The Bachelorette star Katie Thurston has revealed new startling details about her sexual-assault incident and admits she wishes she had gone to therapy after the unfortunate encounter.
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"That is not something I wish upon anybody," Katie shared during the broadcast, adding how the sexual assault left her in an "unhealthy" situation of not wanting to have or talk about sex with anyone.
In an interview with Glamour magazine, Katie opened up about the scary encounter that ultimately changed her life.
"In the beginning, I did feel responsible because I had been drinking and we were in a situation where we weren't in a bed together," Katie revealed, adding that it was "hard" not to blame herself at first.
"But there was never the conversation about birth control, condoms, our relationship status."
Katie even went on to disclose of the incident, "My underwear remained on. That's the biggest thing where it's so obvious looking back that that was not okay."
Katie insisted that "verbal consent is so important."
"Even if you're giving consent while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it's probably not actually consent," Katie explained.
"That's the thing that people need to learn and be respectful of."
Katie said she wants everyone to understand that sex is an "equal agreement," even if a person receives consent.
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RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW"When I was trying to recover from that incident, I would force myself to want to have sex with my partner because I wanted to meet their needs, but I wasn't wanting to have sex," Katie recalled.
"You create this unhealthy relationship with sex by not making it an equal two-way street. I think the simplest way to put it is that it has to be both parties agreeing and wanting to have sex in order to have that healthy relationship with sex."
Katie said a simple pre-sex conversation shouldn't be difficult for the two people involved.
"What people need to remember is that if you're uncomfortable having that conversation, then you're probably not ready to be having sex with that person to begin with," Katie said.
"If you have a good relationship with this person where, even if it's casual, romantic, whatever, you should be comfortable to say, 'Are you okay having sex? Do you want to have sex? Should we have sex?' Then the conversation of, 'Should we use a condom? Do you have a condom?'"
Katie reiterated, "If you're not having those conversations or you don't feel comfortable doing that, then how are you comfortable having sex with this person?"
Katie also mentioned on Monday night's The Bachelorette episode how she had tried to form a relationship with the person who had sexually assaulted her following the incident.
Katie recalled in the broadcast, "I was in denial about what happened, so much so that I tried to form a relationship with him, because I didn't want to believe what actually had happened."
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Katie suggested to Glamour that her attempt to date the offender was a survival instinct.
"I think people don't want to fail, so they do what they can to feel like they did not fail in whatever way that is. For me, in that moment, I felt like I had failed in protecting myself and in standing up for myself," Katie explained to the magazine.
"I wanted to make it feel like it wasn't a failure. I wanted to make it feel like it was intentional. Like, 'Yeah, we both wanted this because we were heading into a relationship.' So you try and cope and make it feel like it was okay. It's unfortunate that was how I was trying to cope."
Katie confessed that she never sought professional help after the traumatic experience.
"I didn't go to therapy. I wish I did. I think I could have recovered a lot sooner," Katie admitted.
"It took me years of self-reflection. I had failed relationship after failed relationship from that incident and finally realized what was the problem. A lot of it was rooted in sex and not having a healthy relationship with sex or communicating about sex."
"The older I got and the more failed relationships I had," she elaborated, "I thought, 'What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this?' That's really when I was like, 'Okay, I need to be comfortable talking about sex.'"
Katie explained the "root issue" she was personally having in her relationships was the inability to talk openly about sex.
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"Once I started talking about it, people would come forward and talk about their stories. I brought it up in very humorous ways to make it comfortable and natural," Katie shared.
"Once I started doing that, my whole perspective and life shifted. Even my relationships, in terms of having a healthy relationship with sex, all shifted for the better. But it took a long time."
Katie added it was "unfortunate" that she didn't turn to self-help books or use resources to assist her through that dark time of recovery.
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Katie concluded her interview by providing a more clear definition of what it means for her to be "sex positive" now.
"Being sex positive doesn't just mean I'm walking around with vibrators. It means talking about sex. I would say [The Bachelorette virgin Mike Planeta] is sex positive because he was able to communicate about sex openly," Katie said, referring to a group date in which Mike P. announced he's happily saving himself for marriage.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
