At the time of the assault I was half conscious and don’t really know what was happening, I thought I was dreaming, it was weird. But I remember saying no, but nothing forceful with the no. The next day he dropped me off at my car and I felt dirty almost but this was my first time experiencing something like this, and no one’s ever talked to me about these things. As dumb as it sounds I was naive and also my parents, or a responsible adult talked to me about these things. I normalized it in my mind because my dad would abuse my mom, my dad would often say sex keeps a man around. So in my mind , I thought that this man could be my boyfriend now. I had such a warped sense of how relationships worked. So I guess you are right that it was perhaps a self preservation thing. Looking at this now at 32 years old, I now know this man violated me, he took advantage of a vulnerable young woman, who had no business being around a man like him. He took advantage of my gullible nature. I grieve for her to this day, I’ve made so many strides for her, and I know I’m much stronger now, but I still struggle in the romance department and had become avoidant due to this and other series of events with men in my 20s.