Okay, the first question is No I wasn’t, because I was seven. It was in my house, actually. My abuser was a family friend so it was someone that my parents trusted. He was gentle, he was very kind to me, he was kind to everyone but that didn’t stop him from doing what he did to me. He decided to kiss me and I didn’t understand why he was doing that but he just told me that you know, this is just how any parent would show affection. Manipulating me into believing that what he was doing was normal To convince me that it was just affection that my parents weren’t showing me. He was initially starting off with a lot of kissing, a lot of fondling and stuff. And that gradually became digital (finger) penetration he made me touch him and he even tried to have sex with me. It went on for about a year or so before my parents found out about it. They never imagined that someone like him would be capable of doing something like that because he was a family man too. He had two daughters of his own. If a woman is seen as drinking and then therefore she’s wild and therefore she’s asking for it and that’s actually a massive myth in Singapore’s culture. For one of the incidents of sexual violence that I survived a fellow university student she drugged my drink during orientation her friend followed me back after my drink got drugged and then he raped me in my dorm room. There was so much blood all over my bedsheets but I went into such a terrible state of shock by that point because by then I had survived quite a lot of acts of sexual violence. I think there was just this part of me that just couldn’t believe that it was happening again. I was 17 when I was raped by my ex-partner. It happened at his place, in his room and how it happened was we were having a fight, I went over. We were suppoed to talk about it but no talking happened. All my rejections and all everything that I was doing was not going through to him at all. So, after the resisting, after trying to fight there was a lot of crying, a lot of shouting I guess. I could not cope I was very tired with fighting and feeling like I was losing the battle, honestly. I basically waited for it to end, and then I left. Before everything happened, I had told him “Look, I practice safe sex”. How I define it is sex with a condom on. And he was like “Okay”. So what happened was as we were in intercourse and I was facing away from him. After everything finished I looked down, past the bed on the floor and I saw that the condom was on the floor. And the condom was not filled. And that’s when I thought “Did he just penetrate me without protection?” The practice is called ‘sheathing’. Which is basically the removal of the condom without your consent. People seem to see the very physical parts about sexual assault but at the end of the day, it’s about consent. I’ve told you I only have sex with a condom on that’s the agreement. You’ve broken the agreement therefore what you did was not consensual. So that’s just it. It’s as simple as that. It’s very easy to cast blame on the victim but I don’t think we do enough to talk about the aggressor. Why don’t we talk about the fact that the act started because of the aggressor who decided to do something to hurt the victim. That should be what we’re talking about. Sexual violence, I feel like, covers many things. So, it’s a whole spectrum. And I think some people, they like to compare. They’re like, “Oh, you got molested, you didn’t get raped”. But people don’t realize that every experience of sexual violence is traumatic. Of course my body was in shock when certain uncomfortable things happened. Like when he was trying to forcefully digitally penetrate me and stuff like I could feel that my body was rejecting it. But at the same time it was very confusing. Even though I didn’t understand what was happening to me and I didn’t even know what he was doing to me was wrong but he opened up my eyes to pleasures of my body way earlier than I should have been aware of them. So this was something that was very upsetting for me and I think I struggled a lot when I was growing up. I was like “Why am I still wet?”, for example. I don’t want this to happen so why is my body reacting as if I want this to happen to me? But that’s a misconception where it’s just a very biological reaction where your body is just like something is penetrating you you need lubrication. It’s a way to protect yourself and your bodily organs, basically. And people just, you know paste all these random ideas like “Oh, but you’re wet, so you definitely want this”. Like, no I didn’t. If I want it, I’ll tell you. That’s how you know, like language exists for a reason guys. Rape victims having orgasms mid-way through their rape is something that happens quite often and it just makes them feel worse about themselves. And I think this even puts this whole perspective out there that “They were asking for it if they didn’t want it, why would they orgasm?” and things like that and I’m like no, your body can react to stimulations. Arousal does not equate to consent. It really doesn’t. I think a lot of people kind of overlook consent from men. I know a lot of guy friends who were forcefully taken advantage of in a sexual setting where they have been stimulated to the point where they have an erection and then the girl just decides and takes that as a sign to have sex with that person. And