Allegations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman have led the author to present texts from Scarlett Pavlovich that he says ‘demonstrate’ their relationship was consensual. One woman explains why she sent similar messages to men who hurt her.

Sarah Grace is a pseudonym.

When the story first broke to my community that I had been making homemade teen porn for a 32-year-old-man, I woke up to a message from him saying that he had received about 20 missed phone calls from a family member of mine throughout the night. In a panic, I called an Uber to go back to my parents’ house, which I had recently moved out of for the first time at the age of 17. “I started it!” I exclaimed to them. “It’s not his fault, I initiated everything.” I was trying to cool down the situation and make it seem like it was not as big of a deal as it seemed by loudly asserting my consent, and, much to my surprise, I succeeded. 

Less than a year later when I got out of hospital after a suicide attempt, I messaged my first rapist (not the same man) to say “It’s OK, don’t blame yourself, I love you”.  

In both of these instances, I was acting out of fear of losing my relationship with these men. Not because they were safe partners who treated me with care and respect, not because I even enjoyed being with them, but because of the sense of elevation and much needed attention I thought these relationships offered me. Let me explain.

When all of this started, I was 17. I was a virgin who had only ever kissed one boy, was incredibly shy about my body, and was absolutely certain that I was not going to get naked with anyone before I had succeeded in convincing the government I needed them to pay for my breast reduction (they had already denied one claim). I still lived with my parents, had just tried a cigarette for the first time (then vomited), and responded with the most adolescent indignation toward anyone who did not include me in their grown up activities. 

I felt myself to be on the brink of adulthood and was desperate to dive off the edge and shake away any assertion that I was still a teenager in need of care and guidance. Despite my insecurities I had a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for the sexual world that adults inhabited. All of my friends were a lot older than me, mostly open minded people who attended festivals like kiwiburn, had polyamorous relationships, and gave each other lap dances at parties just for lolz. I had a lot of respect and admiration for my friends and I wanted to be considered one of them. One 32-year-old man accepted this invitation.

I thought he was attractive and had started to feel excited and shy around him, as well as perhaps a bit flirtatious. It turned out he didn’t care that I was 15 years younger than him and high school age; he reciprocated my energy. We started sending each other messages, which quickly turned into long conversations every night. 

Eventually I decided to send him some hot photos of myself. They were not nudes, they were clothed but softly provocative images, which to me was very exciting uncharted territory. I still remember how fast my heart was beating when I sent those images. They seemed super risqué and on the limits of what I felt was acceptable. 

But he responded as if it was nothing. He wanted more. 

I was shocked by his request for graphic, nude content. It was not something I felt comfortable doing, and it was not something I would have organically suggested or felt inclined to do. I had never revealed myself like that to anybody ever, let alone online. I would later find out sending nudes under the age of 18 is illegal. But I felt like what this man was offering me was the door I had been looking for into a new world, and I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t worthy of that. 

So in the end I obliged, and our secret virtual connection carried on for months. Often after sending him the pictures and videos, which he asked for, I felt really yucky and embarrassed, and wished that the content could erase itself from the world and both of our minds forever. I still do sometimes. But simultaneously, I felt the huge rush of excitement in finally being looked at as if I were an adult. Now I can see, he might have been into it because I was not. 

After the story came out in our circles he became very scared for his public image, and started to outright ignore me and pretend nothing had happened, which was beyond hurtful and distressing. Very few people thought to check in on me and enquire further into the experience I’d had, and I silently swallowed my rage and pain at being used and then swept under the carpet. 

He, on the other hand, became very expressive about how hard a time he was having and I watched my community flock to his support. I needed support myself, but for his sake I had kept the relationship a secret so long that I didn’t know how to bring it up with people. I was really struggling with my mental health and felt isolated and lonely, I just wanted some loving attention. I began acting quite impulsively and out of character compared to only a few months earlier, throwing myself into a lot of risky sexual situations with people I barely knew, looking for that loving attention.

I started hooking up with a man who was 28. Because he was older and I was younger, it was him teaching me what sex meant and what was expected of me. It turned out sex meant putting up with a lot of pain and doing things you didn’t really want to do. But I guessed it was normal, and kept turning up to his house to be put through this even though I was left sore and injured afterwards. We never had any meaningful conversations about what I wanted before he did these things, and I didn’t feel like I could speak up for myself. Eventually, one time that we were together, when I knew it was coming and was filled with dread, I forced out a quiet “it hurts too much”.  How did he respond? “You can take it.” I learnt to disregard my own experience just like he did. Similar things happened with two other men that year, once in a club at the hands of a stranger (I had used an older friend’s ID), and once at the hands of a 34-year-old man who offered to drive me home after a party because I was drunk, but took me to his house instead.

It took me years to realise this was assault. It took me years to realise I was not really the adult I thought I was at 17, because you can’t see your own immaturity until you’ve grown out of it. In my experience with power imbalance as a teenager burgeoning into a woman, the same power which was used against me was also what lured me in. I was vulnerable, and the attention from these older men meant a lot more to me than mere pleasure and intimacy. 

So why did I defend those men, both to them and to others? I wanted to protect the same dynamics that hurt me, that led me to act under coercion or submit to bad things, because I clung to what I felt I needed from the experience. It’s not acceptable to call someone a victim when that is not a label they identify with, but sometimes it does take time for one to realise the true nature of what has happened to them.

A spine chilling article detailing the rape allegations being levied against Neil Gaiman came out in Vulture earlier this year. After reading it I braced myself for the response it was going to receive, in particular regarding the messages the main complainant, Scarlett Pavlovich, had sent to Gaiman. She assured him it was consensual. She said she’d had a good time. She told him not to worry about her accusing him of anything. These are the messages he is leaning on heavily in his defense, and which have been used as a cause to question her allegations in online discussion. 

I can see my own story in hers, but on a much larger scale. What kind of elevation can a world famous author, a millionaire, an established man in his fifties, offer to an unsheltered, unemployed, mentally unstable and very young woman? What would the attention of someone like that, someone with celebrity status and respect, mean to a girl who was badly hurting and in need of loving attention, who had cut off her family and had described herself as touch and love starved with no community? I really don’t know because I am not Scarlett, but if I had to guess I think it would feel extremely significant. So significant that you might pretend the enormous pain and invasion being inflicted on you wasn’t real, just to hold onto the illusion that you’re being lifted out of your isolation into a fantasy world where you will be loved and cared for.