In September of 2019, I was sexually assaulted by another man on a group vacation. The women who had invited me sided with my assailant. Everyone has their theories as to why, but to me they did it out of some false sense of loyalty or obligation to the assailant, who happened to be their longtime friend from college.
It was this truly devastating moment on so many levels that I still have not really processed it fully even to this day. What has been even more fucked up, is the ensuing fallout of relationships in my then-immediate core group of friends. These people had my backs, and then they suddenly didn’t, very much so.
This is a brief story of the four of them.
Paulina Hudson,
Simone Auer,
Elise Daniel
& Alyssa Walker.
Disclaimers and warnings regarding sexual assault/rape content are never for the other survivors who might be triggered by the content, in my opinion. It is just for the rest of the population who just don't want to read anything that grotesque.
I've been told by certain people that my experience either isn't valid or worth sharing. This is not about the assault, this is not about Rob, my assailant. This is about the former friends in my life who failed to show any sort of respect or compassion towards me as I was going through a very traumatic time in my life. So to all the other people who have endured such a terrible act perpetrated on them (and especially the ensuing fallout from their support systems), I send all of my love and solidarity.
I often wonder if I overreacted. Did I deserve to feel invalidated for the night terrors, and the tears, and the extreme loneliness in the face of abandonment and rejection?
Some guy I'd just met pinned me down when I was unconscious and fingered my asshole on the first night of a group vacation, maybe this was a bigger deal than it needed to be for me and I overreacted; I was frequently haunted by the notion that none of these feelings were valid, that I'm just a crazy person with a victim complex … I often wonder if getting sexually assaulted by a man was inferior to all other forms of assault, rape, nonconsensual coercion, whatever.
These four women went out of their way to indicate to me very explicitly that my experience was in fact inferior, and that I was speaking out of turn. If I needed support, it was not going to be from them in any way shape or form. People who spoke out of a place of anguish, trauma bonding, avoidance, and a sudden lapse of any sort of sympathy or patience.
I would go so far as to say that the things that came out of their mouths were horrific, embarrassing, disgusting, and shameful. And for the longest time, I was ashamed to share my story with anybody else.
I have an entire collection of artwork that I produced immediately after I was assaulted, that I have been terrified to share, because of the awful things that these people said to me, be it deliberately or reflexively from places of their own defense mechanisms. I plan on putting these in my show, proudly and on display, soon and often.
Elise Daniel & Alyssa Walker
About a month after the assault, rumors had been swirling around the group that I had hooked up with Rob consensually. This was agonizing to hear. I was experiencing night terrors and panic attacks. I was on the verge of losing everything in my life, including my job and my relationship with Bri. From all the vicarious experiences of all the other stories I'd heard time and again from the women in my life, I finally decided that coming forward to the group vacation friends was essential in moving forward.
I started with Elise, who was the one who coordinated the entire group vacation with Alyssa. She said all the right things up front. Straight off the woke cue card.
"I believe you."
"I am here for you, and please let me know if you need anything."
"I am sorry this happened to you."
She even showed genuine shock and horror up front.
A few weeks later, my plans to break the news to Alyssa were prematurely fucked, as Elise accidentally let slip that I had been assaulted. She immediately freaked out, and called me. In a move that I dont think even Elise expected, she also put Elise on the line in a threeway call.
I'd never heard the word "alleged" as many times as she kept saying. Every word that shrunken child spoke out of her mouth was a jagged dagger of disappointment, shock, anger, and betrayal. I didn't even really understand what gaslighting was until I was literally experiencing it in realtime from a woman I thought was a really good friend of mine.
By the time she was done, our friendship was done. By the time she had defended my assailant's actions for the 38th time, by the time she insisted I was wrong and that there were no cameras in our hotel room, and by the time she demanded that we all get on the phone together to work all this out, I had fallen into a vortex of rage that I did not think could get any worse.
Elise's last words she ever said to me are forever burnt into the back wall of my skull.
"#metoo has a lot of things wrong with it. And you're just going to have to do this on your own."
It was the worst thing that had ever been said to me as a survivor at that point. Until I came out to everyone else in my life about it. I never thought I'd ever see two grown, liberal, well to do white adult women willfully side with a rapist simply based on grounds of legacy. But there it was. It is rather astonishing to me how getting high together at college dorm parties could be such a solid framework for that sort of loyalty.
Paulina & Monie
I still remember reading that first text that Paulina sent me as I was sharing tidbits of my recovery with her. It was going pretty well at first. I would text her anytime I felt really sad or horrible at work, and it really helped take the edge off the harder days. And it made me feel like I finally had a place of asylum amongst the rapidly crumbling inner core of negative emotions that I had completely lost control of.
"Jon, I appreciate you telling me your story but you're going to have to get your support from other friends."
