Think about which words fit as best as possible what he did to you.
No one ever taught us how to talk about rape and abuse, even many professionals don’t have the words. Yet, because we are more familiar with language to describe sex, often we use sexual language to describe rape.
The problem with this is that it can make rape and abuse look erotic, even affectionate, and of course mutual as if you agreed to it, as if both people shared in it rather than one person doing it against the other.
So you get descriptions of rape that go like this:
“He put his penis into me and I didn’t want it.”
Is this really how it was?
Or
“He forced his penis into me and my vagina was tight and dry because I did not want him to force himself into me and he hurt me so much, I felt ripped open.”
The second sentence not only describes his actions as forceful but also includes the physical signs that you were not giving your consent and tells how you experienced the rape. And…
“He kissed me and he fondled my breasts”
Or
“He pushed his mouth on my mouth and forced his tongue down my throat, then he pawed my breasts”.
There are other alternatives for the word ‘paw’ in the table below if this one is not accurate.
Or
“He pushed his mouth on my skin and made a sucking noise”.
‘Kissing’ is a word that always evokes something affectionate and kind. But for you, was it a kiss? To fondle is also an affectionate term. Did it feel affectionate to you?
It is possible that the defence in court will try to make you say that in common language this is ‘a kiss’ but if it did not feel affectionate to you then is it accurate to call it a ‘kiss’?
In her book Lucky, Alice Sebold describes in no uncertain terms a rape she personally withstood. She has the words to describe rape, and I have included them in the table of words down below. But even she uses the term ‘kiss’ although we are in no doubt that she did not experience it as affectionate or loving.