He tried to have sex with me while I was asleep

[maristella]

And I'm very fucking angry about it.

The more I tried to stop him, the more he interpreted my movement as a green light. I kept saying let me sleep, I rolled away until I ha nowhere left to go, I kept taking his hands and cock away from me. The only way I was able to make him stop was to get out of bed. He looked so utterly wounded and rejected

It was a new relationship, I really liked him, and this was the first time we spent the night together, and the last.

I fucking hate him, I have rejected all his calls since and he is still ringing and texting. I know I should have spelled it out to him, but I knew I would have been bombarded. He sent me loads of emails saying he wanted to spend the weekend with me and DS; he's never met my DS! I don;t ever want him to meet DS, ever! I emailed back (the only contact I've made to him since I stayed over) and said I really don;t want a relationship. But he is still fucking trying!

I could actually go to the police, which might mean that mutual friends and family are dragged into this, I might be vilified for this. I don;t want or deserve that. I could carry on dodging him. I might flip and call him a pervert and threaten to tell my family and our friends.

I just needed to let that out....

wow what an interesting thread.
I thought spiderslegs post was good.
I'm so sorry that the OP went through this. I think she'll probably have to step it up a gear to get rid of him though.

As for wottywot and co, I think they were just trying to make the distinction between degrees of abuse and there is a distinction. Being violently attacked and raped by a stranger on the way home from the cinema is different from being coerced into sex that you don't want to have by a 'boyfriend'. Both very wrong but one alot worse and I speak from personal experience.

Is it just me, or do there seem to be a number of posters on this thread subtly suggesting they've been attacked, but then suggesting that because their attack was under the threat of violence that it makes their attack more "valid"?

It doesn't matter the circumstances, whether you know the attacker, or whether you'd slept with him once, ten times, or never.

Rape is rape is rape is rape. It is always wrong. There are no varying levels of wrongness. There is no hierarchy. The victims are equal in their sense of horror, distress and violation.

OP, what happened to you is bloody disgusting. The fact he's still harassing you after two months suggests a word with the police may be in order. I know you've said that socially things would be made difficult for you if this was made public, but if you haven't already try to find some support from a trusted friend or Rape Crisis / Women's Aid.

You are not alone, and you shouldn't feel ashamed about what happened. Just bloody angry.

Cat I think you've touched on something there.....

Thanks to all who have understood without judging and criticising.
I have to get to work now, I'm running a bit late! But I will be back online later x

Fucking hell. This is the most appalling thread I have read in a long time on MN.

You lot should be ashamed of yourselves. Take you debate about whether violent rape is worse than "date rape" off to another thread and leave Maristella to get some support and help on this thread.

If you don't want at this stage to go down the route of seeing him prosecuted for harassment, you can ask the police to give him a harassment warning. This will involve them going to see him and asking him to sign a statement, usually in an officer's notebook to say that he will not contact you again. Obviously, if he does then contact you, it makes prosecution much easier.

This may be an option for you if you think that getting him prosecuted and ending up with a conviction would open up a can of worms that you would not want to deal with.

Sorry, posted too soon. I wanted to add, Maristella, that you should contact the police if he keeps contacting you.

It might not be a bad thing to have this documented, in case he does anything like this again.

"Rape is rape is rape is rape. It is always wrong. There are no varying levels of wrongness. There is no hierarchy. The victims are equal in their sense of horror, distress and violation."

This is like saying murder is murder is murder - it is all wrong, but the law distinguishes between degrees of any crime for good reasons.

What happened to the OP was very unpleasant for her, but to conflate that with rape is very unhelpful IMO. I think this sort of sloppy thinking does a great disservice to women, as it allows conservative old men to categorise all women as irrational hysterical ditzes, and makes it virtually impossible to form rape laws that can work for women

But there's no need to make a distinction. The OP is not saying "this is the worst kind of rape, isn't it?", so you don't need to prove it isn't. She's describing something she went through which upset and frightened her and which is effectively ongoing, for which she would appreciate support. When someone you know goes through a horrible experience, do you feel it incumbent on you to tell them they don't have it as bad as some other poor sod? When your friend had her purse snatched, do you email her a link of news articles about little old ladies being mugged at knifepoint? Well, if you're like me you might try a bit of Job's comfort saying thank God it wasn't worse (I am that tactless I'm afraid), but basically you sympathise. Because what she went through isn't nothing. That someone else had it worse does not make what she went through all right. I broke my fibula once and was in plaster for four weeks - painful, inconvenient but no lasting effects. My sister broke her tibia another time and was in plaster for months, and her leg will never be the same. But that doesn't mean my bone wasn't broken or that it didn't hurt. The hospital didn't send me away saying "you aren't having a plaster on that, we've got people here with bigger breaks in more important bones".

