Every time I tell this story (which isn’t often) I always wonder where to start. And usually some ingenious person says “well how about the beginning?” so here it is, from the beginning.
My first memory (and this says more about my appalling memory than it does about the significance of the event) is sitting in front of the TV watching Disney and thinking how pretty Ariel from the Little Mermaid looked. (My friends tease me incessantly about picking the most scantily clad Disney character there is!) Primary school I got along with everyone. I didn’t mind hanging out with the boys and climbing trees and the girls were intriguing so I would tag along there also. High school was a different kettle of fish (what does that mean anyway? “kettle of fish” it’s not like you cook fish in a kettle…unless I’m doing it wrong.)
I attended at the request of my parents an all-girls catholic school. I didn’t much care what people thought of me and for some reason I’m still at a loss to understand this made me quite popular. I have to admit I was a huge flirt. My openness about my emerging sexual orientation was gradual. I never spoke of it directly but after several years (and several kisses behind the school gym) it became apparent to all that I was a lesbian. Surprisingly this was accepted by most of my friends at the time and the staff amazingly enough never found out, or if they knew it was never mentioned to me.
At eighteen during the second semester of Uni. I pursued a medicine degree. There is a whole bunch of tests you have to take to get in and most people take up to a year off to study. I was popular here too but for a different reason. You see, I was downright terrible at medicine. The degree is so competitive that everybody likes the “dumb kid” because it makes him or her feel better about his or her own success or lack-there-of. I like to think my marks reflected more my lack of interest in the topic than my IQ but I’m alone in that assumption. Among the friends I made were a group of gay guys. They used to crack me up, I had never encountered, nor have I seen since, guys quite so feminine. One night after too much vodka I began telling some stupid story about kissing a cheerleader. (Which, for the record I’m almost sure is untrue, wayyyy too much vodka) They insisted on escorting me to a gay club the following night. It was here I was introduced to clubbing! Oh what I had missed!
Among others that night I met the woman I was to spend the next five years with. We will call her Marina…because that’s her name… 😉
The attraction was strong and instant, our relationship developed quite quickly. What can I say except 98% of the time it was wonderful. She seemed to ‘get me’ in a way no one else had or has since. She was, I believe, my soulmate. She was also very wise (but of course!) and made sure I stayed away from drugs and excessive alcohol consumption (bye, bye vodka). She was a number of years my senior and had seen the debilitating effects that these have on people and relationships. I developed many wonderful new friendships and in all honesty life was great.
I quit medicine after that one semester and attained a degree in social science. Marina and I also moved in together for the last three years of our relationship. After that degree I went on to study social work, which brings you up to speed on my academic studies. I was sitting at the Uni. One day studying for a test I’m sure was important and some crazy people in bright colored t-shirts with “Newcastle Christian Students” (original I know) printed on the back came up to me. I knew how to handle these guys! I had fended off many a Jehovah’s Whiteness in my day. I sat and listened saying nothing because I knew the less I said the more likely they would leave and I could get on with studying the implications of the social justice amendment or whatever it was. But the more I listened, the more I realized these people had something I didn’t. So I went along to one of their meetings. It was titled “Jesus as an alternative to religion” (a little more original). I could not have picked a better day to go it was truly the work of the spirit. Growing up catholic, being Christian to me was about religiosity, ritual and sitting in a dark cupboard telling the priest how you just had to buy those $200 pair of shoes, your know its greed but honestly, if God had seen them, he would have brought a pair too…maybe the latter only applies specifically to me… 😳
Through NCS I learnt what it was to be Christian, to read the bible and to live a godly life. I stopped short of allowing Christ to enter into my life as my Lord and Saviour. For me, this meant giving up the only woman I have ever loved. It seemed impossible, unthinkable, and undesirable. The people at NCS are some of my dearest friends, they are strictly conventional in their thinking on homosexuality and while making it clear that my behavior was unacceptable they showed me love, compassion and patience. I have been so blessed to have such wonderful experiences of Christian people. I know for sure that the spirit was working through me to bring me to Christ, I know because there is no way I would have made the tough decisions I did off my own merit. The day I asked Christ into my life I told Marina it was over.
There is never a nice way to break up with someone and she was devastated though not completely surprised as she was well aware of my journey into Christianity. We decided it was best or all intents and purposes to take a ‘break’ until I decided what I wanted. The ‘break’ was a complete sham! There was no way we could live in the same state and keep our hands off each other after five years! For months this went on. It ended up almost destroying us both, I can not imagine anything worse than sharing sexual intimacy with a person you love, then hearing them cry out to the Lord in shame. I cringe to think of how much that must have hurt. Conveniently her work offered her a transfer to Canada and she took it. That was eight months ago. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
There is only one more event, which must be depicted before my story is complete. It’s the only truly negative experience I have had of gay people and it involves the same gay guys I met at med. school. I’m going to tell it all jokes aside, short simple, blunt. It’s the only way I can get the words out.
Shortly after Marina departed I went back to the club we used to frequent together to catch up with friends. I was there about an hour when I saw these three guys I knew leave, they looked high, I followed them out to make sure they got into a taxi ok. They saw me following them and confronted me about my break-up with Marina, I politely declined to offer details and they became agitated and angry. They had been good friends of Marina’s and held me responsible for her heartbreak and departure. I attempted to leave and head back inside and they grabbed me from behind and carried me about fifty meters or so around a corner where we were hidden in the darkness of the night. They were high and it is my understanding that they had no idea what they were doing. I was pinned down and gang raped. (Let me make it clear that they did not to this out of attraction to me at any level. It probably isn’t the most pleasant experience for a lesbian or gay person to have sex with someone from the opposite sex, but to do so against you will while pinned down by three guys in the darkness… I don’t have the words to express the terror and degradation I experienced.) I dimly recall being hit over the head several times and I must have passed out. I woke up in hospital, I still have no idea who brought me in, and he wouldn’t leave his name apparently.
I got off fairly lightly injury wise. There was severe tearing of my genital and anal area, a broken arm and concussion. I was very lucky. I was pressed by my parents and various other friends to press charges. Once the men had come down from their high and realised what they had done, all three of them turned themselves in to the police station. I was still unconscious at this point. Frankly I was surprised they had come clean. I asked to see them. To make a long story short I decided not to press charges. These men were graduating from their medical degree’s the following year; it would have destroyed their lives.
They were truly repentant. I was not in much of a frame of mind to hear apologies at that time but looking back, they were courageous in their own way. I wonder if in their position whether I would have turned myself in at the prospect of 5-10 years jail time. I choose the path of forgiveness more for my own benefit than theirs. Experiencing something like this can and has destroyed lives. I refused to let it destroy mine. I will be forever thankful that Christ worked in me to make me a Christian before this happened, if I wasn’t I would have been telling you a much sadder story. I’m also indebted to my friend Claire who was the only one who understood my decision to let these men walk free. She was my life raft and a true gift from God for many months.
Marina and I are no longer in contact; this was not because we parted angry. We are both simply mature enough to realise that when you have experienced love the way we have, you can never be ‘just friends’. It’s all or nothing.
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