Rape Doesn’t Always Scream. Sometimes It’s Silent.
By Trinity Barnette
When most people hear the word “rape,” they picture violence in an alley, someone screaming, fighting, and being overpowered. But that’s not always how it happens. Sometimes it looks quieter. Sometimes it looks like a drink. Sometimes it looks like a phone filled with videos you don’t remember making.
At 18, I thought I was grown. I thought being grown meant saying yes to everything I thought adults did—drinking, traveling, hooking up, making videos, “living wild.” I wanted to feel powerful. I wanted to prove I was free.
So I asked an older man for alcohol, because I thought that was the only way I’d have the courage to go through with sex. I wanted intimacy, yes. I even thought I wanted to record videos because that seemed empowering at the time.
But here’s what really happened: he gave me alcohol, got me wasted, and then crossed every boundary I had. I woke up with bruises I couldn’t explain. I opened my phone to videos of myself blackout drunk, doing things I had never agreed to—including oral sex I had never wanted to do. He knew that. He knew alcohol was the only way I’d do it. And he used it.
That’s not consent. That’s rape.
Because no one wants to open their messages and see themselves blackout drunk being used for content. No one wants to find out their “first time” doing something sexual wasn’t even theirs to decide.
The truth is this: rape doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it’s silent. Sometimes it’s hidden in the places people excuse, the “she wanted it,” the “she asked for it,” the “she drank anyway.” But here’s what those excuses miss—wanting sex in theory doesn’t equal consent when alcohol erases your ability to choose. Saying you want videos doesn’t mean you consent to being filmed unconscious.
After that night, I spiraled. I thought if I moved to OnlyFans, at least I’d be in control of what was recorded, what was shared. But really, I was still in the same trap—confusing exploitation for power because society tells young women that recklessness equals freedom.
Here’s what I want every younger girl reading this to know:
Being grown doesn’t mean drinking until you can’t think straight.
Flying to another state for a hookup doesn’t make you independent.
Recording sexual acts while blackout drunk doesn’t make you powerful.
What it makes you is vulnerable to people who know exactly how to use that against you.
If this is your first time hearing someone say this, let me be clear: your freedom doesn’t have to cost your safety. Real power is being able to say no and be heard. Real independence is protecting your body, your choices, your future.
I’m not telling this for pity. I’m telling it because I don’t want you to mistake what happened to me for empowerment. It wasn’t. It was rape.
And if something like this happened to you, you’re allowed to call it that too.
Rape doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it’s silent. But silence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And I refuse to stay silent anymore.
Raw Reflections End Note
I didn’t want to tell this story. This is one of the most traumatizing things I’ve ever been through, and pressing publish on it feels like peeling my skin open. But I feel a responsibility—to educate, to protect, and to finally speak my truth.
If that makes you uncomfortable, that’s incredible. Sit down and don’t read it. But if you’re a baddie—or a real man who actually respects women—then read every word. Learn from it. Let it change the way you see situations like mine.
This article isn’t for pity. It’s for power. It’s one of the most important things I’ve ever written, and one of my best. Because silence protects them—but truth protects me, and maybe it will protect you too.
