A Lesson on Consent

I woke up drunk in my bed to my roommate, Nigel Fleming, taking my clothes off…and ended up pregnant.

Note: I wrote this 2 weeks ago when I was still in Providence, RI. I’m now in sunny Tulum, Mexico living the life that I deserve.

Since leaving Providence, I’ve shared this with closed friends and acquaintances and I’m disturbed, to say the least, at the amount of women who found this post relatable.

To the men reading this, you gotta do better. As Insecure (and this experience) taught me, the worst kind of fuckboys are the ones who genuinely think that they’re good guys.

To start off, I fucking hate him. More than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life. To hate is to love, so I can’t wait until I can truly detach and feel nothing for him (which is hard when you’re still living with someone). I’m not really concerned about how karma will come to him because that’s not my job. The Universe always restores balance and all that’s meant for him will come to him, if it hasn’t already.

WARNING: Graphic sexual content to follow. I want to lay out the facts and so…I’m giving you every detail.

My motivation for sharing is so that you too can learn the difference between a friend and a creep posing as a friend & confidant.

I’m also sharing because my peers are starting to have children and I want to bring consent to their attention now. No one ever taught me, as a woman, how I should expect a man to treat me. While I hold no blame toward my parents, I need my generation to do better.

I’m sharing for everyone like me who goes back and forth with their thoughts trying to figure out if they were sexually assaulted or not. Your thoughts and feelings are valid. I wouldn’t have been able to begin processing any of this if it wasn’t for men and women sharing their stories of sexual assault online so I’m here to do my part.

Most importantly, I’m sharing because my life is moving in a beautiful direction and I gotta let this go.

If it weren’t for all of the dope ass men and women who shared their stories online, I don’t think I would have been able to figure out why I’ve spent the year so angry and with crippling anxiety.

I’ve dealt with bouts of anxiety, but they were always circumstantial and usually related to family or work. Never have I dealt with anxiety for months on end without knowing what the root cause was.

If you follow me on IG and watch my stories, you may have noticed (or maybe you haven’t) that I’ve just been SO angry. A pandemic and racial revolution did nothing to help that. Also my downstairs neighbors verbally and physically abuse their children from 6am to 8pm so that definitely doesn’t help.

In summary, it’s been quite the year. I spent the first 5 months of this year PISSED and I had no idea why. I’d wake up almost every night in the middle of the night and just cry.

Scratch that. Sob. And I had no idea why.

I now know that that anger was really a deep, crippling sadness. One that I never thought I’d ever experience and one that I hope to never experience again.

Before I processed what had happened, I had been crying uncontrollably at any given moment. Ubers, at CrossFit, in the grocery store…I’d have to run to the bathroom to hide and shared this with not one of my friends. Super healthy, I know, but I just didn’t understand.

Without even realizing it, I started isolating myself from all of our mutual friends. I didn’t want to risk anyone inviting him or bringing up his name so if you’re a homie of mine, I hope you understand now. I know that that behaviour was very unlike me. ❤️

Per my journal, it wasn’t until June 8th that I concluded that my roommate sexually assaulted me.

Some backstory: I’ve known my roommate since I was a high school freshman. We, along with many of my other hometown friends, attended the greatest high school in the world and have been homies ever since. We’re a tight knit and diverse group of assholes, roaming the world like the United Nations.

After moving away from Providence when I turned 18, I decided to come back home from nomad life to be near my mom and get my money in order. I originally planned on getting a place alone, but my roommate tagged along for apartment viewings and offered to move in with me. I love my guy friends, I felt safe around him, he’s a firefighter, we both love weed. What could go wrong?

Well, against the warning of a mutual friend of ours, I did not review my standards for cleanliness and have spent the past year cleaning up after a manchild who will cover the stove in food, pee on the floor, cover the sink with burnt food, cover ever surface with stickiness & grime, sneeze all over the apartment and break/damage my things (and then laugh it off without offering to pay for them).

