Awful sex mistake - the shame :-(

[h20]

Sorry about this, but I have just had the most bizarre experience and I don't know what to make of it. I drop my sons off at School in the mornings and have noticed one of the dads of a kid in my eldest's class looking at me a lot since last summer. I often see him staring over, and have noticed him watching my arse as I walk away because I can see him reflected in a glass door etc.

He finally came up to speak to me last week and we made awkward small talk. I am thinking he is cute - not my usual type, but cute. He is a coach at a local sports club. I ask someone that knows him at work what he is like and the report back is positive. I am half thinking he might ask me out.

Anyway, this morning I have the day off and as I leave the school grounds he is there. We have a quick chat and I tell him I am off work today and tomorow. He asks me about my husband, I tell him I am divorced. I say why doesn't he bring his son to play one day. He say's 'I don't think my partner would like it much', but maybe have coffee some time? We go our separate ways.

A few minutes later he drives past, and then again and pulls over in front of me. "Want a coffee?" he says. I stupidly invite him to my house which is just round the corner.

Anyway, cut a long story short he says he is mad about my body etc etc and I tell him I'm not interested - he is in a relationship etc. I'm not sure what to do now, feeling awkward - he starts kissing me and touching my bum, and, why why why??? I did't feel able to say no and we have sex in my kitchen. It was crap. I now feel like crap.
He leaves saying see you tomorrow, like he wants to do it again, how about wearing hold-ups etc (YUK). I say I'm busy tomorrow.

How on earth do I make myself feel OK, what a total idiot I am. I am so embarrassed.

Actually, at the beginning of this thread, everyone was hugely supportive of H2O, she wasn't "ripped to shreads" at all.

Posters saying "you were raped" were arguing with those saying "H2O says she wasn't raped"
She was not "ripped to shreads" by the vast majority of people and I don't know why you would tell her she has been.

What have I said that was inaccurate?

Do tell me ingrid.

I'd say that very many of the posts here have been supportive of H20. Whatever the circumstances of the event, she was feeling bad about herself and many people posted telling her not to take it to heart.

This is what I most dislike about fora... if you have a difference of opinion, it becomes a stage for warring factions, no debate because it's so bad-tempered, just a 'them and us' situation with neither 'side' interested in reasoned discussion. Tell me how exactly that helps the OP?

How awful that the ops behaviour has been put under the microscope in this way , while little is said about this pradatory prick. Im always amazed people have such low expectations of men and are ready to make all sorts of excuses for them. The persistant bashing of Dittany and others isnt nice either .

THE OP SAID SHE WAS NOT RAPED.

She has repeated that statement many times. If everyone would accept her statement, peace would prevail.

dignified, i dont think that many people have dissected the OPs behaviour. Her attitudes may have been questioned in an endeavour to help her close the door on a bad situation, but i don't think anyone, or certainly the majority haven't questioned her morals, and if they have, they have been ignored.

The one thing everyone has agreed with on this thread is that the guy is a cunt

H20 what happened today? Hope you are ok

I suppose lots of women who have had violent partners don't see themselves as having been abused- "It's my own fault for winding him up...it was just a shove really...he's a fantastic dad, would never lay a finger on the kids" etc etc. And there are young teenagers who have been flattered into a sexual relationship with a much older man who would never understand how they had been "groomed" into a situation that society rightly says is unacceptable.

Many of us think of rape as involving actual violence, and requires the woman to be sobbing "No" as she tries to push the stranger off. It is horrible to think that, actually, it is something that happens far more often than we are prepared to consider, and not always in those circumstances.

H20 has the right to frame her own experiences in whatever way helps her get over what happened.

The rest of us, as part of a society trying to eradicate rape, are allowed to call a spade a spade.

BitOfFun

If a woman says she was raped; she was.
If a woman says she wasn't; she wasn't.

Never mind this frame her own experiences in whatever way helps her get over what happened
bullshit.

