Don’t go to the Police.

This isn’t the message you want to see after reporting a sexual assault.

Don’t go to the police?

What about the evidence? How will my (U.S.) embassy know what happened? How will the (British) embassy know that one of their citizens committed a crime?

This doesn’t feel right…

Picture of Saseboanon.

On March 3, 2018, I was a 2nd-year JET Program Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan. My priorities at the time were simple: enjoy Japan while I could. It was my last year on the program and I only had four months left before I returned to the U.S.

My assailant was a 4th-year JET ALT from London. He was everyone’s friend, the fun guy at the party, a mentor/senpai in our community. While I was still struggling to learn basic Japanese, he excelled in three years to conversational fluency.

Impressive.

On the day of my assault, we were preparing a song for an upcoming English Camp. I knew my assailant since I first arrived in Japan and always had fun talking to him. That day at lunch, our conversation revolved around trivial things. I talked about how I was dating someone long distance and he told me about how he was building his marketing portfolio to expand into a field beyond teaching English.

Seems harmless, right?

The two of us scheduling where to put the song with the camp organizer.

After lunch, we headed to his apartment to practice the song. This wasn’t something alarming to me. I had hung out with guy friends in their apartments before.

Additionally, in the JET community, it was common for us to sleepover after a party or night out because the last train was at 10 p.m.

This wasn’t supposed to be something out of the ordinary.