because men have already conditioned themselves into thinking that, “Oh, I should enjoy sex”. And when that happens they are also kind of shocked by it. But they don’t necessarily stop it because they’re like, “Oh, I guess this is happening now I’ll just let it happen”. But they still carry that weird feeling with them they just don’t realize that what they’re feeling is violation. Men have a right to consent as well so if your guys, your boyfriends say they’re not in the mood, or don’t want it even though they might have an erection don’t force yourself on them respect it, respect that boundary. Just as a queer person alone trying to make a police report will the policeman arrest me for Section 377A first before he looks into this, you know? Will the policeman go “Oh, let’s not care about this but two men had sex, okay, so must arrest (them)”. I mean that was what I was thinking about. That’s what I assume a lot of queer people would be thinking about as well. So that didn’t happen the police report never happened. It’s not easy to come forward. It’s not easy to do that and share your story. And people are saying “Oh, these survivors they’re coming (out) very late they’re telling their story very late why didn’t they tell their story that day?” You try telling your story tomorrow! You try! After something bad happens to you you try and tell your story tomorrow! It’s not easy! You have to go through years and years and years of dealing with yourself. I think first of all it’s important to declare that survivors don’t owe it to anyone to report what they’ve gone through. They also don’t owe it to anybody to explain the graphic details of their incident just so the listener can feel that it happened or that it’s a valid experience. For me, the first few times I tried sharing it my friends were like, “Oh no, I don’t think it happened”. I’m like, “I just told you it happened what do you mean you don’t think it happened?” So, there’s a lot of invalidation. And the rape culture we have there’s a strong belief that if you survive sexual violence it was kind of like your fault like you kind of asked for it that you are kind of to blame. This victim blaming culture that doesn’t help survivors feel like they want to come forward. Also, if let’s say the attacker is the father or a boyfriend, or a friend they care about many women are conflicted because even though they know deep down that something terrible has been done to them against their will there’s this strange other part that worries about their attacker. And it doesn’t make sense to anyone who has never experienced sexual violence. In my situation it was a multitude of reasons. I was 17 I didn’t know if anyone was going to believe me if I reported it. I don’t talk to my parents about these things. I came from a school that was very conservative. I did not know how to go about reporting it even. And I had this fear that if I was going to go to a police station and report it they’re not going to believe me. Or they’re going to be like “Why are you physically intimate with this person?” “Why did you go to his place?” and ask me these whole bunch of questions. And I did not want to kind of put myself in that position where I was already so traumatized and I have to re-explain myself with the risk of not being believed. And at the same time because he was my partner at that point I was somehow very concerned with the fact that if I reported it something would permanently happen to him. So, I just made that decision not to. So it was like a whole range of reasons why I didn’t report. It was very important to me that my parents actually did report it because I would say that if anything has given me confidence to move forward it would be the fact that at least someone did something about it. After the whole court case when I was 8 years old and everything we won the trial and my parents came back home and told me “Let’s not ever talk about this let’s pretend like this never happened think of it as a bad dream, don’t tell anyone, okay?” But that’s about my childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence has happened to me on more than one account. For me, when I experienced intimate partner sexual violence I didn’t confide in anyone. I just didn’t want people to know that I had been intimate with a man because it is 'taboo'. But, I’m an adult. As an adult, I make certain choices based on who I trust but that doesn’t mean I was asking for it. It doesn’t mean I was putting myself in danger. Even your partner does not have a right to your body. You are not dutifully bound to please him sexually and stuff. This is the moment I use the tagline by Singapore Police Force “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime”. It happens in same sex relationships too. It doesn’t have to be about your gender identity or your sexual orientation. That kind of assault/violence does exist in same sex relationships. If someone has an intention to do harm to you they’ll do harm to you regardless of the time of day or where you are. People assume that it would happen at night. People assume that it would happen in a public place in a back alley or something. I’m not saying that these incidents don’t happen, they do. But it does not limit to those type of scenarios and those types of situations for sexual assault and sexual violence to happen. A lot of people think that