Respect the OP FFS. Is this really how women treat each other?

OMC... Not all women, no.

I do respect the OP.

Nothing I have said suggests otherwise.

I am not attempting to harangue her into thinking of herself as having been raped, and I hope she gets support to get past the negative feelings her experience has left her with.

I do, however, believe that we all have a responsibility to increase the understanding of issues around rape, challenge the myths around it, and make the sense of entitlement to sexual access to women's bodies which some men seem to have, utterly unacceptable.

H20 doesn't have to call it rape, but if we are going to make people (especially men) understand what consent actually involves, then yes, we do call it rape. Because that's what it is.

'I did at that seeing as they were the ones debating the fact of whether h20 had been raped.' That's the bit Fab was on about.

You said I was projecting when I wasn't...I agreed I was much earlier in the thread but wasn't when you said I was.

And the other thing was deleted so I can't copy it. or remember it

On second thoughts Thingumy, maybe there wasn't anything else inaccurate, apart from the accusing me of projection in the wrong place.

Sorry.

on the other hand, you could have sighed at me a bit less.

It was Emmy who was totally out there in her accusations, and I think I confused you. my mistake.

No OneMoreChap - that is not true. There are a lot of women who find it so shocking to use the term rape that they try to downplay it.

I'm not talking about the OP here but more generally. A few examples:

• my boyfriend wanted to have sex. I didn't and he carried on anyway but it wasn't really rape because although I said no, he thought I was joking

• I was alone with a man in my room and we'd been drinking, he thought I was up for it and although I asked him to leave but he continued to persist and had sex with me. I really didn't want to but I was too scared to fight back and it's my own fault for inviting him back and leading him on.

Etc, etc

We are all taught to think of rape as some stranger assaulting you in a dark alley. I was raped but didn't think I had been because the circumstances were similar to those outlines above. It took a few friends telling me I had been to understand why I was so fucking traumatised, why I couldn't travel on a crowded bus or tube without having a panic attack and why if a male colleague touched me on the shoulder I burst into tears. If I hadn't had those wonderful women in my life, I would have spent the next ten years blaming myself, not my rapist.

Onemorechap As earlier poster said, NO, not all women are like that!

Fair enough ingrid.

I shall leave this thread now as I have nothing to add since h2o updated here today.I do hope she looks to the future and gains some positive self esteem from her experience.

Barking.
She doesn't call it rape.
But it was.

I have painfully waded through this thread. Probably not a good idea for me as I'm still in the grip of ptsd, and I find it sickening even to read the word that has been used repeatedly on this thread.

Somehow though, I personally needed to discover what the differing definitions were. I think we all must define it differently because our own bad experiences (or lack of them) are all so different.

I find it absolutely frightening that what I experienced might be questioned as to what it was. And that is even though it was a stereotypical case involving lots of crying 'no' , trying to get away, and taking place outside.

Don't know why I'm posting this really. I'm still messed up. Should probably have steered clear of this thread. :( Just wanted to show solidarity with the others who have been traumatised the same way.

Also agree that just because the OP doesn't define it, doesn't make it any less the case. These things come as a revelation often years after.

Brave post MOSP "These things come as a revelation often years after."

That is so true. This is why I stressed the importance of coming to terms with this experience slowly to the OP. The ramifications may come back to haunt her. All the "forget about it and move on" just isn't going to work here....

OMC Rape is a very emotive word, the mere idea of being raped is so horrifying to a woman that some will deny it (in the face of an encounter that didn't involve physical violence) rather than admit to themselves that they have been put in such a powerless position. Sorry, because you really do seem to be a fairly ok sort of chap and I am about as far from a militant feminist as you can get, but it's one of those things you really do have to be a woman to fully understand.

MOSP - :( Brave indeed.

Life is not as cut and dried as some people would have us believe. I really hope you continue to come to terms with your experience. God knows, it's fucking hard sometimes.