Was this abusive or was I just stupid?

[KatieMay123]

Some years ago I was very casually 'seeing' a minor celebrity who has been and still appears on TV occasionally.

He was late 30s, I was mid-20s and unemployed. I was in a bad space and living alone following a weird breakup.

The first time we had sex I was extremely drunk but consented.
Immediately and entirely out of the blue he began calling me derogatory, misogynistic, women-hating names during sex but I laughed it off as I didn't want to cause a scene. It was painful and angry, like being stabbed. I pretended to enjoy it.

We met up several more times, always ending in sex and always the same. I carried on because I hoped he'd grow to like me.

He let me know exactly what he thought of me by telling me I would never meet his parents or anyone else important in his life.

Finally I didn't hear from him for a while and I moved on.

It wasn't until some years later that I realised how wrong this all was. The reality probably obscured by being in thrall.

I would have probably not let these memories bother me so much, but the fact that he has used his profile to raise £100,000s for women's charities astounds me.

Perhaps it's because he feels guilty. Perhaps it's because he wishes to portray himself as a nice family man.

I haven't ever told anyone IRL the full details. I know he was seeing other people at the time so there will most likely be people out there with similar stories.

Was this abusive, or was I stupid? Probably both!

Although if you were so drunk you were vomiting and he had sex with you I would call that rape or assault.

DiscoLightsOnAFridayNight that's the one

Some interesting responses.

I think he should have asked you before he called you names. So when he first said the first bad thing, he was in the wrong.

After that you said you consented to continue. So how would he know you didn't like it?

Re consent- you said you consented, although you were drunk. This is valid consent.

It sounds like a bad sexual experience. HOWEVER it doesn't sound like rape or abuse.

So from the comments it seems lots of people only think something is abusive if you leave or end things. Right ok, but that's not how it works.

If others came forward you could actually have a case and ill assile there will be more than you. Whose to say he isnt still doing it? Why should he get a free pass of treating people badly and pretending to be the good guy. Good men can have good sex without calling a woman derogatory names, unless shes into that if she isnt then being called a slut or whore during an intimate act is a no go area. You were younger and didnt know much better which is why you went back but regardless of that fact he treated you like shit and he must make your skin crawl now

I do think the first time with him sounds at least borderline abusive because he had no idea you liked that kind of thing and you were very drunk. However, I am quite confused by why you continued sleeping with him. I think you would benefit from exploring that with a good therapist.

Name changed for this as probably pretty outing against some of my other posts but I dated a couple of minor celebrities in my early to mid 20s. They were from both the music and football scenes. They all had an ever willing number of girls who would do ‘anything’ to try and get and keep them. Some of the scenarios I know their band mates or team mates got into were awful. They used girls because they could, because they not only put up with their shit but they seemed to like it so they had no reason to think otherwise, particularly as a lot of them were not exactly critical thinkers. They were used to having everything on a plate and they took it. Many girls put up with utter shit to try and bag their ‘prize’. I’ve seen so many girls seemingly willingly degrade themselves including one who kindly offered my partner at the time anal when he turned her down (this was in earshot of me). They had the girls they chose as girlfriends and were respectful to and then the ones they used because they thought they could because they had never been told no. They had an excess of everything and it warped a lot of them. Looking back, it was a hugely toxic environment.

I agree with @PlanDeRaccordement - you pretended to enjoy it and sadly he didn’t care enough to think any more deeply as to wether or not that was truly the case. I’m glad to hear you’ve come out the other side and have learned from your experience. He might have done the same, hence his involvement with helping women’s charities which may be a way of trying to ease the guilt which has come from some years of reflection and experience which has made him think some facets of his behavior were not ok. Or maybe he’s a virtue signaling cunt who wants to appear a better person than he truly is. Either way you’ll never know and the best thing you can do is try and move past it as hard as it may be.

I don't know that I'd call it abusive but he certainly sounds like a fucking horror. First time he goes to bed with a new (drunk) person and, without so much as a by your leave, kicks off proceedings by launching into a torrent of invective. Great boundaries he had.

I can see why someone would feel strange about the whole thing even years later.

@Feelslikealot

Lovely to see the 'poor men don't know when they are abusing women/you should have screamed and struggled,' lot out this week though.

Who is saying that? Literally nobody has said that. Can't you read?

If you can't see the victim blaming on this thread I'd suggest it's your comprehension skills that are wanting.

