I was in my mid-20s, openly bisexual, very confident, and had enjoyed a great Saturday night out with my housemates. I had drunk a lot. We were outside the local gay club, having a ciggy. I’d noticed these two guys several times over the last year or so. Everyone noticed them. They were athletic, good looking, strong, and liked to party. My memory is fuzzy as I was drunk, but I somehow got into their taxi and knew i was going to have an unforgettable night; just not the way it turned out.

I thought it was odd that they deadlocked the front door behind us, and I thought it was odd that they locked the bedroom door once we went in. I asked if anyone else lived there and they said no. I asked why they locked the door, and they just smiled and started to undress me, and I was willing.
My phone started ringing in my pocket. I answered it, told my mate I would be home later, and hung up. This is the point everything changed. This is the point that my memory becomes crystal clear and every word, movement, smell and sensation is burnt inside my brain. They took my phone from me, angrily and threw it across the room. I didnt understand why they were angry. I tried to carry on with where we had left off, but they didnt want to do that anymore. They hit and pushed me til I fell onto the bed, then the floor, then held me down and subjected me to a violent and life changing 5 hours. I begged and pleaded with them for it to stop. I tried shouting but that made things worse for me. Even when I stopped resisting, things became more violent. I found myself thinking about things like the pattern on their bedding, and counting spots on the wallpaper, while they sexually hurt me. Eventually one of them told me to get my phone, and put my clothes on, and he unlocked the doors, and told me to go and let them sleep. I couldnt walk home because i was in so much pain, and had to call a taxi. I clearly remember standing on the corner, opening my wallet and trying to pad the back of my boxers with it, so that I didnt leave blood stains on the seats. I was so ashamed I had been one of those guys who give gay/bi guys a reputation for drunken promiscuity.

I eventually got home, and my housemate was angry with me for being out so long without calling. I tried to explain what had happened, but I couldnt say anything, and couldnt understand why. It took a couple of weeks of dosing myself heavily on ibuprofen, co-codamol, laxatives and stool softeners before the physical effects started to subside, but mentally I blocked it out as a drunken weekend.

It was about a year later things started to get pretty weird. I began to visit cruising grounds, and began to obsess over the two guys from that night; i social media staked them, partly to avoid being anywhere they were, and partly…I just needed to know what they were doing. I began engaging in risky sex, and even asked strangers to do certain things to me, without understanding why; things that had been done to me that night, and that I definitely did not enjoy.

I had stopped attending my routine quarterly sexual health check ups because I didnt want them to know about that night, but due to spending every spare minute at cruising grounds, I found myself needing to get checked out, and during the visit they asked if I would like to see a psychosexual therapist regarding my compulsion for sex with random men.

When the first appointment finally came round, I just blurted it all out. All of it. It took months of sessions with the therapist, and a good 10 years of reconciling to now finally be able to say that it was NOT my fault.

I am not better yet. I have a long way to go on my journey. I don’t know if I can ever have a relationship, and especially not with a woman. I struggle to see myself as someone who can offer more than just physical pleasure to others. I don’t know if I can ever drink alcohol in a pub/club again. I dont know how I will cope if I am ever in their vicinity. I don’t know how my friends or family would react if they knew I had carried this around for so long. The one thing I do know though, is that although being drunk and foolish, this was not my fault. Similarly to women survivors, and other male survivors, we did not cause this. If your story is like mine, or you blame yourself then please please understand and accept that you are not to blame, because accepting that, for me, feels like the beginning of a journey to get back the life I should be living.

Martin