question about sexual encounter

[havetoask]

Sorry, the title is a bit wanky, I feel a bit stupid asking this question though.
I've namechanged for this one.

If you meet a man and you end up back at your house, and then go to bed, and this is the maybe tmi bit.....

If you have never had sex before and your body clams up and he can't get inside you, but he forces it in, and he knows he is hurting you quite badly but carries on, making you bleed, is that ok? Would that be considered a disastrous sexual encounter or would it be more serious?

This happened a long time ago, but I can't stop thinking about it and it's not a nice feeling. Plus, I didn't have sex or get intimate with anyone for a long long time after that. I can't believe I'm posting this now. Am I overreacting?

He was obviously a pig, but I really wouldnt like to use the word rape, not because I want to speak up for men, but because you are obviously confused and hurt by this encounter and it would be easy at this point for you to become even more distressed by the enormity of such a word.

he was wrong, unfortunatley like colditz has said men are crap at reading any form of communication, especially when their knob is involved.

If you need some help please go and speak to somebody, dont hold it in.

I'm kind of with colditz on this: I think he may have been selfish and insensitive (and inexperienced himself) rather than a real predator. If he 'instructed you to do things' and you did them, he may not have picked up on the fact that you didn't want to do them.
This is not to say that he had any right to do things to you, or that you were bad, or weak, or stupid, for not stopping him or objecting, or for having wanted - or thought you wanted - to have sex with him.

Can a man really be enjoying it if the woman isn't? Surely it must be as uncomfortable for him if the woman is dry and tense? If they're enjoying it, then it's a perverse enjoyment knowing they're hurting the other person rather than enjoyment in the way sex should be enjoyed?

I was raped at a time when I was quite vulnerable, I'd fled an abusive marriage only a few weeks before. I did try to stop him, we were in a car and he moved to my side, I moved to the other side and each time he moved over I was becoming more undressed. We were in the middle of no where so I couldn't just get out the car. I told him I wasn't interested, at that point I'd only been with my husband and that was since we'd married, I had no intention of having sex with anyone else, let alone a complete stranger in a car!

Eventually it got to a point where I knew it was inevitable, so I stopped fighting because I didn't want to get hurt and I didn't argue with him because I didn't want to be dumped in the middle of no where.

I wasn't going along with it, I wasn't participating and I didn't want it, I was trying to protect myself from being hurt more.

I think some comments on this thread are really disheartening and just show why it's so hard to get a conviction these days. Something like 5% of rape cases get to court, you had to have been attacked in the street by a complete stranger and be injured before it will be taken seriously. It seems even fellow women can't be relied on to show compassion.

TBM: what happened to you sounds horrible too. But I do think there is a bit of a muddled grey area in some sexual encounters (particularly where either both partners or the active partner are inexperienced, drunk, or stupid) - also, a radically conservative upbringing can lead men to think that 'decent' women don't really enjoy sex (but ration it for declarations of love or gifts of jewellery), or move much when it's happening. Such an upbringing can also make it harder for a woman to fend off an oafish partner - or even feel that she has any right to object.

Dittany, it's really not a myth, look it up. There is a reason Autism is 400% more prevalent in the male population.

I was anything but naive, maybe getting into the car but that was probably more how I was than anything. I did fight back and I did tell him I wasn't interested. I only stopped fighting when I realised I wasn't going to stop him.

I would say its rape, i did'nt think it was when it happened to me, i was only 15, i was in a reationship with an older man, he did this too me many times , i did'nt tell anyone till 5 years later as i did'nt think he had done anything wrong as this was my first relationship/partner. I thought i loved him and i thought by letting him do this too me i was showing him how much i loved him (i was young and stupid).

At has effected my life, from the age of 16-20 i had no respect for myself or my body. It was'nt unil i told a friend that i realised it was sooo wrong.

If you ask someone to stop then its rape.

havetoask it's not a silly question - many women including myself have experience of situations like this - in my case i said no about twice but he ignored me and I didn't do anything else to try and stop him - he was a massive rugby player type who had me pinned down so there didn't seem much point. It was obvious that nothing I said or did would change anything so I didn't struggle or anything. Nor did I report it and for years described the event in my head as "a sort of sexual assault" almost as if to lessen what he had done. I'm not surprised that you just went along with it, if he was being aggressive, then instinctively that was a normal response. I'm also not surprised that you are in an emotional turmoil trying to come to terms with it - it's a difficult thing to face up to.

And more generally, if a man has sex with a woman who is "clamped shut" (vaginismus? sp) that is her body telling her and him that she doesn't want sex. It takes some forcing indeed to penetrate someone whose muscles have spasmed in this way, and it is incredibly painful.

So as for the other debate - I would say that if he was ordering her around aggressively, forcing himself into her when she was clearly in pain and I'm sure would have been flinching away, to the extent that she bled, then I would agree that he raped her as well.

