Taylor Swift said everything I wish I could say to the man who assaulted me

My sister has a theory. 

The theory is that Taylor Swift has a song for whatever moment of your life you are going through.

Happy? She’s got it. Sad? It’s there. Whether you’re newly in love or recently dumped, she will have something for you.

The one sentiment that Taylor hasn’t ever covered for me, is the kind of low-level burning rage that sits inside you when you remember that many years ago, someone did something to you that they shouldn’t have done, that they’re not sorry in the least, and that you’re not ever going to be able to deal with it.

I don’t really want to write about it, to be honest.

I still feel stupid, and guilty, and like it was entirely my fault. Suffice to say, I was a teenager, it was late at night, I was terribly, terribly drunk in a very short white dress, with a man who was sober and fifteen years my senior.

The man in question did things to me that I did not want to do, and was too drunk to consent to. When I was eventually sick, he stopped, and left me alone in the middle of central London with no idea how to get home.

The next day, I text him to say sorry for being so drunk. I told myself I was being stupid, that I had probably wanted it, and if I hadn’t wanted it then I shouldn’t have worn that dress. I had my jeans in my handbag. I could have put them on. I didn’t. So it was my fault. And I didn’t want to make a fuss, or make it awkward in our friendship group, or spoil things for anyone.

So I pretended it was fine, and I told myself it was fine, and I cringed when I saw him but internally repeated that it was fine. I was prissy. Messed up about sex. Being stupid. It was all my fault.

Years later I learned about affirmative consent. I realised that a person who is so drunk that she is sick in her own hair isn’t able to consent.

I realised that stone cold sober men who are almost old enough to be your father aren’t supposed to treat you that way. But it was too late.

Once I tried to tell him. I saw him across a room. He smirked at me. I knew he had been talking about me to our mutual friends. He called me a liar. He said I was being manipulative. How could he possibly have done the things I was accusing him of, if I’d turned up at his parties afterwards?

So I approached him.

My brain froze. I couldn’t say any of it, the speech I had lain awake at night planning, the one which would make him realise what he had done and why he should be sorry. But it wouldn’t come.  Not one single well chosen sentence from the speech.

I flimsily told him he shouldn’t have done it. I half heartedly told him he should care. And with one last pathetic swipe at getting those feelings out from inside me, I asked him, ‘why don’t you care?’

He sniggered.

My boyfriend lunged at him, he legged it, and everything I’ve ever wanted to ask him was left unsaid, and those feelings resettled in the back of my chest, resurfacing every time I read the account of someone else’s sexual assault, every time I heard of a man who was patently guilty walking free because convictions for sexual assault are so cripplingly difficult.

I had a mouthful of cheese when I read the quotes from Taylor Swift’s assault trial this afternoon.

 

Swift is embroiled in a legal dispute with a man who wants $3 million of damages because he was fired from his job when she accused him of grabbing her underneath her skirt while taking a picture with her.

Taylor didn’t bring this in to a court room. He did. Perhaps like me, she was too young to realise what he did was wrong at the time, or perhaps also like me she felt that while it was cripplingly wrong, it wasn’t worthy of going to trial.

During the trail, the man in question’s lawyer asked Swift if she had any feelings about Mueller losing his job because of the incident.
Taylor told him:

‘I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.’

I am horribly, horribly sad for Taylor that she had ended up in this situation. But I have to admit, a small part of me is glad. Because the things she said to the man who put his hand in a place he had no right to put it, are the closest I may ever come to closure.

So many of us are blamed for events which are the products of someone else’s decisions. Taylor refuses to allow that to happen.

Every single line she’s spoken in court is perfect. Each word could have been scripted. I wish beyond wish that I could have that, that I hadn’t screwed up my one and only opportunity to speak.

Reading Taylor’s words is the closest I’ve come to feeling okay about what happened in years. I won’t ever be able to undo what happened to me, and I will probably never get the chance to give him the real speech. I can’t promise myself that if I saw him again I’d be able to get it out this time either.

But that’s why it matters that Taylor said the things she said. Because she did say them. And she didn’t just say them for herself. She said them for every single woman, who just like me and millions others, didn’t ever get the chance to say them.

Thank you Taylor. You’ve seen me through getting hired, getting fired, meeting new boyfriends, losing new boyfriends, lonely nights and amazing parties.

I should have known that eventually, some how, you’d have my back.

MORE : Why the judge in Taylor Swift’s sexual assault trial will not reveal when she will take the stand

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