In vague and cryptic terms I expressed my feelings of rage and frustration at not being able to protect someone that I love and care about. I expressed that my helplessness turned itself into a kind of rage for her assailant.

It hadn’t occurred to me that this person — the perpetrator — would ever see it. I blocked him on Facebook months ago — we weren’t friends, but seeing him appear in relation to her was painful. I didn’t dedicate a lot of energy to considering him because that post wasn’t about him. It was about our hurt. The point of the post was that harm befalling him wouldn’t change what happened. That the hurt would would throb all the same and that all I wanted was for her to be able to heal.

At no point did I offer names. I didn’t even clarify my relationship with the loved one, nor did I specify the attack in question. (In fact, I also referenced another individual, the source of an older wound, who had done something else entirely.) The post was principally an expression of personal emotion and so those details were deliberately omitted. The largest concession I made in the way of specifics was a couple gendered pronouns.

That he would see this — however he sought it out — and choose to pass it along to friends (of his — people who do not know or care about her) in order to attack me in my little corner of the internet belies something of his own guilty conscience. (As does an email he sent me months ago admitting not to what he had done directly, but to having caused her great harm.) I can’t say that this affords me any comfort. As with mythical punchings and world-burnings, it does nothing to rectify the past harm.

Rape. There’s the word. I avoided it her for her sake, though she’s finally opening up and talking about it. She was raped months ago and last week she started taking official steps to create distance. She was raped by someone in her social circle. She was raped by someone she had liked and trusted. Still liked, because she’s a better person than he is. Was still afraid to see vilified. She wanted a kind of healing that was about her moving forward, not taking him down. And yet. It couldn’t happen that way because he still couldn’t respect her boundaries. He continued to push. Last week’s efforts were about formalizing boundaries. Creating official “Do Not Cross” lines.

But think of the hassle for everyone else present that night if a police report were filed!

Last week she was reminded why it took her so long to come forward. The reality is that sexual assault can be so difficult to prove that a conviction is almost certainly not going to happen. I doubt he will ever be legally recognized for the sexual predator that he is. Quite frankly, I don’t take issue with a legal system that assumes it’s better to let a few guilty people walk free in the name of not incarcerating the innocent. I’m not doubting or questioning the merits of our innocent-until-proven-guilty legal system. Rule of law has every reason to operate the way. It does and should continue to do so.

But in daily life? In daily life where female bodies are constantly objectified, where women are shamed for their sexuality, where they are told how to dress, where the double-edged sword tells them that they can’t want sex and then assumes that they secretly wanted it and are just lying about rape to save face? In daily life, you are an asshole if you fail to recognize that these aren’t stories told for shits and giggles.

Her assailant has a fun habit of trying to convince her that she’s crazy. That she’s making things up. Not just the rape, mind you. The night he crawled into her bed after she was sleeping. The time he spent six hours ignoring her insistence that he raped her and pressing the notion that they should be dating. I have no wish to humor his version of events, but even if you do, it’s a special kind of psychotic to hear that accusation and respond with, “No, see, actually we should go out.”

He gets to tell her she’s crazy because society backs that play. There’s a vast cultural system designed to support that counter-move.

Speaking out after sexual assault is done with full knowledge that there will always be people side-eyeing, doubting, and judging you in a way that victims of no other crime ever experience.

When someone scoffs at the existence of rape culture and assumes a victim that they don’t know is just a silly drunk slut, they spit on every survivor of sexual assault. Likewise, when someone assumes that their response to trauma is the only response, they support the beast that subjugated them. Rape culture gets a boost when victims use their experiences as a means to delegitimize the experiences of others.

To come to a space that was designated for seeking healing, a space that went to great pains to protect the anonymity of those involved, solely to spew vitriolic accusations is a deplorable attempt at silencing. I didn’t even speak that candidly on the subject. The assailant’s friend sought to silence the mere suggestion that hurt had transpired.

Fuck that.

I don’t know how miserable and shitty it must feel to have to reconcile the knowledge that someone you care about may have done this terrible thing, but to come here and publicly call my loved one a liar is itself another shitty and terrible thing all its own.

At the end of the day, the decision to speak, any decision of what to say and when to say it remains with her. As long as she is speaking, though, the one proactive thing that I can do is keep others from trying to silence her.

I was angry before. Enraged. A ball of fury with no clear direction. But this? The knowledge that anyone wants to tell her to sit back down and shut up? Well, that, my friends, gives me a direction.

I will not let you silence this.