so if you didn't feel like you had to get a girl....

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tarantella, I do not think you are aware of how hurtful a comment your post to him was. He really needs a humble apology.

I am so beyond sad. We are autistic. We are suppossed to be protecting each other from the tortures of the NT world rather than behave like them

I agree.

vicky, I can't stop someone from reading fiction into something I've written. If I'd meant to say that he was a rapist, I'd have said that he was a rapist. And of course I wouldn't do that, because...well, the obvious. As far as I know, he's not a rapist.

So no, I'm sorry, but I don't apologize to people for things I haven't done. He's more than welcome to notice the reality of the situation, which is that nobody's accused him of rape. Frankly, people have been very patient with him in their explanations of something that's pretty simple, at bottom.

I am so damn tired of being accused of being disrespectful to women. Asserting otherwise with you three appears futile. Nothing I've said has suggested I willfully disrespect women's boundaries, yet you three persist.

Let me tell you all a story and we'll see if it changes your minds.

- - - - -

I live on-campus. One night, my school was hosting a movie event and I was meeting a friend there. I loaded up an ice chest full of soda and carried it with me, but it turned out that my friend, like me, drank mostly water. So after the movie let out at about 10:30 pm, I had all this left-over soda on my hands. I wasn't going to drink it, because I'm trying to manage my weight. On my way back to my apartment, I was asking random students if they wanted some free soda. I was giving it away. It felt good doing that.

I get to my apartment, and there are two girls sitting in a chair-swing we have on the first floor. My apartment consists of two two-story buildings with a roof over the breezeway in the middle. I live on the second floor, the swing is on the first floor. I peered over the railing and offered them a soda, and they said sure. We have a little conversation where one girl notices my engineering T-shirt and asks which field I'm majoring in (she was also in engineering). I go downstairs to hand them one and this girl meets me at the stairs, introducing herself as Laura. That hasn't happened in a long time, a girl introducing herself to me. Anyway, we go back upstairs where we have a picnic table that just happens to be situated right outside my apartment. They didn't know prior to sitting down that the bench was right beside my apartment. As they sit down, I'm still standing up trying to find my keys because I want to put my folding chair and ice chest up (basically what I brought to the movie). I neglected to tell them that I wanted to put my stuff up. Now, I'm panicking because I think I've lost them, so I'm a little bit frantic. I'm not paying attention to either them or my body language. After about a minute of them looking on, hearing me say stuff like, "I sure wish I could find my keys," I finally find my keys and turn to open my door. As I'm unlocking it, the girls freak out and leave. It took me about twenty minutes after that to figure out what happened.

I wasn't monitoring my own behavior, nor did I make them aware of what I was doing. For all they knew, I was trying to get a gun or a knife or something and force them into my apartment. After I realized this, I started to feel very, very awful because I had accidentally made them feel unsafe. I felt sick. I wasn't paying attention to their body language or even my own because I was so intent on finding my keys. I'm also a low self-monitor. What made it hurt worse is that I actually really wanted to talk to them, to have a casual conversation because I hadn't had one in a good while with people in my day-to-day life. The way they abruptly left, though completely within their reason and right, made me feel so much worse after I thought I was doing well, having them introduce themselves to me and all. Just imagine for yourselves how I felt.

That feeling lingered for days. That night after they left, I wrote a note to Laura because she said she was moving in soon to my apartment and gestured vaguely to her door. I pinned an apology note to what I thought was her door, but it stayed there for days (I eventually took it down). I wrote that note because I felt the only thing I could do to feel better about what happened was to talk to her and set the record straight. I still have that note and here it is):



I haven't seen either of the girls since. I talked to my friends about it and they said not to let it bother me so much, yet it still did. The next night, I took a walk to a park about three blocks from me and just sat on a bench for a good half-hour. And wept. I left and walked around my neighborhood for a good hour after that, at around midnight, listening to this song on a loop:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyvc0YXgNXE[/youtube]

Eventually I did get over it, but not for about two weeks or so. I forgave myself by not blaming myself, saying I just couldn't have known otherwise. that I wasn't paying attention because I thought I lost my keys, which is understandable. And I knew that I didn't mean them harm.

- - - - -

Now, before either of you three start pointing fingers and say "Ah HA! So you're not infallible!" I never claimed I was, and I challenge each of you to link a post of mine where I said I was. Honestly I wasn't even paying attention to their body language, much less them. I was thinking about what I would have to do if my keys really were lost, and I'd honestly be surprised if in light of that, you held my behavior against me. What I did say is that I'm comfortable enough with myself and my personal threshold of certainty to know when or not, for myself, it would be appropriate for me to make a move. Hint: the signs just about have to be obvious before I'll do anything. If I don't get those signs, I don't make any moves. It's that simple. If I made a move while I didn't have those obvious signs, then sure, I can easily see how that could be disrespectful. But the fact that I just don't act in those cases doesn't give you any clout to claim I have no respect for women. If you take anything away from my story, please please let it be that I clearly do care about women's boundaries.

ows, let me ask you something: why is the ask/"go on instinct" thing so important to you? I mean this is the part I don't understand, why you're so dug in about this.

I said you implied it, which you did. Other people have agreed with me. It's just you and starvingartist asserting it's not rapey.

Not quite on the same scale of import, maybe, ows, but a similar thing in the sense of society just becoming more aware of things, and finding I'm far behind:

When I was a kid, I was taught to cover my mouth or nose if I coughed or sneezed. With my hand. That was polite.
When my daughter started kindergarten, she was taught to cover her mouth/nose with her elbow, so she looked like a tiny Dracula. I asked her what she was doing and she looked at me like I'd gone soft in the head, and said she didn't want to spread germs. Eventually I realized what was going on: improvements in hygiene. Because yeah, if you cough/sneeze into your hand, the next thing you touch gets your germs. Ew gross.