it has to be a violent act for it to be sexual violence, but no. You can be midway through consensual sex and say “Look, I want to stop now”. And if that person doesn’t stop but isn’t being violent but he just doesn’t stop that is also sexual violence. Because you just completely disregarded the other person’s intent to stop. Like, they wanted to stop. Singapore might be safe but there’s a lot of things that happen behind closed doors that happens and sometimes is very hard to prove but it doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. It felt like everything about it was difficult to be honest. I wanted so bad to believe it was not happening again that I actually disassociated so much that I decided it did not happen. I was definitely alchoholic after in my bid to pretend that it didn’t happen and forget and deny the experience and actually much later I started looking into it and I went to see a counsellor and they actually told me it’s a very classic PTSD symptom to pretend it didn’t happen because it’s just too unpleasant to think about. So, for those 3 - 4 months, I didn’t let anyone into my room without really thinking why and I slept on the same blood stained sheets for 3-4 months because I was just in such strong denial that it didn’t happen. I was suicidal multiple times and I’ve tried various ways in which I wanted to take my life because the shame was overwhelming and I felt so disempowered and helpless. The hardest thing that people need to overcome when they survive sexual violence is the overwhelming sense of disempowerment that really disables your entire life in all aspects from friends, to school, to work Coming from that space to where I am now I think it definitely has been what seems like a long healing journey internally. Because I already had a diminished sense of self worth and identity because of the abuse I felt constant pressure to have to justify my existence. I need to be doing good in my studies I need to be a great girlfriend I need to be a great daughter I need to be a great sister I need to do everything on the planet. I felt like I had to be that person who makes everyone else laugh people have to enjoy being around me. There’s a lot of people saying “Look at Devika, she’s so jovial she’s clearly gotten over it”. But that’s because this is just how I am this is my personality. But there have been times when like sudden bursts of emotions just hit me and I just need to excuse myself to go to the washroom or something and I’ll cry for like 5 minutes. And then I’ll like, get myself ready again and I’ll go back out and nobody would have known that I just had a mental breakdown. But that’s also not okay like it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to ask for help it’s okay to let your friends know. I’ve gotten better at it now I can let pepole in, I can be like “Yeah, so guys I’m totally having a mental breakdown right now BRB (be right back)”. I can do that now, so that’s progress. It takes time. Just because I am traumatised doesn’t mean that you have to see it in a certain set of checkboxes and I have to tick all of them for me to not be okay. I don’t want to see another photo with a completely black background and a little girl sitting in a corner going like this. It’s not true! Not everyone copes the same way. People have to stop thinking that, you know “Oh, I’m supposed to be able to see that trauma from you”. Which is why it’s so important to kind of like check in with people and have a community of people that’s able to sit down with you and go like “How are you”, you know? And always ask because what you see is not always what you get and that’s just how it is. During the immediate two years after it happened I blocked out a lot of these things but I think after telling my friends and getting some sort of support system that brought me to a place where I was like I’m going to talk to him about it. For me, it was more of closure and on his part recognising what he’s done to me. And a part of me believed that if he was able to process this he wouldn’t be able to do it to someone else. In the end, after a while I was after he pissed me off basically when he was just like “Oh, but you’re okay”, and all that nonsense then I was really able to come in stronger and go like “You know that was rape, right?” He was just like, “Oh shit you’re trying to say I’m a bad person I’m not a bad person, you know. I do all these things”, and blah blah blah. “How can this be?” Good people can do bad things. Good and bad are very generic and arbitrary terms. You can care about your immediate community you can be an amazing boss at work you can still sexually assault someone, you know? That does not take away all these things you did good at but you did something bad and they co-exist together. Now it’s your turn to come and acknowledge what happened. However you want to carry forth from this is your choice because in the end it’s not my job to educate you and I came here looking for closure so, that I did for myself. There were days when I would indulge in very unhealthy sexual practices that were going to damage my health. People can do whatever they want with me. Like, why do I have to take so much effort into caring for myself you know, when someone can just come in and do that thing all over again and send me down this spiral of me worrying about everything. I found it