#MeToo

I don't share this with people usually because, in the past, whenever I have attempted to, they have felt uncomfortable and asked me not to. But if listening to it makes you uncomfortable, then imagine how I feel having to live with the memory and knowing I can't tell anyone at the risk of making them uncomfortable. I've been ready to break my silence for so long, but no one was willing to listen until now.

By the age of 21, I had been sexually assaulted on multiple occasions by two men; one of which happened to me at the young age of eight, and the other much later, at university. When I finally felt confident enough to tell my "friends" about this only a couple of years ago, they explained to me that, because I am a gay female, it was probably just "normal straight sex" and I was just being dramatic, not understanding what straight sex was. But the reality is, I have never consensually had sex with a man, yet I have had sex with two men. Why is it that we have allowed so many men to think it is okay to abuse women and girls sexually and take advantage, as if we owe them something? We must make more of an effort to discourage this behaviour and reinforce the fact that abuse is abuse and you must be held accountable for putting someone through that purely for your own satisfaction. Even now, I often feel pressured into laughing at crude jokes and comments from men, so as to avoid any of them getting aggressive if I reject them or don't at least humour them. I have even found myself in bars or clubs, apologising to men who are trying to feel me up for rejecting their advances and walking away.

Women do not owe men anything, or rather, no one owes anyone anything, and I am incredibly grateful that people are finally starting to listen to victims and realise that this is not okay. I used to feel so alone and so guilty for what happened to me, especially since it happened to me at such a young age. I was encouraged to keep quiet by the individual involved, and the few other people who knew about what happened to me, which suggested to me that I had done something wrong and that I was never allowed to speak about it in case I got in serious trouble for it. Imagine an eight-year-old, a chid in primary school, being convinced that something awful and damaging that they didn't fully understand was happening to them, and they couldn't tell anyone because they were sure it was their fault for letting it happen.

But now I know I am not alone and what happened was not my fault. Instead of being encouraged to keep silent about sexual abuse, we are finally being encouraged to speak up and support each other and this is such a huge step in fighting back. It is not our fault, we are not "asking for it" and we will be listened to and taken seriously.

However, there does still appear to be a number of people who claim that victims are being dramatic, or that they should have come forward earlier for their abuse to be relevant, and there are many people online using their voice to defend abusers and condemn victims who are speaking up. But we now realise that all we needed was for one victim to be taken seriously before we really felt comfortable bringing our experiences into the public. There is no need for those of us who are ready to talk about our experience to stay silent anymore.

There is still so much to do, and we have to push this even further, but we are finally being taken seriously and, regardless of those who continue to ignore us and support the abuser over the victim, we are being heard. Sexual abusers are finally being held accountable for their abuse and, hopefully, this movement will stop sexual abuse from being a normal thing that many people just have to deal with at some point in their lives.