Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.
A woman has shared her ‘traumatic’ experiences after deciding to spend a year engaging in casual sex.
Kitty Ruskin set out on this year-long journey with the hope of finding liberation through casual sex.
Sadly, her experiences during this period turned out to be deeply distressing, including being sexually assaulted twice.
In her new book, Ten Men: A Year of Casual Sex, Kitty recounts her journey and the unexpected outcomes.
She describes how she initially aimed for liberation, having lost her virginity at 22 and feeling she had ‘missed out’ on casual sex.
In an effort to feel ‘fearless’ and ‘liberated,’ Kitty began her year of casual encounters in 2019, deciding to ‘stop being so precious about who she had sex with.’
She was inspired by the character Samantha Jones from Sex and The City.
Writing for the Daily Mail, Kitty said: “I decided to have sex with as many people as I wanted to.
“No more guilt. No more self-loathing. No more self-limitation. I was liberated and fearless. I was Samantha.”
However, this idea quickly turned sour.
Kitty recounted that one man had BDSM equipment at his home and used it on her without any prior discussion.
She also had an encounter with a PhD student that left her feeling ‘fragmented and nauseous and confused.’
On a second date, he choked her without her consent.
“It probably only lasted a couple of seconds, but they felt agonisingly slow,” she said.
“I couldn’t breathe, and my feet weren’t quite on the floor.”
The situation worsened when she allegedly had her drink spiked at a bar.
An unknown man took her to his home ‘although she was far too drunk to consent,’ and he ‘had unprotected sex with her.’
Reflecting on the impact of her experiences, Kitty said: “My mind was slow to accept that my body had been raped because of self defence.
“After something traumatic happens, you don’t want to acknowledge that it’s happened. You don’t feel ready to face it, or capable of admitting it.”
She concluded by directly addressing men, writing: “Men: let’s take the problem of rape culture off the back burner.
“Let’s pull it down from the shelf and look at it, even though doing so might make you feel uncomfortable. Guilty, even.”
She added: “It may make you feel uneasy, but women are tired of shouldering all this fear and trauma.”
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org