Ken Chen · @Hot_Bid
23rd Jun 2020 from TwitLonger
My story about being assaulted
My job my whole life has largely been to make people laugh. I know I've been silent on a lot of social things, I am a very private person and it's hard to write stories like this, about me, but so here goes.
Twenty plus years ago I played a lot of table tennis. I traveled around the US for tournaments, did training camps in the summer, played in the US open, won junior olympic medals all that stuff. In one of the trips to save money I roomed with a regular at the table tennis club in NJ. I practiced with him a bunch and he knew my coaches, he was a lot older (mid 30s, I was in my early teens).
The night after the first tournament we get dinner with a bunch of people, he gets pretty drunk and on the elevator back to the room he becomes aggressive about wanting to hook up. I am just kinda pushing him away fighting him off saying no. He eventually gives up and honestly don't even know if he remembers. We get to the hotel room, more of the same. I debated telling my coaches but would they even believe me? He's helping fund the trip and I loved playing and didn't want to be pulled from doing the sport, which I imagine my parents would do immediately if they found out about this. Maybe hes just drunk and I'm overreacting.
Same thing happens the next night. He'd get drunk, he'd pressure me, touch me inappropriately (on my stomach, my genitals), I'd fight him off say no. He played it off like roughhousing, joking, etc but always like "do you want to do more?" It never went beyond that, nobody was naked, no penetration, but frankly I knew something could have happened if he just wanted to. Three whole nights of just feeling terrified. I remember talking to him and trying to be super clear that I wasn't gay, as if he'd just be like OH OK and stop.
Tournament's over, I lost a lot of rating points because I couldn't sleep trying to stay up and wondering if he's going to assault me during the night. You can probably find it in my USATT history if they even track that, lost all my matches. Terrible day for my table tennis MMR.
As I work through this, I ask myself why didn't I leave, why didn't I tell someone, or come out earlier. I always thought I was fine with this, it didn't affect me and I am proud of the person I am. I think I was just in denial. Men feel a deep sense of shame about this stuff. I've never told any of my friends, my parents, anyone, even friends that confessed to me that similar things happened to them. I wanted to, I just couldn't. Even as I write this I have to force myself to tell the truth and not minimize what happened out of self preservation. It's hard, thinking that your friends and family might learn something serious about you on fucking twitlonger lmao but hopefully it might help someone else talk about and work through their own issues.
I didn't tell my girlfriend of four years until today, someone who I love dearly, because of what she might think or what others might. She has been awesome about it. I listen to her, to my friends who are women and it just hurts. I feel sad about it because I empathize, but I also feel guilty because I also think: man I'm just glad I don't have to deal with this on the daily. I can still remember every single detail about this guy, his name, his haircut, what kind of shoes he wore, his table tennis racket. I remember how scared I felt.
I know this isn't directly about any of the stuff that's going on in Dota, but what's happening really made me re-examine how I feel about things, especially with relationships with people, who I can trust, and what I could be doing to help. I don't think being a private person or "not being part of the problem" is enough anymore when our community clearly needs something to change drastically.
I know I can be doing more to at least reach out to people who needed more support or to listen to them better, I'm going to start doing more of that that right away.
Thanks for reading.