"Well look,"
I pleaded in response,
"I'm just looking for people who understand what it's like to have a #metoo experience."
"#metoo is not for you, Jon.
It's for women only."
- Paulina Hudson
I remember being at work and just collapsing to my knees, resting my head against a wall fletcher in the backroom of my construction office. I could barely breathe from the weight of those words. I was stunned, it felt like she had just punched me square in the gut. And I remember texting Monie, her best friend about the whole situation. And she said the same exact thing, doubling down on how #metoo just wasn't for men. Monie was a papercut that wouldnt heal. Bri was insistent at the time that these two hadn't done anything wrong, and that I was acting out of turn for holding these sort of resentful feelings over them. She had struggled with friendship abandonment issues in her childhood, and was largely uninterested in showing me any sort of solidarity or callling them out as needed.
I hid a lot of my anger and a lot of my resentment for the two of them, as we prepared to move into the Portland Oregon area together with my then-partner, Bri. Bri even gave me an out, asking if I'd just wanted to look for a place independant of Paulina. But I thought that maybe I could just smooth things over internally, as we began looking for a place together to save money on rent.
I felt like I was always sleepwalking past these horrible things that they said to me as the years trickled by. As a result of Bri digging her proverbial heels into the ground and insisting that I was making a bigger deal out of the situation than it needed to be, we ended up at Monie's house parties. A LOT. We went to a lot of dinner parties, and holiday parties, and movie nights.
Lots of parties and get-togethers at Monie's place were spent hiding in other rooms, or sitting as far as I could from them. I tried to ingratiate myself with Paulina as we became roommates, which turned out to be one of the biggest regrets I ever had. As the months wore on, the wounds festered. Bri even pointed out several times that my body language was getting increasingly more antagonistic towards Monie. So I told her that I was no longer interested in ever going over there ever again.
Even as I began my new life in Portland, I wanted to express my recovery. I wanted people to know that I am a survivor, and that even though I felt alone a lot of the time, that I was hoping to share my experiences so that others did not feel the same way and suffer the same fatigue.
Eventually this became too much for Paulina. She repeated her demands for distance, as well as telling me that she was envious of my recovery and how much faster I had progressed than she had in her own trauma work. Again, it felt like she had pushed me off of a cliff. And again I felt myself spiraling into a pattern of resentment that began affecting everything else, up to and including my already strained relationship with Bri.
Eventually I brought up the whole situation and how I felt with Paulina. I felt like I had to clear the air with her. I told her how hurtful those words were in the moment, and what impact it has had on me as her friend and as her roommate. And even then, she couldn't own up to her own responsibilities and mistakes. The whole thing became an aural blur as I panned in an out of attention, hearing things come out of her mouth that were all reminiscent of so many gaslighting and intellectualization stories that I'd heard from so many other survivors who had confided in me.
"That isn't something I would say. I would never say something like that to anybody. You have misheard me. This is what I actually said about this."
We had one big final blowout after things with me and Bri ended.
"Women don't owe you fucking anything, Jon. Black, white, brown, purple whatever. You are acting entitled and selfish for thinking that we owe you any sort of support."-Paulina Hudson
When things eventually ended with me and Bri, I saw no reason to keep either her or Monie in my life ever again for any real reason. Those friendships were dummies blowing in the wind. The amount of resentment I had for the two of them just metastasized into a big, giant, cancerous mess that festered in me for years. And now that I am free of all of those friendships, I am free to say whatever the fuck I want.
Epilogue
Paulina, Monie, Elise and Alyssa are the end product of Spirit Halloween Liberalism hurriedly intellectualized on Pride flag beer banners and Instagram feeds. I am unafraid of losing more friends. I am unafraid of getting slaughtered or killed, because I am already fucking dead.
These misandrist pieces of milktoast dickscum have had it coming for so long, and I will never rest while they are getting away with the things that they have said and done to me.
I am not looking for your pity. I do not want your apologies for any of it. This is my survivor journey and I don't give a flying fuck what anybody thinks of it. What I DO want to do is share the story of the ensuing fallout with friends. I am reaching out to all the survivors out there who have endured life changing losses from their own traumatic episodes of nonconsensual sex, particularly to all male sexual assault and rape survivors.
I know that I am not alone.
To those out there who have been abandoned or left behind by close friends and loved ones, I hear you and I see you, and I can say without any shadow of a doubt that you are, in fact, also not alone.
CONCLUSION
Thank you all for reading. The responses so far have been warm, supportive, bittersweet and touching. I am NOT looking for pitchforks, or a witch hunt. I want all of you to think about the men/AMABs in your life who have had similar experiences, and to tell them that you love them and that you care about them.
Here is a resource for men/AMAB survivors that I have found great comfort in.
https://1in6.org/
If you know anybody who is hurting from a loss due to assault/rape/coercion, please direct them to this portal.