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Losing the Power of No

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault/Sexual Abuse

By Jody-Lynne BelbinPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Over the past month or 2, I lost the power of "no." A "friend" of mine took it away from me and it answered a lot of questions about why my mental health has been so bad over the past couple of months. I normally don't have breakdowns as frequently as I have lately. So let me explain what happened.

Trigger warning: I will be talking about sexual assault/ sexual abuse.

It started when my boyfriend and I had broken up. I was depressed and basically always down for a drink. So I messaged this guy (let's call him J for clarity) who I had met through an old work friend of mine. He said he would buy me a beer, and I was grateful for the company and the chance to be numb. So I met J at the bar.

It all went well, although we had some very off-putting conversations, namely the one where he wanted to have me as his sex slave. I was lonely and I was scared to let someone that close, so I told J that we should be friends for a while and see how that works out. He agreed to my terms.

We continued to spend time together, but I noticed he was very touchy: usually wanting me to cuddle him and him placing his hands on my knee while talking to me. Although I was vaguely uncomfortable, I wrote this off as me shying away from affection because of the breakup. Normally I was this affectionate with my friends as well. Slowly, J started to be more forceful. He stopped acknowledging when I would pull away if he tried to kiss me or touch me. He would make excuses when I told him to back off as to why he couldn't.

Then he started asking if I could be "put under consideration." Apparently, in his version of a Dom/sub relationship (that of a Master/slave), being put under consideration means you are a good candidate to become a slave. I was still not ready (it had only been a couple weeks at this point), so I said no. His response to that was to keep asking and keep being forcefully affectionate and ignoring my boundaries until I had felt so worn down (and honestly just wanted him to stop asking me) and said "yes" to being put under consideration.

What I didn't realize was that J was going to be more forceful. He started putting his hands in places I would never be comfortable with his hands being after two weeks. He started forcing me to kiss him even though I fought to pull away. I started feeling helpless and scared.

I know what you are wondering, dear reader: Why did I not run away and never look back? Well, J has a son. A sweet little boy who had essentially adopted me as his mother. Any time I'd think of leaving, I'd think of that little boy and know I couldn't abandon him as his birth mother did. J knew this and used his own son against me many times.

Eventually, I exploded; I had had enough. So I snapped on J and about how he had been treating me. I screamed at him for about half an hour. I thought it would be the end of it, and it was for a few days. Then he asked me to come over and watch his son.

I got there early, and J was getting ready. While he was getting dressed, he came up to me and tried to kiss me. He had managed to get a kiss in before I pushed him away by his forehead and said "no." He responded with "yes" and continued to try to kiss me. We went back and forth with me saying "no" and him saying "yes" for way too long. I just wanted him to leave. Then, as I was having a smoke, he grabbed my crotch. I shoved his hand away and basically fell into myself all over again. Even when I very clearly said no, he didn't listen. I was a plaything to him. I internalized that so badly that, although I flinched away and tried to cross my legs, I didn't put up much of a fight. By this point, I felt like I had lost the power of no. I wasn't able to defend myself anymore. I had lost hope. After he returned from his function, I haven't seen him since. It's been a week since the last incident.

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