very difficult to form a connection and that’s when I realised I was not allowing myself to be vulnerable. I think it wasn’t until I met my current partner that I really begun to let down my guard. When I told him about it, he was like “It’s fine, I still love you the same”. To hear someone say that to you that you love him and he loves you back that just means everything right? Yeah. And that was when I started becoming a bit more like really started opening myself up and started feeling that connection and not be afraid to have that connection. So that changed a lot, yeah. I’m here today because I realised that people are more willing to talk when someone else starts the conversation. It’s okay to be part of a dialogue that is still stigmatised in Singapore. I think people are very afraid to talk about sexual assault and sexual violence because of the nature of the entire thing. It all comes down to sex and sex is a taboo in our community. I was actually on my way to do an interview with AWARE about sexual violence. My mom was like, “Don’t give them the wrong idea”. “Don’t give people the idea that maybe you have been sexually active”. So I told her “Mom, you know that I already had sex, right?” And then she was like, “What?”. And she went like full on Indian drama with background music and like *imitates sound effects* She was like, intense. The first thing the first thing that she asked me was. “What will your future husband think?” She was more concerned about what that person would think rather than whether I had given my consent when I did it or whether I was safe whether I am okay. We can do beter in terms of education. I think sex education is important to decrease sexual assault and sexual violence. All the focus on abstinence without explaining the other side of things like if you choose to be sexually active how do you protect yourself? If someone wants to do something and you don’t want to how do you negotiate that situation? You know, all these things I feel like they all come together to play a part in understanding exactly what sex is what healthy sex is and eventually rape culture. I feel like I have that privilege and I want to be able to use it so less people, or hopefully no other person will go through what I went through because it’s awful. Honestly, I really don’t care. [Laughter] My answer will be very different on the day that it happened. Because that was the one thing that I was afraid of was that people would see me as a slut first. But today I own that story. Within the queer community there’s also this stigma that like you’re sleeping around, you’re that kind of person. And especially within the queer community when we are already ostracised by the general community and then we ostracise within ourselves we take that bullying into the community and then bully each other. We should be supporting each other and really holding each other a lot more and not be afraid to talk about these kinds of things that are happening. I think it’s more important that I speak about it than care about people’s opinions of me speaking truth. There is a lot of sexual violence happening in Singapore to all members of communities. It just happens to be more prevalent where we have straight men attacking straight women. It’s really important for men to get into the conversation because I think isn’t that kind of going to the root? And then kind of seeing what we can do to support them so that they feel safe. So that they don’t feel a need to make women feel unsafe. It’s kind of a chain reaction and it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation where there’s no clear “which came first”. I’ve never once claimed that it’s the only kind of sexual violence that’s happening. It doesn’t matter what they identify as it doesn’t even matter because every human being deserves to be safe. I would like to just say that whatever happened to you is not your fault. Whatever you were wearing no matter what time you were out or whether you were at home. Whatever that happened to you you didn’t deserve it you weren’t asking for it. Whatever emotions that you are feeling because of it be it anger, be it sadness be it violation be it the fact that you don’t even want to think about it It is all valid. If you want to report it, report it. If you don’t want to report it if you think that’s what’s best for you even if it means that you want to just bury it and never bring it up again. And also know that if you share your experience with anyone and they react negatively you have all the power in you to walk away from the conversation. You don’t need to listen to someone retraumatise you or insult you, or offend you or blame and shame you You can feel very weak and powerless in these moments and begin to let everything else take over you But when you finally when you begin to own that part of your story you show just how powerful you are in taking charge of your life. Waking up every day can be a struggle. You wake up, and you just feel like “Why am I doing this, why did this happen?” just so many questions. Reach out for support if you want to take care of yourselves take all the time you need. Healing is a very complicated process it’s not going to happen overnight and that’s just the struggle of it but, you know, eventually you will be able to find the power within yourself to heal, move on and continue living.
