Make my sexual assault count

I never felt compelled to share my story before, because it is so unremarkable, so common, because so many women have been through worse. I dated him afterward. Part of the encounter was consensual. We had both been drinking, him far more than me. I thought maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, and later didn’t remember (an idea the men in my life whom I’ve told, and whom I love and trust, have dismissed). And so I didn’t think there was anything to report.

But watching Dr. Blasey’s story threaten to upend the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee, with her staring down the most powerful men in the country with her pain, has made me rethink this.

The outpouring of pain from the women I love this week has made me rethink this.

“I’ve been thinking of you all week. I’ve been thinking about myself and really every woman who has ever had any man touch her,” another friend texted me on Thursday.