Basketball Shorts and a T-Shirt
“Let’s watch a movie,” he said.
I nodded and smirked.
My feet pounded as I ran into my bedroom, peeling off my work clothes as quickly as I could, and throwing on a pair of my “comfort clothes”; basketball shorts, t-shirt, and Nike socks before the movie started.
Never did I think that within a few hours, my life would be flipped upside down within a matter of minutes.
I flopped on the couch next to him and he put his arm around me. This was just another movie night for the two of us, a tradition that I had been going on for a while.
Within an hour into the movie, my head was laid rested on his chest, fast asleep. I may have been dreaming about something great while I laid in the arms of the man I thought I loved, but I would only wake up to my worst nightmare.
I woke up and half awake, I was face to face with a situation I never asked for. T-shirt pulled over my head, basketball shorts down to my ankles, and him hovering over me.
I didn’t ask for this. My soccer tournament t-shirt that I won years ago, over my head, or my favorite basketball shorts at my ankles. I didn’t wear them with these intentions. I put on these clothes to feel comfortable, but I got the opposite outcome. Contrary to what some may believe, this is not treatment anyone deserves, regardless of what they were wearing. Whether it lingerie, or my t-shirt that cut just below my neck and shorts an inch below my knees, I didn’t deserve to be raped.
It isn’t a situation that’s simply “asked for” by any means. Never did I think I’d be someone who had become intimately assaulted, this was something I never wanted for myself. Your attire shouldn’t determine the way you’re treated.
In a world full of media’s opinion, wearing exposing clothing or even nothing at all, is looked at as “sexy”. But did you ever think that basketball shorts and a t-shirt were looked at in this way? It seems unfair, why did this have to happen to me, what did I do to deserve this. Questions I don’t have answers too.
But I have one answer that I am sure of: what I was wearing that night didn’t change his motives.
