The Farmhouse

Sexual Assault and the Innate Feminine Fear of Saying No

The following is a story about drugging and sexual assault. It is not overly detailed or graphic. I have healed from this experience, but if you have experienced assault or abuse you might not wish to read it. Maybe it will raise questions; maybe it will make you feel understood; maybe it will simply give you pause. I’ve been meaning to share this for a long time, but have waited for the right moment. The “right moment,” when it comes to my various art practices, is whenever the hell I feel like it.

So, it seems, that moment is now.

“The Farmhouse” - Original Illustration by Ryan Stanley

Trauma works in frustrating ways. It places blinders on us when we need them most - for survival - but oftentimes leaves them permanently in place. Time acts as a solvent, if we’re lucky, and eventually we begin to see the wider picture.

The first house party I ever attended wasn’t much of a rager. An eternally greasy grocery store bag boy who’d been smiling knowingly at me for weeks asked me to come to the "huge kegger" he was throwing on Saturday night. His smarmy gaze had always given me a bad feeling. I said yes because I wanted to feel included in any world other than my own.

Whateverhisnamewas and his sneering friend picked me up and drove me out of the city to St. Agatha, a neighbouring rural town. I was taken aback by their decision not to mention that the party was out in the country, but took it in stride.

I have nothing to be afraid of, I assured myself as I headed to a party with two guys I hardly knew.

They were both physically repugnant: a symbolic foreshadowing of their character. Outside of the innocuous environment of our shared workplace, the local Superstore, Whateverhisnamewas smelled terrible and appeared heavily pockmarked and wrinkled beyond his years in the natural light of day. By the time the two guys giddily popped in a Christian hard rock CD, my heart had fallen to the dirty, ashen upholstered floor, taking my stomach all the way down with it.

I’d said yes to this outing because I wanted to be a normal teenager. I’d long known I was atypical, even if the terms queer and neurodiverse would not yet enter my consciousness for another two decades. Not quite feminine, not quite straight, highly sensitive and creative, I had spent my entire childhood and adolescence being compliant: being quiet. I'd been taught to keep my otherness under wraps, ignore my body's signals that something was wrong, and live in a constant state of masking internal distress.

My gaze wafted wistfully over the dreary, factory-farmed Southern Ontario landscape as the car moved me forward into the evening, leaving my sense of self wandering aimlessly in its wake.

Daylight had long since waned as we rolled up the driveway of a rundown century-old farmhouse on a quiet country road. There were a couple of cars on the lawn, a light on inside, and some indistinguishable music thumping out through a tattered screen door. Whateverhisnamewas' friend, Chad was a chicken catcher who immediately regaled the partygoers with tales of his feats from the day prior. Apparently the guy made a lot of dough catching them birds – enough to buy - and I quote - "all the dope he wanted."

Everyone was drinking tall cans of beer and I initially declined one, wondering over and over again A) Why am I here? B) How the hell do I get out of here? and finally, C) What if I'm stuck here all night?

After Whateverhisnamewas offered me a beer for the fourth time, I said yes. My first beer. I took a few sips, and found it revolting. The other kids at the party seemed excited to watch The Blair Witch Project, a cult-hit low-budget found-footage psychological horror movie that I’d already seen, on VHS. We all headed upstairs, for some reason, to watch it in the bedroom.

Thank God, I figured. We'll be out of here in less than two hours. I hope this movie goes by fast.

It didn't.

TMDB.org

The film, centred around a determined young woman’s curiosity to witness and document an unknowable evil in the woods, was especially terrifying in the context of being trapped on a mattress in a small bedroom with seven strange, drunk teenagers in a decrepit farmhouse. Everyone gasped frequently between uncomfortable silences, and the only other girl in the room covered her eyes a couple of times. Whateverhisnamewas tried to get me to sit with him – very close to him with glassy eyes – but I remained stoic and trained my eyes on the TV screen. That is, until I heard a minor commotion off to my side. When I turned fast to see what had happened, I noticed Chad quickly moving out of my view and Whateverhisnamewas looking on with a smirk. I looked down and watched a cascade of foam drip down the sides of my beer can in the bluish light of the TV screen. I figured one of the guys had bumped into my drink and nearly knocked it over.