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.

HerBeX are you saying I am not entitled to be angry at that slur? Are you telling me how I should feel? I was accused of being like a puppy on a man's leg, looking for validation, for one line I wrote. One line, that said I found his contribution to the thread valuable. I appreciated the support when I was new here, and I meant what I said. It is valuable to hear from men on this matter.

Four pages of so later, many posters tell SGB and Ingrid 'well done' and 'great post' and so on, several posts like that. Is is reasonable for others who disagree to start calling names on this? Is it mature?

Is it even neccesary to pick up on this? I felt what I felt, let down, but unless it's rape, what, I have no right to feel it?

Perfumedlife, what a hideous experience for you and how shocking. Thinking about this thread kept me awake too. It's that kind of subject.

Tbh, I think there have been far more disgusting comments on this thread than a few bad tempered jibes from feminists.

I could trawl through the thread and find a few of the more sickening ones if anyone doubts their presence.

When you see (presumably) intelligent women making posts that sneer at rape victims you do wonder what the hell is going on with the world. But then I have heard some of the worst misogynists are women. I have followed this thread from the beginning and can well believe it.

I actually am finding it difficult to decipher what you are saying lyingwitch. Where did I say that insultinhg people is feminism? Have you actaully read my posts?

I'm simply at a loss to know how to engage with someone who doesn't understand that socialists and tories aren't just politicians, they're people who identify with a specific politiical phliosophy. Politicains are a tiny minority of tories and socialists.

If people are promoting rape myths, I reserve the right to describe their views as shit. Same as I would if people were telling me the earth was flat.

Right, another argy bargy bloody in the off, am going back to self imposed exile. Don't want to drag this out any longer. I reitterate, thanks for the knowledge, very informative.

pl of course you're entitled to be angry at the slur.

I just think it's a bit of an overreaction to dismiss a whole set of political ideas becasue of it and claim that one inidvidual let a whole political philosophy down.

Now if it were someone talknig about Stalin, I coudl understand it.

Dittany... I was really concerned at your posts because it seemed as if you were trying to talk the OP into 'accepting that she'd been raped'. I suppose I projected how I would feel had I been the OP but I'm not so it's impossible to know what she really felt about it all.

I apologise for offending you if I did. This is a subject that's close to my heart as it seems to be to so many women.

Look I'm sorry you're upset PL but it seems to me that some people will use any excuse to have a go at feminism and feminists. So as soon as a feminist swears or doesn't hold the door open or something, they jump on it as an excuse to slag off the ideas and their proponents, claming hurt feelings and that they expect to be supported by those proponents even though they never had any solidarity or sympathy with them in the first place.

HerBeX I know what you mean, I know that happens, I was in your team twenty odd years ago. I have endured the slurs, from all sides. I was in the SWP too, must have loved the grief

Too old for it now, havn't got the stomach for the jibes, and I do believe it let's people down, of all persuations. I just shut off. It doesn't write off whole philosophies for me though, no way.

We are mainly woman on here, we all really do want the same things, at least I think we do. We get there in the end, some kind of consensus. Let's not lose sight of that.

All the best girls.

HerBeX... I have read your posts and I find them equally difficult to decipher. Perhaps I'm wrong in the way that I interpret them but the way I read them is that you are a feminist, you stated in your earlier post that "feminists might feel simliarly let down, when they read pages and pages of shit by other women justifying rape" and"...pages of shit about how they weren't really raped becasue they didn't behave the way rape myths say they should have".

Fairly insulting stuff without the name-calling. No woman is going to justify rape. You don't seem to have any room for discussion on the issues raised, it's either 'your way or the highway', people are either in agreement with you or they are 'rape apologists and excusers' and 'man lap dogs seeking validation'.

I'm sorry that you feel at a loss to engage with someone who you feel doesn't understand the many facets of politicians... I have my views, you have yours. People don't think in 'waves', they have different viewpoints regardless of whatever 'ideal' they've hitched their wagon to. I'm familiar with philosophies and belief systems but I prefer to think for myself and hold my own beliefs.

With respect, you are not the guardian of rape truths and myths and one size does not fit all. I see distinctions, you don't. That's fair enough. I'll try to understand your views and might question what I don't understand but I'm not going to call you names if I disagree with you... and yes, I expect you to extend the same courtesy. This is a chatboard, no more no less.

Dittany... I've never reported a post anywhere, I prefer to let them stand. I thought the thread was heading into a legal quagmire that's all. I was wrong about that and I'm sorry if you felt 'got at'.

The moderators here are far more relaxed than they are on other forums I've been on.

