Aged 14, a man abused me and I didn’t think I could complain...
With great bravery, mother and daughter Mail writers expose a toxic sexual culture that shockingly endures
SINGER Sophie Ellis-Bextor last week revealed that she lost her virginity aged 17 when she was raped by an older man. Here, mother and daughter Bel Mooney and Kitty Dimbleby write with painful honesty about toxic sexual attitudes in their own times — and wonder if things will ever change . . .
WHEN it happened, I was 14. I’d never had a boyfriend and didn’t need to wear a bra. I was one of the smallest and skinniest girls in our year at school. I didn’t feel pretty or sexy and, oh, how I wanted to be fancied — an awful word but it’s the one we used. I was desperate to shrug off my childhood far too soon.
So, when I met a good-looking 19-year-old (through a friend’s elder brother), I was beyond thrilled that this man chose to flirt with me. We hung out in the park and kissed a few times. My peers were impressed, and I was flattered.
After a few meetings (I can’t call them dates), I agreed to go back to his place. It was daytime and it didn’t occur to me how wrong it was that a man was taking a sexual interest in me, a child.
He lived with his mum and had a double bed in his bedroom. This grown-up detail made my heart contract with anxiety as he shut the door. He smelt of Lynx body spray and the scent still makes me feel queasy.
I can’t remember his name, but I do recall what I was wearing: black platform shoes, thick black school tights with a kilt (not that different from my uniform skirt, but much shorter) and a T-shirt. They were clothes I’d smuggled out in a backpack to change into once away from my parents’ watchful gaze.
Almost before I’d realised what was happening, my shoes and tights had been removed. It was clear that he was expecting me to have sex with him.
PHYSICALLY I froze as he pushed me back on to the bed, his hand in my underwear. I mumbled something about not having any protection, but he said it didn’t matter. It was only when I asked him to imagine how awful it would be to tell my father that I was pregnant that he backed off. Instead, he insisted on oral sex. For both of us. I hated every second but felt there was no other choice but to comply.
I didn’t say no or shout out to his mother who was only downstairs. I didn’t struggle but, leaving aside the fact I was underage, there was no consent.
I didn’t tell my friends the full story, and certainly didn’t tell my parents. It didn’t even occur to me that it was something I could report to the police. I just made sure never to see him again.
Later on, as my peers became more experienced and every snog or grope was a badge of honour, I rewrote history, making the experience something I could use as a brag, a proof of my maturity — rather than express the shame and disgust I really felt.
It wasn’t the last time in my life where consent was murky at best, when I went along with things because it felt like the easier, safer option. The sad truth is, almost every woman I know has had a similar experience. In the 1990s and 2000s, when I came of age, the ladette culture was rife. Women were men’s equals — we could outdrink them, out-swear them and out-sh*g them, too.
But, of course, we were far from equals in reality. No meant no — but ‘I’m not sure’, ‘I’m not comfortable’ meant ‘yes’. Being too drunk to consent was also a ‘yes’.
As young women we were taught again and again how not to get raped, how not to get attacked. We were told that if we didn’t take one of the actions that had been drummed into us (not to get too drunk, walk home alone, wear revealing clothing, leave a drink unattended), any physical assault was somehow our fault.
Our male peers needed no such education and none of the men I know was ever taught anything about consent.
I want to feel things are changing: that men are finally being held to account, that they understand consent means an active ‘yes’ rather than passive acceptance.
But an investigation earlier this year by UN Women UK — which found that 97 per cent of women aged 18 to 24 have been sexually harassed, with a further 96 per cent not reporting those situations in the belief it would not change anything — makes it hard to believe so.
Things certainly aren’t changing quickly enough for the next generation of girls, for my nine-yearold daughter and her friends.
There is a quote I love which reads: ‘If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.’ So, while I feel helpless in the face of the figures above, my chest tightening in horror when I read about the killings of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, my husband and I will do that.
With love, we teach our daughter and our son about consent, about respecting themselves and others. That no one has a right to touch them without their permission, nor should they touch someone else without permission. That anything other than a ‘yes’ is, in fact, a ‘no’. If this takes some of the romance out of it all, so be it.
However, I won’t teach my daughter how not to get attacked or raped. Her behaviour, her clothing, how much she doesn’t drink, cannot change the actions of a man who wishes to harm her.
But I will teach my son that it is never OK to take what isn’t expressly given. Because while I know it is not all men, I know it is all women, and it’s time for male violence against women to be something that men fix — not us.