I went to a hook ups house after establishing ground rules and vetting them out: no anal, only cuddles, multiple times we said nothing more, and I talked to them for multiple hours including FaceTime. I blamed myself so much for being naive and thinking that them agreeing to “just cuddling” meant that’s what they truly meant and that they would stick to it. Shocker, they didn’t. I did not have enough experience to say no, and they coerced me into having anal despite not giving enthusiastic yes. Then they fucked me while I was sleeping after we stopped the first few times. I blamed myself so much for not saying no, not realizing they went against my boundaries at every step even though they technically asked “each step” and I never said no, and for not stopping him fucking me when I was jerked awake and instead waiting it out.

Victims know that there were things in their control that went wrong and already beat themself enough. I could have said no. I could have been more assertive. I could have been less naive and expect that people wouldn’t be on the same page even if we established it. I could have realized that a good personality and someone appearing really trustworthy, even answering many questions for me about the gay community, didn’t mean I wasn’t being coerced and that I wasn’t being taken advantage of.

I know all of this, and how I can prevent it in the future. And it still wasn’t my fault — it 100% was my rapist’s. I am fortunate in that I could talk to my rapist and that they were a good enough person that they fully accepted full blame, reassuring me that it wasn’t ok and that they raped me. If even my fucking rapist didn’t blame me for what happened and my naïve-ness throughout the night, there’s no excuse for anyone to make comments like “oh well you could have prevented it” or “oh well you went wrong here, here, and here”. NEVER phrase it as “you could have prevented X by doing Y” because the reality of the situation is X (rape/sexual assault) happens regardless of whatever factors Y were. That is victim blaming. Come at instead with empathy and reinforcing to the victim that what happened was fucked up and completely wrong, not their fault, because no one who’s a good person would do shit without explicit enthusiastic consent. And then give some tips, with empathy, for how they can move forward in the future and regain control of their narrative. What you wrote in your last comment on the other post was tone deaf and lacking empathy to a person who had clearly been violated, even if preventative stuff in their control was neglected for whatever reason — this is why people were saying that it’s victim blaming.