My Rape Story Was Posted To A Porn Site

It’s been 19 years since I was raped by my boyfriend in the middle of a spring afternoon. 19 years since I’ve felt completely safe and sure of any sexual experience. 19 years since I told someone what happened, and then recanted in an effort to make the entire situation go away. 19 years since I lost everything I had ever known. 19 years since I swallowed a bottle of pills. 19 years.

It was a lifetime ago.

It’s been two years since I told my truth. Two years since it was published on this site. Two years since I felt strong enough to tell the world what had really happened. Two years since I was able to say “I was raped,” and not be ashamed. Two years since I finally felt healed. Two years. Not so long ago.

It’s been one week since I found out the piece I had written two years ago about what had happened 19 years ago got posted on a rape fantasy website. One week since I mentally time traveled back 19 years.

I don’t know what made me think to Google the title of my previous piece, “I Lied About Lying About Being Raped”. The thought just popped into my mind. I thought that I’d run across a blog or something. That maybe someone else shared my story because it mirrored their own, or that I’d find the Facebook group I was told shared it. I did not expect to find a porn site. I did not expect for the wind to be knocked out of me, and to go numb before being flooded with emotion. But there it was. There was my story that took so much courage and energy to write, posted with “XXX” in front of it.

A fucking rape fantasy porn site.

I lost my breath, and the tunnel vision began. My heart raced, I went clammy, and I felt outside of my body. I didn’t know what to think, let alone do. I was feeling the same emotions I felt on that spring day in 1998. His face flashed before my eyes. His satisfied smile. His snaggletooth. The shame. The crack in his voice when he said that “it wasn’t that bad.” The blue hoodie he was wearing. The shame. The cramp in my shoulder from being at an odd angle. Having to put my right shoe back on because I kicked it off. Not wanting him to watch me pull my pants up. The shame. The shame. The shame. I felt it all again, but with the added knowledge that strangers got pleasure from my story. The shame.

I cried myself to sleep that night, much like I did 19 years ago, and for very similar reasons. I was violated. A part of me was taken without my consent, and there wasn’t anything that I could do about it. The first time was my virginity, this time was my story. And, while the trauma of the rape was certainly more severe, this felt worse in some ways. My story was on that site for two years before they took it down upon my request. I was violated without even knowing it by any number of people. The thought of a strange man in a dimly lit room, reading my story while unzipping his pants…it’s more than I can bare to think about. And yet? It’s all I can think about.

I am newly engaged, and my fiancé knows of my past, and of my recent discovery. He has never been anything other than understanding, and he tries to be supportive. But I couldn’t look him in the eye when I told him. I couldn’t unclench my fists or uncross my arms while he held me as I cried. And, though I want so badly to talk about what happened, it’s too exhausting to try.

I fight the idea of therapy because it has never worked for me, though I fully encourage others to go, should they decide to make it part of their mental health plan. Truth be told, it’s never worked for me because I never wanted it to. Maybe after the initial shock of being an unwilling member of the porn community wears off, I’ll go. But for right now? Right now, I am 14 years old again, and unsure of anything in the world. Who to trust, who actually cares about me, and how I’m going to make it through another day. So I go to work, struggle through my tasks, come home, and spend the rest of the night distracting myself. Then I go to bed, turn off the light, and see his face, and the man in the dimly lit room.

I should probably go to therapy.