This is a secret I have kept for 32 years. Surviving two attempted rapes as a teenager. They were the stuff nightmares are made of. Living through one attempted rape is bad enough, imagine two. Two attempted rapes at the age of 15 and 16. Both within about a year’s time. I am now ready to talk about what I went through in the hopes of saving someone else. I am not here to feed you sugar coated bullshit cereal. I am here to be real.
The first attempted rape happened when I was 15 and boys were starting to peak my interest. I was interested in “Jake” and I really liked him but I wasn’t anywhere near ready to have sex yet. I was scared to have sex, my mother never spoke with me about it. I didn’t want to catch an STD (sexually transmitted disease or even worse, AIDS. Besides,there was always the risk of pregnancy. I simply was not ready for many reasons.
Well, “Jake” and I made out on occasion. I never believed a day would come where he would take it too far. One day I walked over to his house, he lived right around the corner, literally about a two minute walk, I was alone. I knocked on the door and Mr. “Jake” answered. He took me to the bedroom and thats when I realized he had male friend over. I didn’t know the boy and he certainly didn’t live in our nei’ghborhood. I never saw the boy at school either. I think the friend was 17 or 18 years old. When I went into the room “Jake” and his friend attacked me.
They kept trying to put my clothes off. yelling at me to stay still still, but I put up a hell of a fight. I was a tiny girl, 5′ 2″ and barely 80 pounds, maybe even closer to 70 or 75. I fought so goddamn hard because they were trying to rape me. “Jake’s” friend tried to get my jeans off while “Jake” was trying to hold me still. “Jake’s” friend had has pants pulled down to his knees while he was trying to get my jeans off. I kept kicking out violently and ferociously. I was writhing, twisting and turning my body, trying to get away. “Jake” managed to get my Shirt off but they sure as hell didn’t get my jeans off. The entire time they were trying to rape me I was screaming at the top of my lungs “NO!” I begged them to let me go. I fought them kicking and screaming for at least 10 minutes, but it felt like forever. I was crying and relentlessly screaming, I was wearing down. I honestly don’t know how I got away. Both of the boys were incredibly strong, but the will to keep my virginity was even stronger. These two boys just committed attempted sexual assault and I told no one, not the police and certainly not my parents. I was scared they would blame me for going to his house and into his bedroom. “Jake” and I often hung out together, innocently. We would sit in his room and listen to music or we would play basketball. Fucking fear, fear is just too powerful. I should’ve called the police, but you know fear.
The second time I was almost raped I was 16. I had a received a broken collar bone and my mother forced me to go to physical therapy. Physical therapy I thought I did not need and didn’t want. She forced me to go. I developed what I would now call an inappropriate relationship with my physical therapist. It was a woman. This woman wanted to set me up on a date with her son. She thought we would like each other so I agreed. And of my course my mother allowed it happen. I swear my mother had literally NO child protective capacities. Child protective capacities are a set of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional skills a parent has to protect their child. Like seriously, what the fuck? I would NEVER allow my daughter to do something like this. I pretty much had zero parental guidance.
So date night happened. Come to find out the boy was like 18 or 19. It wasn’t even an official date like a movie night or out to dinner like my naive self thought it was. It was a fucking full on bon fire party. Hell I thought this was awesome! I bon fire with lots of booze. This woman, a physical therapist, had picked me up and took me to a party in the woods and allowed me to drink. Seriously some people need to learn how to parent and protect children. Sometimes I thank goodness for these rotten fucked up experiences because it taught me what not to do as parent.
After I had WAY TOO MUCH to drink I laid down in the bed of the pick up truck. I was so damn drunk. But I definitely said NO several times when this boy started grabbing my breasts. I kept repeating “no, stop.” He then climbed on top of me. He was thrusting his cock on me and pulling my pants down. I started screaming and he started getting more violent. He smacked me across the face and told me, “be still because I am going to fuck your brains out, like it or not.” Well, I did not shut up. I kept fucking screaming. I kept yelling stop and I wanted to go home. He kept trying to pull my pants off. As drunk as I was I kept fighting. Just like the attempted rape when I was 15, I was writhing trying to get out of the bed of that pick up truck. No was not in that boys vocabulary! The harder I fought, the harder he fought. I thought this is it, this is the night that someone takes my virginity and I have absolutely no say in the matter. My will was going to be taken away from me. There was a brief moment where I just didn’t want to keep fighting, it was so difficult, but I kept fighting, and I kept screaming. I was not about to become a victim of rape.
Apparently I finally got the attention of another adult, a male. He intervened and pulled the boy off of me. He was trying to have sex with me right there in the pick up truck. The man called the boys mother over and told her to get a hold of her son that he was trying to rape me. I told her to take me home. She refused to do so. The man put me in his truck and kept me safe the rest of the night. He ended up taking me home the next morning. That was one of the worst nights I ever had to endure. I got no sleep. I was constantly in fear something would happen to me. Cell phones didn’t exist in 1989.
I went home all disheveled. Make up running down my face. My mother never even asked me what happened, no questions asked. Seriously, there was something wrong with this woman. I honestly feel like she wanted bad shit to happen to me. Sometimes I think on some level my bitch of a mother got pleasure from seeing me go through some terrible shit. Sometimes I feel like I have an invisible target, stamped right in the middle of my fucking forehead that says “OK TO ABUSE VALORA.” People always talk about the old saying, “the sins of the father.” Well how about the sins of the mother? Like who in the Sam Hell did I piss off for the universe to hate me so much? What the fuck did I do to deserve so much abuse? Even though I surround myself with positive energy and people, it is always in the back of my mind that I am never good enough, that I will never be loved, and I don’t deserve to be loved.
I never told anyone about these attempted rapes until last week. I told my best friend Jade of 10 years. That woman is my rock and my sanity. When I feel like I am going to absolutely lose my damn mind she is there to help me pull it back together. I love you Jade and thank you for being there through everything.
“NO means NO, even if you said yes before. NO means NO, even if you are laying there naked. NO means NO, no matter what.”
-Valora Alyx
Surviving Domestic Violence 