(Spoiler alert: he also gave me covid-19. He had symptoms for 4 days before he told me and decided to get tested. Luckily because of his job, he got locked in a hotel room and I got a [clean] apartment to myself for 6 weeks. It wasn’t until my roommate left our apartment and I put all his things in his room and saged the apartment that these little bits and pieces of the night in question started coming back to me.)

All of this is important to note because cleanliness and good hygiene are necessary for me. My dad is a former Marine so I’ve grown up with the idea that men are super clean, cleaner than me even. Well clearly that idea got shut the fuck down real quick.

Also important to note, I don’t have sex with my friends. I’ve always thought, there’s so much penis in the world, why would I want this one? He’s actually probably my only guy friend that I haven’t slept in a bed with. I see my guy friends as family so I’ve never thought twice about it.

Fast forward to a friend’s Drunksgiving. It was basically a high school reunion. Everyone had to bring a bottle and the mission was accomplished — I’ve never been so drunk in my life. I and my bestie both blacked out and don’t even remember my roommate driving us home from the party to our house. My bestie left right when we got home and I remember my roommate and I went to my room to smoke a joint.

(This is where I unfortunately have to acknowledge my mistake #1. I love having my friends in my room. It’s such a vibe and we usually all pile on to my bed like summer camp. I can now say that I will NEVER have men that I’m not having sex with/that aren’t Dayo in my room again.)

After passing out drunk (I guess?) I woke up around 6am. Or so I thought. What I’ve now come to realize through much meditation is I was woken up by my roommate who was on top of me, kissing on my stomach and taking my clothes off.

The morning after, we had sex again and I remember letting him “hit it from the back” if you will because I was so grossed out at the idea of looking at him. But I figured it had happened last night so a part of me wanted it? I also hadn’t had sex since ‘03.

What I’ve now come to remember is that after I realized he was taking my clothes off, I never moved. My eyes weren’t even open. I can still feel him taking my clothes off and trying to kiss me as I turned my head. I remember being so grossed out by the thought of him kissing me, but I just couldn’t move. I remember him pulling my pants off and just laying there, frozen.

I now know that “sleep sex” is a thing and it makes sense since I’m known for having full convos in my sleep.

What I don’t understand is why a man that I’ve never flirted with, I’ve never touched sexually, a man I’ve never expressed any sexual interest in, would find it appropriate to lay on top of me and start kissing on me/taking my clothes off while I’m drunk and asleep at 6am.

I can kinda see him giving me head, but I was so out of it. What’s grosser than the thought of him touching me is the fact that I can’t remember all of it.

He didn’t wake me up to ask if I wanted to have sex. He didn’t even kiss me. Instead, he thought it’d be okay to start taking off my clothes? And to have sex with me without a condom while I just laid there?

What really creeps me out is that I can see myself laying there. That’s not me. I treat the bed like a playground (#yogiforlife). And I don’t even kiss with my eyes closed, let alone while I have sex. What fun is that?

The final gross realization was thinking back to when it was all over. He just rolled me over and I remember leaning so close to the edge of the bed that I thought I was gonna fall off as I dozed back to sleep.

That was a Friday night/Saturday morning.

We didn’t see each other until the following Tuesday afternoon at which point he brought it up and said that he’d been searching Reddit to see if these type of arrangements are sustainable. I said, nah that’s not realistic.

And then I got super drunk again and had sex with him. I count that time as entirely consensual. I was alert, I was aware. I figured, why not, at this point? Looking back and after reading similar stories online, I wish I had paid attention to the fact that I had to get so drunk to have sex with him.

This was also the night that he got me pregnant. I’ve spent so much time beating myself up over it because, I’m quite responsible, if I say so myself. I don’t like birth control, but I had Plan B right next to me in my dresser. I kept asking myself, “UGH, WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TAKE IT?”

