Featured Image Credit: Instagram/kittyruskin
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Life
Alice Wade
Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.
A woman who spent 365 days having 'casual sex' with men has revealed the shocking results of her experience and the encounters that left her 'traumatized'.
Opening up in her book, Ten Men: A Year of Casual Sex, Kitty Ruskin urged women to be careful when taking part in casual sex, claiming that many modern men had been negatively influenced by pornography.
In the book, released in 2024, the British writer spoke about her experiences casually dating, something she said she previously felt she had 'missed out' on after she lost her virginity at the age of 22.
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Ruskin said she wanted to 'stop being so precious about who she had sex with', in the hopes that the experience would leave her feeling 'liberated' and 'fearless'.
The writer said the decision was in part inspired by the Sex and The City TV show character, Samantha Jones, who was famously promiscuous and sexually free.
“No more guilt. No more self-loathing. No more self-limitation. I was liberated and fearless. I was Samantha,” Ruskin told the Daily Mail, adding: “I decided to have sex with as many people as I wanted to.”
But rather than having a liberating experience filled with pleasure, she was left traumatized, revealing in the book that she was raped twice.
On her first date, with a male model, Ruskin thought she had found an instant connection. However, during their second meeting, she was shocked to discover his house was filled with bondage equipment.
She then claimed he 'proceeded to use [them] on her without prior discussion'. Ruskin decided not to meet him again.
Another encounter with a PhD student also left a sour taste in her mouth. After sleeping with him for the first time, Ruskin claimed he attempted to indoctrinate her into believing in a 'new religion' he was creating.
She said he also choked her without her consent, an experience that left her feeling 'fragmented and nauseous and confused'.
“It probably only lasted a couple of seconds, but they felt agonizingly slow,” she recalled in her book, as per the outlet. “I couldn’t breathe, and my feet weren’t quite on the floor.”
Things went from bad to worse when she was spiked during another date.
Ruskin said her date, an unnamed man, took her to his house, despite the fact that she was 'too drunk to consent', before proceeding to have unprotected sex with her.
“My mind was slow to accept that my body had been raped because of self-defense,” she admitted. “After something traumatic happens, you don’t want to acknowledge that it’s happened. You don’t feel ready to face it, or capable of admitting it.”
Despite the traumatic experience, she decided to continue her journey, but she opted for a different approach.
“I liked the idea of having sex with someone who cared about me; someone who had regard for my feelings,” Ruskin wrote in the book.
“Perhaps sex within a relationship would leave me feeling more satisfied, more empowered.”
But things didn't go as planned.
A man she met up with forced her to have unprotected sex.
“Condom,” Ruskin repeatedly said, however, he didn't stop.
She described the second rape as giving her 'an almost unbearable weight of grief'.
Despite her best hopes, Ruskin said the year of casual sex left her 'broken up and disheveled'.
The book, she said, aims to draw attention to the 'burden' women face during casual dating.
“Men: let’s take the problem of rape culture off the back burner,” Ruskin said, advising men. “Let’s pull it down from the shelf and look at it, even though doing so might make you feel uncomfortable. Guilty, even.
“It may make you feel uneasy, but women are tired of shouldering all this fear and trauma.”
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org.