Apparently nobody had thought of this in the 1970s. We were a filthy, unhygienic lot unconcerned with public health, by comparison. I'm a little ashamed, to be honest. It's not something you need to be a genius to figure out. We just never thought about it.

So now I try to behave better, and use my elbow. Every so often I forget and use my hand. And am promptly ashamed. But, you know, it's not like I went out looking for ways to undermine public health; it's just what we learned back then. Things change.

You're pretty young and this is going to happen to you a lot. Ideas you grew up with, or came to in college, will fall out of fashion or be shown to be deficient or even harmful in one way or another. If you can pay attention to them and see why it's happening, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble and a lot of hurt, because invariably some nitwit will come along and point a finger and say how rotten you are for [doing/thinking old thing]. Or, worse, they'll be tolerant, like they have to make allowances for the witless elderly who know not what harm they do. You'll feel a lot better if you recognize that it's not really about you; that sensible people aren't saying you're a bad or worthless or uncaring person. It's about ideas and behaviors.

I'm sorry, ows, but I'm not going to indulge this. Implying requires intent. You may well have inferred it, though I don't see from where, but that's a matter of things going on entirely between your own ears.

Apologize or don't. Are you going to at least take back your statements that I have "little enough" respect for women and "little enough" impulse control?

You might be surprised. I'm speaking as a woman with a long history of make-out and sex experience. It can be very difficult for a young woman to know, really, what's okay and what's not, what she likes and what she doesn't, whether something's wrong with her for not enjoying something, what's polite and expected in the course of sexy stuff. Which is why consent (some say "enthusiastic consent") is so important, and I'd say it's just as important for boys, who're also often pushed farther than they wanted to go. The problem is one that comes up here from time to time -- not actually having enough sexual experience, sexual self-knowledge, and confidence in sexual situations to know, definitively, what one wants and doesn't want, and to speak up about it right then, in the moment, as it's happening -- fast. You can read other women's stories online, but yeah, it's pretty common, to dissociate a bit and just go with whatever the guy wants to do, rather than resist. Or to freeze completely, and man, I can tell you from experience that there's plenty of guys out there with no compunction about that. They'll make it sound like there's something wrong with you for not being more fun, more into it, more satisfactory.

I'd say...well, let's see. First real kiss at fourteen...first ugly date-makeout experience at fifteen...I'd say it took a solid fifteen years of sexual activity before I really had the selfconfidence to be the driver regardless of what the guy was intending, and to know immediately if I was or wasn't okay with something he was doing. Before that? A lot of learning what was on the menu, so to speak, and learning to understand sexual politics and the fact that I did have a voice. It just wasn't a thing people talked about, when I was growing up. Lot of women have the same story. Which is why there's this delay in telling the stories, making the complaints: guy goes ahead and just does; feels like a shock to the woman, who doesn't know what to do in the moment; the woman walks away with it and mulls, sometimes for years, trying to understand what happened to her and why it felt so bad.

I can't go back and do it over again, but I bet that despite the embarrassment of having to put things into words, when inexperienced, that level of respect and openness would've made the initiation into sexual adulthood pleasant, enjoyable even, rather than frightening, cramped, and uncertain.

See your PM in a few.

OWS, if I am addressing you specifically, I will quote you or mention your name, I promise. Or whoever else I am addressing specifically. Otherwise, I am speaking here in general terms, to both men and women.

If you (the generic you) are confident that you are behaving respectfully towards women, then you have nothing to be ashamed of, and you can assume this discussion doesn't apply to you. In fact, anyone here is more than welcome to ignore it entirely if it doesn't apply to them.

Eureka. Do you know how to set up an attractive blog with all the bells and whistles?

I still don't get how sexual inexperience and not knowing what to want and what not can lead to a rape case.
Sorry but are you equating unpleasant or regretful sex to rape?

Also I don't believe that teens should have sex, and I am sure any adult above 18 would know the difference between a kiss, a make out, oral and a penetration Ffs; unless she's totally illiterate about the world then I can see how she can be abused by some offender.


And I am going bit graphical here: during my first sexual encounter, she told me to penetrate her ass; I always found the idea of anal gross but I did it anyway to please her but it felt later more gross me than expected - and it made the whole sex act less pleasant to me, it even grosses me to this day when I think about it; but who's fault's is that? Certainly not hers! She asked, I acted, and I regretted it later, It's not like she grabbed my thing and threatened me with some weapon., she doesn't have a fortune telling abilities to tell that it will be unpleasant for me.

And yeah, she didn't have any guilt (and she really didn't do anything wrong there) about it either, she thought it is very silly to find it gross when she knew later; but I take full responsibility of this choice I made, it's not she who should get the blame for it.

It wouldn't be logical to go to court and tell them "I didn't know anal would be a disgusting experience to me back then but she made me to have it with her! Jail her!" - what kind of logic is that?

Next time, I would be more upfront about it, simple since I know now it is like.

Sex is like food, the only way to find out what you like and don't like is to taste them, it wouldn't be logical to accuse the one who invited you to this new food of forcing you to eat something you find out its taste unpleasant or had a bad effect on your tummy.

I've only had anal sex a couple of times; and I didn't like it one bit. My partner (my fiancee at the time) was also into other sadomasochistic things. I regard anal sex as having a sadomasochistic element to it.

The only natural "lubrication" is pretty disgusting.

Artificial lubrication is absolutely de rigueur in this instance.

I'm glad I had that experience, though; now, I know that I'm rather conventional in Orgasmic Matters.

I know I'll never force a woman into making love with me. One of my most ardent desires is to have her entire Venusian Core envelope my Very Soul. This, obviously, involves Intense Intent on the part of the lady.