“OMG! you are the rape girl!” she screams, when I light my smoke away from Koreatown bar I’ll most likely never recall the title of. a lovable girl with a pixie slashed proceeds to cover the woman tunic around me personally as the woman nose ring becomes caught in my own Jewfro like we are in a feminist Twister game. Even though i am handled by genuine outpouring of love using this stranger, i am in addition in a night out together.

We finish off my personal cozy PBR as my go out, Mr. ScruffyBeard GyroBreath, requires a step straight back blazing at myself like my tits tend to be covered in anthrax. My personal new Twister buddy lights up her own smoking and makes herself comfy. “we severely appreciated your own movie!” she exclaims. “was just about it so trippy generating a film according to your rape? Let me know every little thing.” I smile, overlooking at Mr. SBGB while he transforms pale white. The guy races inside for another circular.

Afterwards, the guy pushes myself residence in silence. While we pull up to my house, he awkwardly leans in, sweetly whispering i’m very sorry “that” took place to you. At last, I Am speechless. Is actually the guy apologizing on behalf of the male varieties that I got raped? Was he concealing into the shrubs that evening yet did not reach my personal recovery? Had the guy known I would been raped, would the guy have sprung for just two sales of spring moves during dinner?

Attempting to lighten the feeling, we assure him that claiming the word “rape” out loud will not actually make him a rapist, and then he offers myself the sort of phony make fun of usually reserved for insane aunts. We gather my things and let-out my personal gut, realizing that (like the majority of of my personal recent really love interests) after hearing that I became raped within my learn abroad in Vietnam eight years back, the last thing he really wants to perform is actually toss me personally throughout the hood of their Prius and ravage myself.

We move outside of the car. He promises to contact.

We both smirk understanding he never ever will.

Last summer time, we made this short film labeled as
“Satisfy Our Rapist,”
a dark colored comedy about operating into my rapist at the growers market. The movie was actually stimulated by my disappointment at being unable to “get over” my personal rape, it doesn’t matter how a lot treatment we went through. The movie aided me face the consequence my rape had to my identity, interactions and sex.

I became bogged down using film’s reception, specifically off their sexual punishment survivors. Beginning the floodgates to personal stress additionally permit in some of the very surreal minutes of my life: such as the dad of three from Seattle whom sent me personally his gratitude to make the movie as a fresh fruit basket or even the celebrity from north park whom, in a dim Temple parking lot, said the movie provided the girl the nerve to at long last inform the girl fiancé about her own rape and they’ve never ever experienced very near. Following there’s the accountant from Germany exactly who stated the movie influenced her to confront her very own demons and deal with her rapist, who she occurred to contact Dad.

It wasn’t my personal movie anymore. It absolutely was each of ours.

After one particularly emotional assessment, an adolescent girl chased me personally out from the theater spilling the woman soya latte everywhere me, while proclaiming the film gave her the strength to take. During all of our tearful so long, a sense of peace swept through my human body like I found myself getting tickled by Dalai Lama. Sharing the mutual pain of my personal dark colored past with all these strangers had undoubtedly set myself free.

Giggling like a schoolgirl, we skipped with the film’s afterparty, willing to commemorate my newfound liberation by-drinking my favorite package of boxed wine and flirting with a few guys with ironic mustaches.

Yet once the celebration began, i came across my self on party floor twerking on it’s own. Although room had been packed with all of the lovable guys who would just given myself a waiting ovation within testing, I couldn’t get a playful hickey much less a fist bundle from any of them. We actually made an effort to give thanks to the variety with an innocent area hug — but alternatively the guy drunkenly bowed if you ask me like I happened to be the Duchess of Rapesville. Along with my personal fabulous neon jumpsuit, had been In addition using a scarlet R to my upper body? It seemed that I had made my personal rape sleep now I became gonna need sit in it — all alone.

After the movie went viral, my relationship merely had gotten worse: My devoted butt call destroyed my personal number and my personal brand new crush claimed he was moving to Canada. Actually my vibrator appeared over myself.

I found myself very horny We actually called my ex-boyfriend at 3:00 a.m. saying my lavatory had been clogged. Unwillingly, the guy arrived over, but once the guy came the guy did not wanna unclog my personal pipelines — the guy desired Chamomile screwing tea in which he wished to chat. “Jess, I saw your own film,” the guy choked right up while he pressed me down their lap. “That’s some hefty crap.”

Holy Frankenstein, I experienced produced a rape monster. The point generating this movie were to reclaim my internal goddess, but rather we believed furthermore away from the woman than before. Performed coming out as a sexual-abuse survivor permanently disqualify me personally from additionally just becoming sexual? Had my chronic openness formally become extreme for potential mates?

Unfortunately I found myself very active wanting closeness from all of these men that we ignored exactly how little hookup we thought in my own very own body. Since my personal rape I invested so long judging, shaming, and punishing my body only to feel bad because as a proud feminist, “I should understand better.”

But within core of my feminism is the belief that running my personal concerns being sincere with myself personally always results in the nice things. So with some help from my therapist (and, without a doubt, Beyoncé) I realized that in case I wanted for my personal sexual life right back I had to quit seeking guys to confirm my personal sexuality. I must beginning to feel sensuous again, from the inside out.

Combined with putting some film, a large part of my personal recovery process is honoring the depth of my sexuality: i am thrilled for every little thing I know about sex and much more thus for all the material I don’t but. Although my rape takes on a pivotal part inside my intimate identification it isn’t the sum of it. Having a sex life post-rape is, clearly, complicated: i am balancing a scarred mind that has been through some rough crap together with cravings of a sensual human anatomy that desires get it on.

If only I could tell you that i am destroying it at dating nowadays, however i am nonetheless scared We’ll continually be residing in trace of my personal rape.

But just as we begin to stress that I’ll most likely never discover really love and die on it’s own, Drake comes on my personal Spotify playlist and instantly i am putting on my favorite polka dot outfit, shaving the front of my personal feet and racing towards the kitchen area to twerk by me. Maybe someday the dude who would like to dancing with “the Rape woman” will join myself, but regardless I’ll still be here dancing.

Watch Meet The Rapist
RIGHT HERE