Firstly I have never called you names. Secondly, it's not my way or the highway, it's the way that experts who know about teh subject, say things are. If people don't want to promote rape myths, they should go to the rape cirsis site and other sites which have experts who actaully know about the subject and have done research into it, to educate themselves.

And this I take issue with: " No woman is going to justify rape." Women justify rape all the time, Lyingwitch. All the fucking time. Women are subject to teh same cultural influences as everyone else. We live in a society whcih lines up with rapists against victims and assiduously promotes rape myths. Many women haven't heard any refutation of those rape myths in the popular media EVER, and the first time they come actoss any refutation at all, is on a chatbourd like this. So of course women are influenced by rape myths, same as anyone else and of course they justify it - not consciously, not deliberately, of course not, no decent person would - but by accident, because they are simply regurgitating what they have been told all their lives.

That's why some of us here feel it's really really important to refute these myths whenever we see them promoted and to point out that thta's what they are. Because no-one else is doing it. Not MP's, not the newspapers, not magazines, not TV, not film . So sorry if some of us appear rabid and aggressive about this, we're a tiny drop in the ocean amid a deluge of horrible propaganda adn we have to shout really loudly to get heard.

Rhadegunde... I absolutely agree that a woman can dress how she likes and inviting a man in for coffee is not an invitation for sex. As you say though, we live in a 'rape culture' and if my daughter were to dress or conduct herself in a way that puts her at risk or that increases her chances of being raped, I would do anything in my power to get her to change her views... rather than have to deal with the devastation afterwards.

Rape myths... I don't even know what they are. I would just do anything to protect my children and them being 'in the right' after the event would not be a consolation to me or them. :(

But lyingwitch, you're rpeating rape myths again.

There is nothing your DD can do to make her more vulneralbe to rape, except be in the company of a rapist.

She cannot protect herself by dressing modestly - women in burkhas get raped. She can't protect herselve by not inviting strangers into her house, because if she is one of teh 1 in 4 women who are raped or sexually assaulted, her attacker will probably be a friend of her's.

Rape myths don't protect women, they protect rapistss.

Dittany... If you think I'm a hypocrite, you're entitled to your view. To me, being supportive is being able to express your (alternate) views without being 'shouted down'. I posted twice to you and then left it as others were jumping in. I disagreed with your postings and I still do. I felt that you were projecting and using your posts to insist to the OP that she had been raped when she was adamant (at that time) that she hadn't been.

I think it's possible that there could have been a legal recourse either although I admit, I overreacted. Were the OP to change her view and go to the police, citing the advice on this board, perhaps it would have been taken into account, perhaps not.

I've apologised to you for wading in, you have the absolute right to post what you want.

The thing is, rape myths are dangerous for women becasue it makes them feel safe with men they ought not to feel safe with. Many's the woman who has been raped by a friend who offered to escort her home for her own safety. She would have better off braving the streets by herself where the majority of men who aren't rapists, would have left her in peace. But because she believed the rape myths - that she was more at risk alone than with a male friend - she became one of the 1 in 4.

That's why it's important for your DD, to debunk these myths lyingwitch - they don't protect her, they make her more vulnerable than she would have been.

Im kind of in-between the net and watching a film with hubby shhhh.

Herb I asked before how do you want me to answer your question? I am well aware of rape myths, statistics etc, Wrt more likely to be a friend or family member.

I have been raped 100's of times by a family member. I'm not a rape apologist or a myth spreader.

I do believe however wrong it it is in thus world women do have to take their personal responsibility seriously and be pro active in that. Even if they shouldn't have too that's life.

Personal safety. I mean typing in the dark.

Rhadegunde... thank you, I've been picking up the main points and it makes very uncomfortable reading. :(

I don't know how the system is ever going to change. It seems so skewed. Whatever a woman says, she may or may not be believed.

I wonder how many women who've been taken to court for 'false accusations' are actually victims who've been outmanoeuvred by a clever defence lawyer?

Emmy, answer any questons however you want to, it's not for me to tell you how to answer questions. I haven't seen any of your posts, so I will simply answer the posts you've made directly to me - of course women have to take personal responsiblity seriously, just as men do. And I don't hold the view that they shouldn't have to, I think everyone is responsible for tehir own behaviour, it's something I bang on about ad nauseum to my DC's.

What I object to, is the constant refrain of our culture, which is that women have to also take responsbility for men's behaviour. And I'm sorry, I'm not buying that - men are responsible fro their own behaviour, the men who raped you are responsible, you're not. Sorry that happened to you and I hope you have recovered from it.