I’d say it was abusive.

That kind of thing is something you consent to as a couple not something that is thrown at you mid sex.

The fact that you consented to it is a sign of how desperate you were to get him to like you and he probably knew that.

So you were a bit daft and pathetic yes but he sounds likes a knob.

@Scarlettpixie

I don’t think it was abusive as you consented. I think you need to let it go. Some women like to be called names in the bedroom.

I don't understand this thinking. Abusive men gain "consent" by manipulating and abusing the women they are with. She didn't actually consent because she was never consulted. He did what he wanted. To give consent, you need to be asked. Going back for more does not automatically mean consent, it could mean that he abused his position of power in the relationship to get what he wanted.

Calling someone names during sex is always abusive unless they have specifically and freely asked for it in advance. Even then, it says a lot about the person who then agrees to do it.

Doesn’t sound abusive just sounds like he was into rough sex. You didn’t tell him you didn’t like it so how was he to know?

I'd post this in the relationship section. It doesn't belong here. The answers you can get can be very damaging sometimes.

I think lack of self esteem can result in women returning to abusive men.

The celebrity status also can make them more attractive and can allow them to get away with more and they know it.

I think enthusiastic consent is important and that if you have some kink you don’t just do it to your partner during sex and take their compliance or lack of response as it being fine. I was once slapped during sex and although I didn’t like it at the time I excused it as I liked other aspects of the guy. It was only later looking back on it did I see it as really messed up.

@ArranMumma

Doesn’t sound abusive just sounds like he was into rough sex. You didn’t tell him you didn’t like it so how was he to know?

So, rough sex is an automatic ' normal 'default? And the OP should have opted out? Nah

A man during sex calls a women derogatory names a women he doesn’t know and a women that has had a lot to drink

And that isn’t abusive ) wtf is ?

Regardless of the op went back or not that is abusive behaviour

@LilaBellaRose

Name changed for this as probably pretty outing against some of my other posts but I dated a couple of minor celebrities in my early to mid 20s. They were from both the music and football scenes. They all had an ever willing number of girls who would do ‘anything’ to try and get and keep them. Some of the scenarios I know their band mates or team mates got into were awful. They used girls because they could, because they not only put up with their shit but they seemed to like it so they had no reason to think otherwise, particularly as a lot of them were not exactly critical thinkers. They were used to having everything on a plate and they took it. Many girls put up with utter shit to try and bag their ‘prize’. I’ve seen so many girls seemingly willingly degrade themselves including one who kindly offered my partner at the time anal when he turned her down (this was in earshot of me). They had the girls they chose as girlfriends and were respectful to and then the ones they used because they thought they could because they had never been told no. They had an excess of everything and it warped a lot of them. Looking back, it was a hugely toxic environment.

I agree with @PlanDeRaccordement - you pretended to enjoy it and sadly he didn’t care enough to think any more deeply as to wether or not that was truly the case. I’m glad to hear you’ve come out the other side and have learned from your experience. He might have done the same, hence his involvement with helping women’s charities which may be a way of trying to ease the guilt which has come from some years of reflection and experience which has made him think some facets of his behavior were not ok. Or maybe he’s a virtue signaling cunt who wants to appear a better person than he truly is. Either way you’ll never know and the best thing you can do is try and move past it as hard as it may be.

Not me, but my sister dated a few footballers when she was in her early 20s and a few of her friends did too. They were horrendous, every single one of them.

Overgrown spoiled children who'd grown up in football academies being told they were absolute superstars and had never learned to take no for an answer, all misogynistic and paranoid and verbally abusive when they didn't get their way.

Agreed that they had a two-tier system of women they treated badly and women they treated well - but the ones they treated well only got treated that way for a while, then they were cheating on them anyway. Used to see stories pop up about "XX getting engaged to girlfriend of 2 years" with cosy photos of them and think... yeah, but you were also in Liv shoving coke up 18 year olds' noses on Saturday and asking to piss on them, mate, so....

Honestly I wish she'd just let me sell some of the stories to the papers. She wouldn't because she was scared of being seen as one of 'those' girls, but now she's out of that scene she's so much happier.

OP, a lot of these pricks - and I mean horrible men, not celebrities, although that power dynamic definitely comes into play - rely on pushing boundaries and hoping you won't say no.

