The rules girls learn, the stories women carry, and the ones I refuse to pass down

I’m done hearing opinions and devil’s advocates on rape.

“How do you know it was rape?”

“There are always two sides.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“You have to take the good with the bad.”

I’m done being told how to keep myself safe. Cover up. Carry a weapon. Don’t walk alone. Watch your drink being poured. Don’t be too trusting. Don’t be rude either. Don’t overreact.

I learned these rules before I understood why I needed them.

I was about 5, when I first learned about sexual abuse.

I watched friends testify against neighbors. I knew which men to avoid, which houses required locked doors, which teachers and family friends not to bend over near.

All the girls knew the rules.

No one seemed nearly as concerned with teaching the men not to hurt us.

At 16, I was drugged at a party.

I knew something was wrong after less than half a beer, so I hid behind a shed before I lost consciousness and hoped I would wake up okay.

Dozens of guys passed me. Some joked about whether it would be more fun to fuck me or piss on me.

Two stopped.

One realized I wasn’t okay and stayed with me until I could safely get back to my friend’s house.

I still remember him. Thanks, Schulba.

I was too embarrassed to see him again.

(Imagine being so accustomed to danger that a man simply choosing not to hurt you, and making sure no one else does either, stays in your heart for decades.)

In my 20s, my friends and I were cornered by men.

We got stuck in an abandoned Muni station, surrounded us, and kept trying to grab us, take our phones, and talk about what they wanted to do to us.

A new group of guys walked past us. One turned around.

He saw what was happening. He and his friends came back, pretended they knew us, and got us out. He called his girlfriend and kept her on speakerphone because he understood that being rescued by a different group of strange men wasn’t exactly reassuring.

We brought them cookies the next day.

Again, I remember him.

In college, a man I barely knew stalked me and threatened to shoot up our school if I didn’t love him back. I had talked to him twice for a group project.

I sat two feet away from him in class while the counseling department gave a presentation about homicidal thoughts.

I carried a knife for three months.

He faced no consequences.

No one from the counseling department ever checked on me.

A year later, I invited a friend over because I was depressed and desperately lonely.

I knew he wanted more than friendship. That night, for the first time, I allowed that possibility.

At first, it was consensual.

Then I asked him to stop.

I pretended to be asleep.

It continued for hours and hours.

The next morning, my body was in excruciating pain. I got Plan B and antibiotics.

And I blamed myself. I was disgusted by MY actions.

To this day, part of me still struggles to call it assault because I invited him over. Because I kissed him. Because I said yes before I said no.

My body has never had the same confusion.

When I gave birth to my second daughter, my doctor joked about not raping me.

I prepared myself for how triggering it would be to have an epidural, lose the ability to move, be naked and exposed, and surrender control of my body.

I did the work. I prepared my nervous system. I felt strong.

Then my OB made a “Me Too” joke about not raping me while I was immobilized on the operating table. It was only me, him, and a male anesthesiologist.

Later, I hemorrhaged. My blood pressure crashed. I was pre-eclamptic. I was fighting to stay conscious while the staff tried to reach that same doctor to authorize medication.

So there I was, hoping the man who joked about raping me would answer his fucking phone in time.

And still, somehow, these stories aren't unusual. They aren’t even all of my own stories.

That may be the part I’m angriest about.

Women carry stories like these everywhere.

We tell them casually. We laugh some of them off. We qualify them.

I still caught myself explaining what I was wearing in the Muni station, as though the length of my skirt belongs anywhere in that story. Whether I led Charles on in our group project, gave him reason to take an interest.

We learn to make our pain more comfortable for everyone else.

I did that too.

When people I loved made jokes about sexual assault, rolled their eyes, debated allegations, or told me I had to “take the good with the bad,” While I said voting for a president who says grab them by the pussy would be dangerous for women and girls for decades to come and was told to not be so dramatic. I swallowed what I actually felt because I wanted to belong.

When I told someone I had been raped by one of my best friends, years later I was asked:

“If it was rape, why did you hang out with them again?”

Context.

There is always a request for more context.

In my 40s, a grown man screamed in my face and threatened to fight me while I was holding my daughter.

Six adults watched.

No one stopped him. One person had my back.

Later, my kids told me they had looked around the room and realized no one was going to help us.

That broke something open in me. Because I knew that feeling. I have known it since I was five. And I realized my daughters were learning it too.

I am supposed to teach them how to protect themselves in a world where sexual violence is common. Watch your drink. Stay together. Carry something to protect yourself. Pay attention to the men around you. It’s safer not to wear makeup outside the house.

But I am far more afraid of teaching them the other lesson:

That if someone hurts you, people may ask what you did, what is the full story?

What were you wearing?

Did you drink?

Why were you there?

Why did you trust him?

Why didn't you leave?

Why did you go back?

Why didn't you tell anyone sooner?

Maybe you misunderstood?

Whether we're sure we have the whole context?

Why can’t you take the good with the bad?

I cannot promise my daughters that no one will ever hurt them.

But I refuse to teach them that belonging requires swallowing their pain to protect everyone else's comfort.

I refuse to keep doing it myself.

I was five when I started learning these rules.

Nearly 40 years later, my daughters are growing up in a world that still expects them to learn many of the same ones.

And I’m done pretending that is something we should accept.