a beachball. And a truth is a truth. 

The denial phase lasted till the next afternoon. I returned to work after a short nap when all of a sudden I started to feel really upset. I used to have depression so I knew what that feeling was. I couldn't focus on work but I finished the last task then headed to the city for dinner with my best friend. 

On the subway, my tears dripped into my mask and I found myself having a hard time breathing. This image that stuck with me was when I was laying under him saying "no" and feeling afraid that I wasn't able to push him away and stop him. 

“What is it? Why am I feeling so upset?” At the end of the day, he stopped the penetration after I pushed him. The violence I was afraid of that night did not happen. But does it mean nothing was wrong there?

From dealing with depression for years, I knew I had to do something otherwise I would be drowning in my tears and sorrow.  Before I got to the train, the guy texted me like nothing had happened. So I took out my phone and texted back. 

"have to tell you I have been feeling very upset this whole day." I started typing, "There is this image I just can't shake when I said ‘no, (put on a) condom’ and you didn't stop till I pushed you. That was really scary and upsetting even it happened in a short time. I didn't know how to react to it at that moment. But it  stuck with me more and more. And there is no excuse for it. When you later said something about tested STD free, that totally didn't make it ok and was not the point.

"I fucked up, and I'm sorry," He texted back, "I also apologize for nudging too hard without the condom, that was definitely not at all right. I've gotten used to other people saying differently, but that doesn't change how you feel and I obviously want and need to respect that."

"It's not about what ppl say, it's a part of consent." I said. 

"Agreed. It is. I regret doing that," but he also said, "As you could probably tell from everything else I did, I really do want to make you feel comfortable and glad to be spending time with me, and I did exactly the opposite with that. So it's out of line with what I expect from myself, and it won't happen again. "

I didn’t understand why he thought we were still going to see each other after what happened. By emphasizing everything else he did, he referred to going down for me, which happened right after I pushed him away. Like I said in the text message, I didn't know how to react and his actions deeply confused me. 

If you google "sexual assault", in the search column, you will see this sentence pop up "sexual assault includes any sexual activity performed without consent". I knew this, from university orientation, from a graduation survey, from sex education resources that I actively looked up on the internet, from the tv show I recently watched. Yet when it actually happened to me, I denied it.

As a woman, rape is one of the concepts that terrifies me, makes me freeze. When I just started to have sex with my first boyfriend, we explored and played around. We were giggling and having a good time till he won the fight between his arms and my thighs. My smile froze instantly and I was terrified.  It was so dramatic that even my boyfriend noticed my mood change. 

Whenever I saw or read about stories of women experiencing sexual assaults, I could feel the anger boiling inside of me. When it comes to other women, I feel the passion to speak up and protest, but when it comes to myself, I was overwhelmed with fear and confusion. 

I felt like a coward. 

But I do hate it when people apologize, the apology comes with the justifications or explanations of their behaviors. Like a can of soda you didn't ask for when you ordered Chinese food in America. Women often get this unwanted soda when they ask for an apology from a guy. And the guy expects women to drink it all. Since this is the best women can get. 

So I texted back to that guy who assaulted me: "I know you should know that it was a part of consent since you seem to be a quite woke person. But the fact that you still did it without my consent scares me and makes you seem like a defensive person. "

This was the most indirect way I could think of to tell him: "it was a sexual assault, you knew it. And you are a hypocrite."

He didn't text back.

I thought about it several times if I should call the police. I am worried that I am not doing the right thing. What if he has a pattern? What if there are other women he treated in the same way?

Then my friend told me, centralize your feelings and take care of yourself first. The fact is I need a professional therapist to tell me what to do and I don't know if I want to experience the police part at the moment. 

Several days after the incident, I was watching Chewing Gum, another show created by Michaela(麦克拉) Coel 克尔.  There was this one scene where the character she played was laying down with a white guy who's fetishizing her black breasts. I was triggered. Then I knew that as much as I love and deeply appreciate her shows,  I need to stop watching them for a while. 

My new therapist session is scheduled for next Wednesday. I know there are women who have suffered much worse than me. Going through this makes me understand why it's hard for victims, not just those who are women, to report an assault right after it happened. And no matter what happens, no matter what I should do, this story  will be about me. It should always be about me. 

My name is Feilin. If you listened to this point, you might probably guess that I am not a professional podcast host, and I am not an native English speaker. But I want to and need to tell this story myself. I hope ppl who’re listening to this understand that, it is ok to be scared, it is ok to be confused. Consent is complicated in specific context but it does not a sexual assault invalidate.

And this is my story. 

This episode was produced for The KIND Podcast.

It was scripted, produced, and edited by Feilin Yang.

Siyi Chen was our recording engineer.

Original music by Hermona

A special thanks to Shaina Dymond who helped edit the script; Andrew Novak, who played the catcalling voices; Rachel Li, who helped me with the pronunciation.

Thank you very much for listening.

 To be continued…