You didn't, so he can justify it as okay in his head. But it's not.

I did the same when I was younger - had sex I wasn't really enjoying (even though I had consented to having sex more generally) in the hope that it would at some point be different, or he would like me more, or whatever. I wasn't traumatised by it, but I do look back and feel really sad for myself that I didn't feel I could say - actually, this is not what I'm into and you're assuming I like something without checking I'm actively alright.

It could certainly be classed as abusive, although I think there are shades of grey (unpopular opinion, I know - I think of occasions where a man was doing something he liked, or trying to 'impress' in a weird way, and if I'd had more self esteem and told him to stop it, he would have been mortified. I can also think of occasions where I did tell them to stop it and they told me I was being a frigid bitch. In the first cases, they were still wrong for doing something without checking first but they hadn't created an environment where I couldn't say no, I just had self esteem issues and internalised misogyny to contend with. In the latter, they were straight up being abusive).

It's absolutely okay to be sad for your younger self, and angry that he was at best incredibly thoughtless and not very nice, and at worst intentionally making you uncomfortable and therefore being abusive. I feel you.

20 years ago I used to think it was normal to be groped etc on the dance floor and just used to laugh it off. These days I’d rightly call it sexual assault. Our perspectives change - yanbu

@therocinante This is exactly my experience! I didn’t ever want anything serious and I knew that even being in the ‘proper girlfriend’ top tier hierarchy meant signing up to a life of being cheated on and turning a bling eye as soon as you were engaged. Not for me! It’s probably a good thing she didn’t sell her story as having had a few runs in with the tabloids myself (not via selling my story), and knowing some girls who did sell stories, the morals of the journalists were possibly on a level with or even lower than the footballers. They would falsify things, push girls into revealing photo shoots and threaten them if they tried to pull out of agreed interviews or just go ahead with them regardless knowing they wouldn’t have the money or the power to fight back.

@ArranMumma

Doesn’t sound abusive just sounds like he was into rough sex. You didn’t tell him you didn’t like it so how was he to know?

That's not how it works! Dear lord what are so many women socialised and willing to put up with!!

If he likes rough sex, it is his responsibility to ASK BEFORE he does anything. And he must ask in a way that accepts "no" as an answer.

Consent requires an enthusiastic YES, not the lack of a No.

[quote LilaBellaRose]@therocinante This is exactly my experience! I didn’t ever want anything serious and I knew that even being in the ‘proper girlfriend’ top tier hierarchy meant signing up to a life of being cheated on and turning a bling eye as soon as you were engaged. Not for me! It’s probably a good thing she didn’t sell her story as having had a few runs in with the tabloids myself (not via selling my story), and knowing some girls who did sell stories, the morals of the journalists were possibly on a level with or even lower than the footballers. They would falsify things, push girls into revealing photo shoots and threaten them if they tried to pull out of agreed interviews or just go ahead with them regardless knowing they wouldn’t have the money or the power to fight back.[/quote]
Yeah you're right to be honest - how easy it for them to paint the girls as "footballer hungry girl complains about cheating star striker" or whatever? She enjoyed it at the time, who wouldn't...?! Nice hotels, never paid for a night out, had a 10/10 shoe collection - but it wasn't worth it in the end, they almost exclusively had no respect for the girls at all and were bastards. And the girls in the scene end up having no respect for themselves like you said, they're all in the clubs fighting over shit men who just happen to be minted because they've been trained not to expect better!

There's one player she was friends with from meeting on nights out who was lovely and actually settled with his wife, never went near another woman, and whenever I see him playing now I'm like, "awwwww, what a nice boy" like a weird proud aunty hahaha!

@scarpa this is so disturbingly true! I met a couple of players who I thought should be pretty much cannonised because they avoided the ‘scene’ for the most part, displayed a modicum of intelligent thought and took their martial vows seriously. I used to think they were amazing, and whilst I’m sure they were, and are, perfectly nice men they were literally just keeping it in their pants and maintaining the baseline of what you would expect in a commited relationship. However, against the toxic background of that world, I honestly thought this was something that deserved an accolade. I guess in a weird way it was because that lifestyle is one which is so skewed and wrong and yet the whole industry around these people supports, encourages and pretty much acts as enablers for this be to be so endemic, when you find the rare man who rejects it and does the right thing it stands out in a way that makes them being a decent person seem like so much more than it really should be. Crazy!