A big reason is that he never told me he came in me. He just left me laying there and went to some firefighter class. Nonetheless, I take responsibility for allodat.

(While getting the abortion, I even had an IUD put in just to make sure I never got pregnant again. That did nothing to help my mood and I took it out last month. Greatest decision I’ve ever made; I’ve never felt better.

Pro tip: don’t make major decisions about your womb out of fear.)

A week later, after I went away for the weekend to Arizona and gained clarity on the situation. He tried to make a move on me and I kindly shut it down.

SOME PREGNANCY HIGHLIGHTS:

• The day after I told him I was pregnant, I landed in Montreal where he, a college friend of mine and I were spending NYE. Yup, I brought in NYE pregnant with my roommate’s baby.
• I had never even knew that nausea could be that real, especially that early in a pregnancy. I remember being bent over, leaning on the counter waiting for my tea water to boil and him just laughing at me.
• The night of New Year’s Eve in Montreal, while I was sober, nauseous & IN HEELS, he was drunk and trying to hold on to me, a pregnant woman, as we walked down an icy crowded hill to the club we were going to. (I pushed him off of me and told him verbatim to “stop acting like a bitch”.)
• He not once asked if I needed anything yet he was okay with having the baby since he “wouldn’t mind having a baby with a friend”. 🤔 (PSA: don’t have a baby just because you wouldn’t mind it.)
• Although having an abortion is such an isolating experience, I’m grateful for the experience because it confirmed a belief I’ve had since I was 12 years old: I don’t want bio children.

He also didn’t understand why I expected him to pay the entire $532 for the abortion so to clarify for all the manses all there…

• $532 < anything you will spend over 18 years for a child
• WE do all of the work, emotionally and physically
• STFU and stop acting broke like you didn’t just impregnate someone

When he picked me up from Planned Parenthood (after letting me know that he couldn’t drop me off less than an hour before I had to be there at 7am), I went to get Subway. Did he offer to get it for me since I was on anesthesia 15 minutes ago? Lol nope.

(ALSO — SHOUTOUT TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. They’re legit the greatest to ever do it and I cannot imagine having gone through this without the supportive staff in Providence. Please consider donating.)

When we went to Walgreens on the way home to get pads and ibuprofen, do you think he offered to run inside for me since I was just sedated and HAD AN ABORTION?

Nope. Instead he parked as far from the door as possible. Literally across the parking lot.

When I left him a sticky note to clean up his disgusting facial hair (the only thing re: cleanliness that I ever nagged him about), he called me an hour after having the abortion to yell at me about how that pissed him off.

I brushed alllllll of this off because I just figured, whatever he is stressed too so let me keep my distance.

Nah. What I’ve now come to realize is that it was all because he is of poor character and he was never truly a friend to me.

Some thoughts that have become apparent to me since I’ve gotten space from him?

• I AM NOT ATTRACTED TO HIM. I can’t even describe to you how much I’m actually grossed out by him, especially after seeing how he lives so I’m still just sooo confused and grossed out about him being inside of me.
• He’s had sex with 2 of our female friends (another reason why I’d never have sex with him, one of the women is a close friend of mine and genuinely had feelings for him) and has propositioned the other 2 for sex. One of whom, he TOLD — not asked — to be his FWB like a month before he slid in me. I remember she even called me after their convo because she was thrown off by his entitlement.
• All the time I’d catch him staring at me. I’d be in my room living life or doing yoga and I’d look up to him staring at me from the kitchen. He’d comment in passing on what I was doing with my body or how good I look. One time, I was getting a crazy workout in and he made a comment when I came out of our spare room that I was breathing so heavily the whole time. I remember being creeped out that he was just sitting in the living room in silence listening to me but just brushed it off as him being him.
• A month exactly before the night I woke up to him on top of me, I had a falling out with a guy I really cared about. He’d always make comments about how much he didn’t like him, which felt very unlike him. He usually likes everyone, but that other dude was not very kind to me, so I won’t hold that against him.
• There were times where I’d go to sit on our couch and watch TV or smoke with him and I’d literally end up sitting on the arm of the couch because he would try to get so close to me or touch me.

