When I was living in Canada on a working holiday visa (I was 19 at the time) something happened that I’ve always felt very ashamed of. It felt so mucky and gross and I sort of block out memories of it and then it comes back and I just feel vile.
I was out at the local bar with one of the girls I worked with. I had a casual boyfriend in the area but he was away for 3 weeks visiting his poorly grandmother, and it wasn’t a serious thing so we didn’t really keep in touch while he was there, I just left him to it. I’d had some bad news that my job wasn’t planning on keeping me on past the probation and that I’d probably need to return to the UK, so my friend wanted to take me out for some fun. We drank quite a bit and a pair of male cousins started chatting us up. We were quite tipsy by this point. My friend ended up snogging the younger one (who was about our age) and the older one began kissing me. I don’t really remember much about him or his face, just his messy blonde hair.
They wanted us to have further drinks at their hotel so we all got a taxi together. When we got to their hotel, a female cousin who was staying there told them she didn’t want 2 random women around and told them to go somewhere else with us. I can’t remember much that happened from here but me and the man I had snogged got separated from my friend and the other cousin. I remember being worried about my friend and wanting to go and look for her and he said we’d look in the woods behind the hotel.
My next memory is him having sex with me. I don’t remember fighting against it or saying no or anything like that. I think he just sort of started and I went along with it, and I remember my mind was distracted thinking about my friend. He then tried to do anal with me and that’s when I began to panic and shouted no, to which he listened and stopped trying to do anal but he did continue having sex with me and calling me a whore and a slut.
Then very conveniently, we went into the car park and my friend and the other lad were magically there. They phoned us a taxi and went back to their hotel room. I spent the taxi ride back throwing up out of the window and collapsed as soon as I got back to my apartment. My friend had asked if I had shagged him and I said no (I felt too ashamed) and she said she had only snogged hers. It was then that my friend said that her lad had told me that the one I had been with was actually 36 years old. I had no idea, I don’t think I ever fully processed his appearance or face, so does that mean I was too drunk to consent?