Not a great lover. Maybe even a twat.

Not rape though.

He might even be a rapist, but she didnt say no so it wasn't rape in this instance.

It's good trying to convice someone they were raped when they weren't. Instead of putting a bad experienec down to expereince and learning from it, they begon to dount themselves and their judgement.

Life dictates that sometimes sex is shit, especially the first time. Sometimes it hurts and we bleed, especialy the first time. Sometimes we have sex and then realise we don;t particuallry like the person we are having sex with. All these instances put together aren't rape.

I'm not sure it matters whether you call it rape or not, (but largely I agree with colditz on that point.) What matters I think is that it was distressing and painful and you still think about it later and it upsets you. What I mean is, what matters is your experience, which was awful, and how you now deal with it - not what it is called or whether the guy knew/ didn't know various things.

Sorry, that should read

It's not good trying to convice someone they were raped when they weren't.

Thing is Grammaticius rape s more than a distressing and painful expereince. It really is. We have distressing and painful experiences all the time in life. Non of them have the terrible effect on us that rape does. Yes it is a terrible experience, but rape is specifically about a man circumventing female choice. It does no good to anyone to pretend it is just about having a bad expereince.

I know that Dittany. She is not describing that. I know you are still terribly angry and scarred by your experience. You were raped. HTA not being raped does not invalidate your expereince even though it has qualitive similariites. For the sake of rape victims everywhere we must be specific about this

Dittany, I was not "diagnosing him as Autistic", I was pointing out that male and female brain function disparity is not a myth.

And as for the beaten wives... I was one. The answer really is to just leave. You can't fix it. You can't make him not be a wife beater. You can't councel her for 10 years about why she allows herself to stay in destructive relationships. You can only tell her to remove herself from an untenable situation.

We all know it's not as simple as "Just leave" - but that's where it has to start.

So you think it is important specifically to use the word rape, monkeytrousers? And to determine whether it does or does not apply in any given circumstances, because rape has a particular effect that another experience can't have? I'm interested to know why you think that.

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences (and those of all the other ladies who have been raped ).

I've never been in this awful situation but I can tell you about my first time, where I was madly passionately in love with my partner, yet still found it incredibly painful and bled afterwards. I think the only noises I would have made were of pain, rather than excitement, but it didn't dull my partner's ardour (and he was a loving, kind, gentle man).

So if you definitely never asked him to stop, then it's possible that he honestly didn't know you wanted him to.

Sorry again

I'm not saying there are no grey areas. Sometimes is is difficult to know when it applies. We need to explore when and when it does not, and make thiunsg as near as possoble to clear, to increase successful prosecutions. The waters are already muddy here. Muddying them firther does not one sny justice - that being the right word here.

Ahd yes rape has a particular effect thay other expereinces don't have. Wr do not readiky tgink of rape as theft or assualt - terrible experiences but feminists and people working with rape voctims know rape to be qualititvly different in the most terrible way. It may seem vulgar to even try top measure somehting like that, but doing so has began to increase the sentencing for rapists annd other things in the pipeline.

And it is not least becasue of the devestation that is unleashed upon a woman's personality when her explicit autonomy is revoked - it is the very real consequenses she may face after that - desertion from the many current partners who tend to feel that they have been cuckolded rather than see it from her point of view - of doubthing the paternity of previous children - both of these especially if she has no palpable injury whioch she would have stuggled - which as Dittany has pointed out, is quite common as many women 'freeze'. Or maybe it is the social stigma which is still attached to rape victoms, that they muist have done something to deserve it. Of being doubted by loved ones and also in some cultures of being sociuall ostracised, loosing cistordy of their children and even imprisoned. These expriences and fear of them does have an effect.

I lobby in my work to widen the apreciation for what rape is and challenge rape myths - inspite of what Dittany thinks I do. I do that by examining things as objectivly as possible in order to try and help the most women possible.

Thanks for explaining more. It seems to me that some scenarios will have different effects on the woman than others, for various dfferent reasons. And defining a particular scenario as rape (or not rape) does not determine the effect upon the woman. It can't be right that an outsider can say - that was rape, so you must therefore feel like this.

Well that is the problem we actually have today. Women who have been raped are 6expected^ to act a cehntain way - this has become worse after endless depictions of the tuarma rape causes by bad actresses in soap operas. There really should be no proscription as to how a woman should act, that it is a devestating experience is moot, but the woman may have dependent children so needs to keep her self together - people tend to think peopel who are functioniung are okay, which is not the case. Mental trauma isn't alwasy explicitly demonstrated.

It was only very recently that a woman was required to put up a "reasonable defrence" in orer for rape to have been judged to occured. This is thankfully not the case now, here anyway, thoug some peole are lobbying for a return to such legislation.