I’ve been debating about writing this all down since hearing about the Aziz Ansari situation. Somehow writing it down makes it feel more like an assault. Like somehow if I never verbalized what happened that night, it didn’t really happen. But it did.

My moment came when I went home with a guy I knew from school (let’s call him Mike). Mike and I had been hooking up for a couple months but I broke it off when I learned that he either had an ex he was still involved with or had a girlfriend. He never gave me the full story and I guess I didn’t really care. It had been about a month since I had seen him and a bunch of people from school were out at a bar. We started talking because, despite how it had ended between us, I didn’t want to not be friends with him. I wanted to prove that I could be a Cool Girl and complete divorce feelings from ***. At one point during the evening I remember I was taking a drink of my beer and he put his hand on the bottom of the cup to make it so that I had to chug the entire thing or risk it spilling all over me. He was trying to get me drunk. After that he continued to ply me with alcohol as we talked. We started talking about classes and professors but then he changed the topic. He started talking, in very explicit terms, about what he wanted to do to my body. He put his hand on my **** and leaned in to kiss me. I offered an excuse that our classmates were around and would see. He said he didn’t care. I said that I did care. He tried again. I allowed him to kiss me but turned my head so he only got the side of my face/neck. I did so not because I wanted to kiss him but because I didn’t want to make a scene in a crowded bar. I was wearing a dress and at several points during the night his hand went under my dress and grabbed my ****. Each time I squirmed out of his grasp. He continued to do it. I told him to stop and he thought I was being coy. I wasn’t. I just didn’t want his hand under my dress. Throughout the night he continued to talk about everything he wanted to do to me. He repeatedly asked me to go home with him. I repeatedly said no. When he asked why I brought up the ex or not so ex girlfriend. He dismissed that. He continued to ask why I wouldn’t go home with him. I told him I was on my period (which wasn’t a lie, but what woman hasn’t used that as an excuse when a man won’t leave her alone about ***?). He said he didn’t care. He wanted me. He wasn’t leaving without me. I agreed to leave with him because I wanted people to stop staring and honestly, because I was drunk. When we got back to his place I asked if his roommates were home. He said it didn’t matter. I responded that if they were I didn’t want to disturb them and would leave. He repeated that it didn’t matter. He said “you’re not going anywhere.” He undressed me and we were hooking up and he kept trying to have *** with me despite my insistence that we couldn’t. He did not stop trying. When I told him I had a ****** in, he told me to take it out. When I told him it would be messy, he said he didn’t care. When I told him I should go home, he said no. Every excuse I offered in an obvious attempt to get out of the situation he ignored. He insisted to the point where I became so uncomfortable my body literally shut down. I had a panic attack because a man that I should have been able to trust and a time that should have been fun caused me so much anxiety that I started hyperventilating and crying. That stopped him. My repeated objections and excuses didn’t. But my body literally shutting down and ceasing to respond to stimuli did. He drove me home and calmed me down but that doesn’t forgive what he did. I wouldn’t have needed him to calm me down if he hadn’t caused the panic attack in the first place. I told my roommate what happened as soon as I got home. While she was indignant that he was so persistent, it wasn’t seen as an assault. I didn’t see it as such then either.

I haven’t really spoken to him since. But I did speak to his girlfriend—well now ex-girlfriend—and told her everything. I still go to school with him. We have a year and a half left and I have to see him every day. The truth is I’m not okay with what happened that night. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been but that shouldn’t be the standard that I have to live by. Women shouldn’t have to be thankful that at least it could have been worse. I read an article once that said that men will always say that they don’t understand women’s way of speaking, but they do. Men understand the different ways women say no—whether body language, offering excuses, or outright saying no—but will choose to ignore it because it is simply easier for their purposes. This is not ok. Before that night I hadn’t had a full on panic attack in years. Since then I’ve had 6 panic attacks in as many months. Men don’t get to do this and get away with it. Men don’t get to pretend that they didn’t understand the situation. Because they do understand; they just don’t care. I don’t know how many times I actually said “no” that night, but I do know that I said it and he ignored me. And now every time I have to see him all of those ugly emotions are brought back to the surface. How he didn’t care enough about me to listen. How he clearly had one objective and didn’t care what he had to do to accomplish that. How I let myself be psychologically manipulated by this man for five months before I finally saw him for what he is. He is a monster. He is a predator. The worst part is, is that he is a self-professed feminist. If that is his brand of feminism, count me out. Recently I saw that he liked me on tinder. Because apparently disrupting my life as much as he already did wasn’t enough for him. He had to twist the knife just a little further in. Because all I ever was to him was a wet place to put his ****. He never cared about me. He used me. He used me until he couldn’t anymore and then he tried to come back for seconds. I will no longer allow myself to be under his thumb. I will no longer allow this man to control me and bend me to his will. I will resist. I will survive. And I will thrive. I will show him that I am not his. But I will not do this for his sake. It is for myself and for every other woman in my life that I will rise and fight and persist. It is for every woman who has come before me who fought so that I could fight. It is for every woman who will come after me so that she has one fewer man in her life intent on dragging her down.