“Libby’s” Story
Illinois
Birth Control Sabotage
Two years ago, “Libby” became romantically involved with a classmate at school—a fellow progressive activist and self-proclaimed “anarchist punk.” After several months, the couple began to have consensual sex, using condoms as their primary mode of birth control. On two occasions, “Libby” was dismayed to realize that her boyfriend’s condom had “accidentally” broken or slipped off during intercourse, but she had no suspicions of foul play. “I totally trusted him,” “Libby” recalls, “and so I honestly believed the whole thing was a mistake—at least at first.”
When the condom malfunctioned for the third time during sex, “Libby” began to panic about her reproductive health—considering the possibilities of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. She confronted her boyfriend, and he conceded that, yes, he had deliberately removed the condom because he felt it interfered with his sexual pleasure.
Soon after that incident, “Libby’s” boyfriend began pressuring her to have non-consensual sex, during which he refused to wear a condom. “Libby” feared that she couldn’t afford an abortion following the repeated rapes, and prayed that she hadn’t gotten pregnant.
“What’s the big deal?” her boyfriend once retorted after raping her. “It’s not like you couldn’t get your hands on the morning after pill if you actually cared.”
Upon ending the relationship, “Libby” began to realize that her experience qualified as sexual assault—a psychological leap that made her feel even more isolated and shattered, rather than connected to other survivors. “It took me a while before I could talk to anyone about it,” she remembers. “I was too ashamed to come out and say, ‘I’ve been raped,’ no matter how much I wanted to talk. When I finally did, and told a few of my close friends the whole story of what had happened, a few of them looked at me like, ‘Oh, I thought you’d actually been raped.’ Basically, they acted like they were relieved to hear it wasn’t some stranger jumping out of the bushes or something…”
Eventually, “Libby” felt she could no longer withstand the pressures of working and socializing in the same midwest community as her former abuser. She decided to leave her entire life behind and relocate to the east coast, where she is intends to join a support group for survivors of sexual assault.
At first he thought I had snuck and got [an] abortion until he saw the papers from the emergency room [explaining that she had a miscarriage]… He was like, ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew you went and got an abortion. You don’t love me. You don’t care about me. You have killed my baby.’"