My takeaways from all of this?

• Listen to your subconscious — it wasn’t until he left that I realized I had been locking my door at night. Even worse, I stopped sleeping naked. I’ve slept naked, even in the winter, since I was a kid. Ex-boyfriends even laugh about how I strip in my sleep because I just hate clothes. I even put “naked” on my vision board in January and I didn’t even stop to wonder why.
• With that, pay attention to your behavior. During quarantine, I became a fitness fanatic and while most were gaining weight, I lost 15 pounds in the first 2 months. While that’s amazing and I went about it in a healthy way, I now can see that that was my way of taking back control of my body in what felt like an out-of-control situation.
• I will NEVER let my guard down like that again. I spent the early part of this year beating myself up for letting myself get so drunk that night, but I realize now that I felt at home. I was surrounded by people I’ve known for 2 decades. And when I woke up to him on top of me, I was LITERALLY at home in my bed. That’s not okay for me to feel unsafe where I lie my head.

Don’t confuse an acquaintance with a friend. I didn’t really know him. Just because we’ve “known” each other since we were kids does not that mean that we know each other as adults and just because you know someone’s family does not mean that you know their character.

And finally, men are gross. Behavior like this is inexcusable. However you look at the events of that night, I DID NOT CONSENT. And neither did he, honestly. If you, as a man, feel that the only way someone will have sex with you is when they’re half passed out and drunk, DON’T HAVE SEX WITH THEM.

And now, I have one week left of living with him which is absolutely as horrible as it sounds. The day he moved back home after being away, I had a mental breakdown and didn’t exercise or do work for a week. AFTER I lost a week of work & workouts because I caught corona from his ass.

The day he returned home from Hotel Quarantine, I explained all of my revelations to him, not yet truly realizing the level at which he’d taken advantage of me. His response?

This dude didn’t even flinch. I explained how what went down wasn’t okay. How I’d been locking my door at night without even realizing it. How I didn’t like the comments that he’d make about my body. And his first response was “yea, alcohol seems to get me into trouble.” He apologized and said that it wasn’t okay for me to feel like that in my own home and that he didn’t remember much from that night (which is wild to me because he drove us home and showed up when the party was pretty much done).

To be honest, I think his response made it even worse. I’m not sure if he was saying those words just to appease me, as some men do, but he didn’t even contest anything that I was saying. When I explained that I was barely awake while he was kissing all over me and taking my clothes off, he didn’t even argue that fact. And that’s what’s really got me fucked up.

After that conversation, he continued to talk to me like we were friends asking me in passing how I am and telling me about his day. I eventually had to go the fuck AWF and tell him to never speak to me again and that he is a sorry excuse for a man. Every time I look at him, I remember another piece of that night and can feel him taking my clothes off. Even as I write this, I can feel him shoving his tongue in my mouth and me turning my head away yet just laying there drunk/half-asleep. 🤢

As I told him, he truly broke my heart. If it was a one-night stand or even someone I was dating, I think it’d be different. To be betrayed like this by a man you genuinely loved and felt safe & protected around is a pain that I truly hope no one ever has to experience.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, it’s okay that you’re confused. I’ve since learned (thanks Twitter!) that a lot of women and men don’t realize they’ve been abused until months, sometimes years later. I get it now.

All that to say — I’m okay. I’m in Mexico, back to living a life that nourishes me. I’m on the hunt for a great Black therapist and I love myself more than I ever thought I could. Thank you in advance for your kind words. As a healer, if I have to go through pain in order to help others, then it’s all worth it.

Most importantly, I’ve got my power back and I will never let a man take that from me again.

Even as a kid, I’ve always considered myself strong by necessity, not by character. I look forward to the day when I can allow myself to be weak again.