I was at a small gathering with friends and acquaintances from a student organization that I was a part of. I was pretty drunk, and I left at one point to go buy something that we needed. When I came back, two of the guys were naked except their underwear, and were playing beer pong (they said they had been playing strip pong). One of these guys was a friend of mine, and in between his turns in the game, he moved to the side of the table where I was watching to interact with me. Over the course of several minutes, he kept coming over to me. He hugged me a couple times, danced with me (so that our bodies were touching). Every time this happened, more and more people in the room were laughing. I didn’t know why but assumed they thought our goofy dancing was funny. Finally, everyone was laughing at us and I didn’t know why, and I suddenly looked down and saw that his penis was out of his boxers, and that he had been essentially rubbing it on me without my knowing for the past several minutes. I literally fell to the floor out of shock and embarrassment, but I laughed, because I didn’t know what else to do. In the immediate aftermath, he made some comments like asking how his penis compared to my boyfriend’s, and joking that I couldn’t tell his girlfriend what had happened. I texted my boyfriend (who lived in a different city at the time) and he asked me if I was leaving (which hadn’t occurred to me). I did leave, and I sobbed on the phone the whole way home. It took me a long time to even identify what had happened as assault, because there were so many people present and everyone had been laughing. The reality is, he touched me with his penis without my knowledge. I have never been more humiliated or degraded in my life.
— Survivor, age 22
I do not know whose mistake is this. It is not necessary how you treat people, you expect the same way. Forget this episode of life, from God grace at least you handled situation exceptionally well. This is absolute case of assault but how will you quantify this, you yourself were pretty drunk. you have not described your behavior. May be people thought you both were involved into this? Please avoid any such drinking circumstance where potential danger lies.
Avoid this absolute drinking behavior and at least with stranger. With Stranger means includes your best friends as well. Be vigilante while going such party or place or situation and avoidance will the best measure against any unlawful act happens.
Please stop victim blaming.
That is not right, and those people that were laughing like it was so funny are nasty and most likely didn’t grow up with any manners or home training. I would never hang out with neither one of those people EVER again! Thank you for sharing. Don’t be embarrassed, he looks like the sick idiot at the end of the day.
Dear survivor,
What happened to you was most definitely an assault, but it is not surprising it took a long time to recognize it as one. I hope that that knowledge helps you to heal from what happened. Thank you for sharing your story – I have no doubt that it will help people who read it, especially those who are still questioning whether what happened to them was assault. With love, Alissa