No, I wouldn't get into a man's bed then be surprised if he tried it on. That isn't what Maristella is saying happened, though, is it? They knew each other for a year, they courted for a month, she felt she knew him well enough to stay over; she didn't take an unreasonable risk. Yes we do take a chance with any human being - the first time we go out with them, the first time we have sex with them, when we marry/move in, when we have children. Life is full of times when you just have to trust someone enough to move on to the next stage, otherwise the human race would die out. But when your trust is betrayed, it is so not helpful to say "more fool you for trusting"! The betrayer has still done something wrong.

I am willing to bet this bloke doesn't believe he did anything wrong, because his boundaries are in a different place; he didn't pursue her once she got out of the bed, so that was ok. Er, no, actually, according to the law of the land if nothing else, it's not ok! Do the laws concerning theft really allow a shoplifter to get off on the grounds that the goods were laid out temptingly? What barrister is brazen enough to argue that if the shopkeeper had not wanted his apples to be snaffled he would have kept them behind glass? Did the woman ask for her bag to be snatched, by carrying it openly? And yet "she was in his bed so what did she expect" seems to be accepted as a jolly good excuse for a man to push and grab, and worse, long after it is clear that the woman who has trusted him enough to sleep beside him does not wish it.

I wouldn't use the term "rape apologist" here, as I think the women who are minimising the man's actions are ones who've been minimising it on their own account for years. They've genuinely come to believe that they are worth no more than that and/or that all men really are that bad, so if you find yourself in a horizontal position adjacent to a person of the male persuasion, it IS going to happen whether you like it or not. That really is a horrible indictment of... well, of half the human species basically. Actually, nearly all of it, if you blame the victim for being available as well.

I beleive you, Maristella, and I also think you should ask the police to give this shitbag a harassment warning anyway. You won't be the first woman he's stalked and tried to rape. This man doesn't consider women to be people at all.
YOu did nothing wrong and you did NOT deserve anything that happened to you. Annie's post above is very good.

omigawd " What happened to the OP was very unpleasant for her, but to conflate that with rape is very unhelpful IMO. I think this sort of sloppy thinking does a great disservice to women, as it allows conservative old men to categorise all women as irrational hysterical ditzes, and makes it virtually impossible to form rape laws that can work for women.

I completely agree with you, well said.

The law does not distinguish between degrees of rape.

Where do people get this idea from?

@Annie yes I largely agree with you re the OP issue, my original post, way before this, was that the big issue is to stop the ongoing harrassment - also that if I were her I wouldn't go to the police on the actual incident (its too hard to prove) but would if he carried on pestering her.

My comment above was more aimed at those commenters who see everything through rape coloured glasses, I really don't think it helps.

We distinguish unlawful killings because it could be accidental, various of the manslaughters for example, or deliberate - murder. But you can't accidentally shove a penis into someone, or accidentally keep trying to shove a penis into someone when you know they haven't consented.

Being allowed to say no to sex is not sloppy or hysterical! It should be a fundamental human right. Fortunately, in the UK at least, it is. Who gives a pair of fingers whether conservative old men snort derisively? It's not them being assaulted. Maybe some of them are doing the assaulting, who knows? No wonder it doesn't suit them to accept that the legal definition of rape is having sex with someone who hasn't consented to it.

Sorry to hear about your experiences maristella and sorry that some people have posted such vile and ignorant comments on your thread. I seriously question how far I want to be part of a site that allows such material to be displayed.

Hijacked? I don't think so, people have given their opinions on the topic. Hijacked is when you talk about something not to do with the op surely?

I partly agree with you, Omigawd. The OP has not shown an inclination to take further action re: the original incident but it's the ongoing harassment that's making it harder to get over, thus that's the thing that needs addressing now. However, I argue it can help to know that what he did is against the law because it makes her case stronger. And I think the cries of rape were in answer to some earlier posters saying oh come now, it wasn't that bad.

I agree that this thread has been hijacked.

None of this is about the OP. It is theories and hypothetical situations, opinions and discussion.

The OP asked for advice on how to handle the situation. She did not ask for the definition of attempted rape to be discussed or if she had done something wrong. She asked for help.

Perhaps you could all take it over to this thread and leave the OP alone now

I am truly disgusted by some of the views in this thread, as I am with the whole culture of slut-shaming and victim blaming. The OP did nothing wrong. The very idea that women could even begin to think that the victim of an attempted rape was somehow at fault for sharing a bed with someone she had been dating for a month is a completely alien concept to me.

As stated above, you can't be accidentally raped. A rapist doesn't accidentally stumble over his feet and somehow land with his erect penis inside a victim (male or female). There is no such thing as "oh god, I've crashed my car and I think I might have raped someone at the same time". That's why I said "rape is rape is rape is rape". There are no grey areas.