Rating: NNNNN
I’m feeling a little horrified and a great deal confused at the moment. I just watched the man that I love force himself on another woman and then refuse to acknowledge it afterwards… and I just let it happen. The grey area between utter and absolute consent and all-out rape is rarely discussed outside of feminist classrooms, but such situations happen every day. I calculate that about 50 per cent of the sex that I’ve had has occurred in that grey area.
For instance, I enjoy a man’s company and feel a great sexual attraction to him. I may even want to be intimate with him, but because I’m feeling too drunk or too vulnerable or not sure about where I want to take the relationship, I decide that I’m not ready to have intercourse.
But he keeps pushing gently, never violently or offensively. Every time I stop him at a phase of undress or intimacy, he pulls back, reassures me and then slightly pushes ahead. These intervals keep getting more and more intense, and although I stop him at every base, my resistance gets worn down. And then it happens – somehow I find myself in the throes of full intercourse. I stop protesting and just think to myself, “What’s the big deal? Enjoy it.” And when it’s all done, I lie awake not feeling quite right about it, wondering what I could have done differently.
But I can’t call that rape, can I? I mean, I handed him the condom. I experienced physical pleasure. I could have kicked him out or left, couldn’t I? But these exchanges leave me feeling gross and powerless, and the memories poison my perspective on men overall.
Now I’m with a man who is amazing and loving. He respects me and cares for me, and we have a great, healthy sex life with loads of mutual pleasure. I trust him completely, and we discuss and pursue a more adventurous and open lifestyle because we want to grow as a couple and as sexual beings.
My partner and I have experienced threesomes and foursomes and many other varieties of shared open experiences. These usually just fuel our fire for each other, and even when the experience is less than made-for-fantasy, we’ve grown closer through it.
One night we are out on the town. My partner has become incredibly inebriated, and I’m ready to take him home and put him to bed when a young woman walks up to us at bar and begins flirting with me. My partner, excited by the possibility, very aggressively suggests she come home with us. The young woman tells us she is only interested in sex with women but will come with us and let my partner watch.
At home, all three of us flirt and play lightly. Then she and I undress and fondle and kiss. We’re both surprised to see my partner’s penis thrust between our faces. The young woman is diplomatic and suggests that if he wants to participate he can help her please me, but she isn’t into men. As it progresses, he pushes, and she eventually allows him to neck with her and fondles him a bit. After a while, when he thrusts his penis into her face, she complies but reaffirmes that she doesn’t want to have intercourse. She says she has never been with a man.
At each point, I back her up and gently urge him to stop pushing. This makes him angry, and he calls me condescending.
Then my partner suggests I sit on her face while he goes down on her. I’m feeling great and enjoying myself until I feel/hear my partner mount her. I look down at her face as her eyes grow wide with surprise. She can’t protest out loud, and I don’t move. I become acutely aware of her movements. She doesn’t seem to fight, so I don’t say or do anything for fear of interfering. Shortly afterwards, I get up and try to distract my partner.
The distractions work temporarily, but every time there’s an opening my partner goes for it. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s drunk or really turned on, but he seemed to be extra-eager and almost on autopilot. After everything’s done, I just wish I could take it all back.
While my partner sleeps, I walk the young woman to a taxi. En route, she says she’d like to see me again without my partner. She’s had an OK time but feels a little strange about the heterosexual stuff. I don’t know what to say, but images of all of those grey-area nights flash through my head. I kiss her goodbye, hoping I’ll never hear from her so I won’t have to face my own guilt.
The next morning, I address the issue gently with my partner. He says that when I left the room at various times, she indicated that it was OK that he fuck her. He also keeps referring to her increasing participation in the whole foreplay arena.
“But just because a girl will go down on you doesn’t mean that she wants you to fuck her,” I protest.
He accuses me of being jealous, but what I really feel is disgust. Although he’s never forced himself on me or made me feel used, I’ve witnessed him doing it to this woman. I feel like an accomplice because I literally just sat there muffling her while I knew he was entering her without her consent.
I don’t know what to believe. The experienced woman in me tells me that this was non-consensual intercourse. That type of intercourse that lies between a woman saying yes and a woman saying get the hell out – when no means try harder and maybe means go for it. And afterward the woman is left wondering what just happened, whether she could have been stronger and stopped it, and how she is going to wipe it from her memory banks. This type of non-consensual intercourse rarely results in assault charges and is rarely discussed.
I don’t know what the future holds for me and my partner or whether things will be the same. I want to believe that she consented and I misinterpreted it. Maybe her protests and her statement afterwards were for my benefit because she thought the best way to approach a threesome with a couple is to make the woman feel the third person is there for her. But the experience haunts me and everything about it leads me to believe otherwise.
I love my partner. He’s amazing in so many ways. I can’t see throwing a good relationship away over how he treated a stranger – even if his behaviour was abhorrent. I know I’ll probably forgive him over time, but I’ll never forget. The problem is I won’t ever forgive myself.
L. Ipsum is a pseudonym.
