bad experience

[betterbebalboa.livejournal.com]

Hi all, I had a really bad sexual experience last night, the kind of thing where I felt happy this morning until I remembered what had happened and it all came crashing down. I just wanted to be able to talk about it and ask what I should do next.

There's a guy in my graduate program who's been flirting with me for a while. Last night our program hosted a party for us. At the end, people were heading to different apartments to continue celebrating. The guy mentioned heading to someone's place, so I left with him, thinking I would spend a little time there before heading home. I was very drunk. He took me to his apartment instead and started making out with me. I don't even know what set it off, but I started crying and totally breaking down, apologizing and asking to go home. I know that I really didn't want to have sex with him and I just wanted to go home. I was curled up and crying hysterically. All I really remember him saying are things like "This isn't what I expected" and "I'm kind of bored." I threw up a couple times from being so drunk. I felt like he wouldn't let me/help me go home until I slept with him, so I did. I just kind of gave in. I felt really cold and awful while we were having sex, which is not at all how I usually feel. [He used a condom.] Then he called me a ride and I was able to get home.

I've never had something like this happen to me before; I'm generally very assertive about what I want and don't want sexually. Right now I feel like shit, just ashamed and confused. I know he didn't literally assault me, he waited for me to verbally consent, but I feel like a normal person would have realized that me crying hysterically, asking repeatedly to go home, and being so drunk that I was throwing up was not a time when I *could* really consent. I don't really know what to do. I don't want to get him in trouble or give him a bad name, I just want to pretend like this never happened - I don't want to see him or talk to him again. I don't want anyone else in my program to know this happened.

If you could give me any advice about how to avoid him, or just help me not to feel like a dumb slut, it would be much appreciated.

Comments

[betterbebalboa.livejournal.com]

You're right, he is a jerk. I really trust everyone in my program, and I know from experience that 99% of them are great, kind, wonderful people, so it was hard for me to believe that he would be so different - this is a place where people spend all their time talking and writing about feminist analysis, ethics, liberal politics, etc., so I just assumed we were above this kind of behavior.

I guess it's not so much that I don't want to get him in trouble as that I REALLY don't want to get into a he-said-she-said thing, where it looks like I'm making up my feelings of being assaulted to "get out of" a sexual experience I regretted. He might claim that since he went down on me, asked if I liked what he was doing and I said "yes," and I orgasmed, that it couldn't be non consensual. I do think it was a really gray area. I just don't want to have to argue with him or anyone else about it, I want to be able to move on.

But I do remember that at one point when I was crying, I stumbled up and found my purse in the dark and tried to put it on my arm and leave... I wasn't too steady on my feet at that point. He stopped me and guided me back to the bed, and eventually took the purse away from me again. I definitely feel like that was a point where he should have let me go.

[archangelbeth]

That was the point where he should have called a ride for you, if he had been a decent person.

It is possible that if you talked to other people he's flirted with, you will hear similar stories; the predator theory is that people like this do this deliberately, and will repeat the offense. So... don't feel you always have to remain silent, even if you choose to be silent now. (Or that you will have to speak out later, if you don't feel it will help.) But, well, your first priority is taking care of yourself, physically and emotionally. Later is for later.

Yes, a predator will probably claim it was all consenting. But he's a lying liar who lies, and even if he's lying to himself as well, he's still not allowed to define your reality of this. Please don't internalize the "story" that he'd like to tell; it's one way that predators silence people, by confusing the person they've wronged into thinking "well, it wasn't really wrong."

*hugs so much*