TW: Rape, substance abuse. I normally don't believe in trigger warnings but I'm going to talk about some real shit so it's not for the faint of heart.

I have wanted to write this for a while but I didn't want to deal with people saying I'm "victim blaming", because I'm not, but I finally decided "fuck it, I'm writing it anyway".

I'm not much of a drinker. I'll probably have a beer every other month or so. I don't try and stay away from it, but I don't seek it out and frankly I work too much to really drink, but that's besides the point. One day a couple of years ago, I was in a bad place. Coming out of a nasty breakup, dealing with some personal drama and feelings of inadequacy, I ended up drinking. And I mean, drinking. What wouldn't have been much for another person had me absolutely floored. At some point a guy I had been very casually dating (we had barely kissed) ended up coming to my house.

I don't remember inviting him (I'm actually not sure I did), I barely remember him getting there, before the rest of the night goes black. I wake up the next day with the unpleasant evidence of some rough, unprotected sex -- sex I didn't remember or consent to. My roommate later told me that she pulled him aside when he first got there and told him she'd never seen me like this, and I wasn't in a state to do anything, which he told her he understood and would be a gentleman. He wasn't.

When I woke up the next day, he was gone. I had no memories of what happened, just the physical signs and a vague sense of uneasiness and embarrassment. Later I was talking to a friend of mine about what happened and she said, almost nonchalantly, "I think you were assaulted." I hadn't thought of it that way before she mentioned it because I was the ultimate Pick Me and almost never factored my feelings into any relationship situation, but after she said that it made my uneasiness make sense.

I didn't agree to have sex. I never would have agreed to unsafe sex, or the level of roughness that obviously took place. I didn't remember it, couldn't account for it, and was humiliated by it. I never spoke to him again (and he never reached out to me either). Obviously what he did was wrong, and believe without a doubt that I was assaulted that day.

But here's the honest truth, ladies: being drunk has no place in dating. We should never, ever, ever drop our guards around men, particularly ones we barely know. There is almost zero situation that is enhanced (in a relationship or otherwise) with the infusion of alcohol. Safety-wise, charm-wise, connection-wise.

Rapists are predators, and drugs and alcohol do 95% of the work for them. I don't mean to be a downer, but it's the sad reality. Not only does being inebriated make you extraordinarily vulnerable, it allows bad men to make bad choices and redirect the blame to you. And how can you argue, if you weren't cognizant enough communicate clearly? Alcohol blurs the lines of consent and it will not be in your favor.

So, my sage advice from a dumb bitch who has made this mistake: don't drink & date. Don't put your safety at risk "just to take the edge off". Don't allow someone to prove whether or not they're a "good guy" at the risk of your bodily safety. If you do drink, have one and then cut yourself off. Don't let anyone convince you or ply you with alcohol (major blood red flag right there btw). If he's not interesting enough sober, he's not for you, sis.

I don't blame myself for what happened to me, but I do take ownership of the situation I put myself in, and have committed to never making the same mistake again. And I'm one of the lucky ones. It could have gone much, much worse and I don't hope that for any of us.