'As a human being, I have the right to say no': Woman writes powerful letter to her attempted rapist

It's been dubbed an anti-rape manifesto

The 17-year-old said the sex was consensual but the 14-year-old claimed it was rape (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A young woman has written a powerful open letter to the man who tried to rape her, saying, "you thought you could take what wasn’t there for you to take".

This time last year, Sara Roebuck was living in Paris for an internship when she was attacked by a man in a club. He blocked her escape using a fire extinguisher, locked her in a room for 20 minutes, threw her against the wall, attempted to undress her, pinned her down and tried to rape her.

Purely because she was on her period, she escaped without being raped.

A year on, Sara finally “felt strong enough to put pen to paper” after encountering the man again in court.

She reveals that one of the main reasons she finally wrote the letter was for her own emancipation and freedom.

However Sara’s letter is also a call to change societal norms that trivialise sexual assault and harassment: “I am tired; I am exhausted of stories like this. I want myself and others to understand how and why we as a society still continue to struggle with the poisonous and violent reality of rape, the gravity of sexual assault, the complexity of misogyny, and the patriarchal weight that continues to minimise the role of the rapist and blame the women whose body was snatched from within her own skin.”

In the letter, Sara explains the traumatic ordeal she was subjected to and also why she decided to speak up in court, even though she didn’t need to be there: “I stood up with every ounce of strength inside of me, fuelled by a blind raging fury, furious against your lies, against the absence of recognition of what you did to me, furious against the fact you thought you could take what wasn’t there for you to take.”

Explaining her motivations for writing the letter, Sara explained that she wrote it “because I feel angry, I want people to realise the reality of what happens when you are sexually attacked, and I feel that I have a responsibility to stand up not just for myself, but for the women who will read this and sadly identify with it.

“I see a bright future, and I am in a place now where I am so happy and proud of myself, but I know that for a lot of sexual assault or rape survivors, the journey is long, dark, cold and suffocating.”

Sexual assault is an all too common part of life for a lot of women, and many have identified with Sara’s letter. She published it on Medium and the comments both there and after she shared the letter on Facebook reveal just how much of an impact it has had.

“One of the most inspiring things I have ever read,” wrote one woman. “It's a lonely, horrible, f***ed-up 'club' to be a part of but people like you give us all strength,” said another.

Sara’s letter has provoked such a strong response largely because she wrote about something practically all women have experienced in some way or another:

“I stood for every woman who walks home with her keys clasped between her fingers. I stood for every woman who has switched train carriages because of that one man who isn’t breaking eye contact. I stood for every woman whose parents insist they send a text after a night out, even at twenty-four years old, because they worry for their daughters’ safety because she’s female and not male. I stood for every woman who has felt her sexuality stand on show when walking past a group of men.”

Whilst women related to her feeling and experiences, men were also affected by her letter: “Incredible. Extraordinary. What an anti-rape manifesto. I wanted to highlight the whole story. Instead I’ve printed 20 copies that I’ll hand out the women who I will be meeting with tomorrow and I’m sending a copy to my two adult daughters,” wrote one man.

Her letter is long and incredibly powerful, including lines such as:

“As a human being, I have a right to live my life without my sexuality as a woman being used as justification by men to touch me or sexually benefit from my body.

“As a human being, I have the right to drink, to talk to people, to wear what I want, to go where I want, unaccompanied, alone, with a group, with no group, to live my life.

“As a human being, I also have the right to say no.”

Hopefully the more people like Sara speak out, the more progress will be made in the fight against sexual assault.