I Was Sexually Assaulted, but It Took Me Years to Say It

There is a truth that my body has been holding for a long time. I've long been in a battle with self, time getting blurred from a distant past to the present future, each window informing the other. The weight often comes over me as my mind darts back and forth from truth to denial; I tense with desperation and rage as I replay one moment in time over and over again.

For a long time I refused to say it, swallowing down the words that appeared in my throat. Even as I type, I feel a sense of unease in my body: my heart races, my cheeks flush with a shame and guilt that should have never been mine to carry. I take a deep breath and let out the words that I have been denying for 18 years: I was sexually assaulted.



In 2005, fresh out of undergrad in North Carolina, I moved to New York with "Sex and the City" expectations. I wanted to build a professional dance career, and maybe dabble in the fashion industry as a stylist. After a few months living alone and experiencing the city through one date after another, I met CR, who I would end up moving to Brooklyn with after a few short months of dating.

This was a big shift for me; I spent all of my college years in a monogamous relationship to pleasure — or, as some would say, in my "hoe phase" — and I had a blast. CR was a bit of an "industry insider" and had access to hot nightclubs, elite fashion shows, musicians and entertainment executives — people I was not accustomed to, having grown up in North Carolina. I was intrigued w.