Is this rape?

[Gray23]

So several years ago, I was seeing a guy, mainly casual sex, we were both seeing other people. anyway we were just chilling one afternoon and a guy I met the night before started texting me. The guy I was with didn’t like it and threw my phone across the room. Of course I said what are you doing we had a little argument, but joked it off. Next thing he’s trying to have sex with me I say no repeatedly, I was not in the mood at this point but he continued and I just went ahead to get it over with. As soon as he finished he got up and left and I remember feeling upset. However, I continued to meet up with him and sleep with him for several months. Surely I wouldn’t if I thought I had been raped.?

anyway, several years later I find out he has gone to prison for rape. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel really, but I can’t eat or sleep, I’m so upset but just totally unsure how to feel.

@Tamzo85 your post contains victim-blaming rape myths and your use of the word hysterical around a topic as serious as rape demonstrates you have no understanding of the topic under discussion.

Tamzo, you need to get the hell off this thread with your cluelessness and misogynistic slurs. This is not the place for debating legal niceties. The OP's ex has just been found guilty of raping another woman, so whether you believe her experience was rape or not (it was, btw), can you not understand that she needs empathy and compassion here, not labelling as a hysteric? Then again, I've seen you on other topics and you're one of those "poor menz" types who can't pass up an opportunity to defend some scumbag bloke who you've never met, so you probably think his conviction was wrong and he's been stitched up by a lying woman or something.

Yes, that's rape.

There are many types of rape.

Your behaviour is v common, I'd say. A lot of ppl dont process something or fully realise what it was til a long time later.

Women also tend to take everything personally and think everything is their "fault", rather than putting responsibility onto the person acting wrongly. And of course men like this are very good at setting up that dynamic.

(Even something as relatively minor in comparison to this like controlling behaviour; I've had the "it's only with you, it's because you're abc etc" and actually to.some extent believed it, until some time later when i looked back retrospectively retrospectively at the relationship, and dll the things he let slip about previous relationships).

It can take years, and cinena do tend to keep in thinking their behaviour is specific to them/the situation.

It rarely is, this guys conviction had illustrated that, it is not your fault. It is entirely his.
And someone said its depressingly unlikely you would have gotten anywhere with a report even if you had.

(Reported it).

It's possible you still could though, if you wanted to.

That's a common phenomenon when someone like is prosecuted or convicted eg Harvey Weinstein.

Entirely up to you.

you probably think his conviction was wrong and he's been stitched up by a lying woman or something.

Of course, after all a man who "doesn't take no for an answer" could never have raped someone. Doesn't sound likely at all.

He's probably done it dozens of times; finally got reported.

In my experience, when someone is caught & done for criminal behaviour, the likelihood of that being the first and only time to did it is about 0.001%.

It’s hard because this use to happen to me a lot when I was younger, I would say no to men but they would pressure and pressure until I gave in, I didn’t think it was rape because I gave in so didn’t think that was classed, I thought it was normal tbh when I say this happened to me a lot I mean loads of times so I thought it was normal. And I know others it’s happened to in the same way.

It's coercive.

It's a type of rape.

I've experienced it too, and other women I know.

You think because you've consented,nit couldn't be rape but the consent is not given freely or enthusiastically. Its the result of giving into repetitive nagging, hassling, pressuring etc alongside repetitive physical attempts.

So depressing that you've encountered so many men like this.

It is really concerning looking back as it just seemed normal to me, I had an ex when I was a teenager who forced me into giving him oral sex even though I made clear I did not want to do it and he would often have a go at me over it and “all girls do it” put on videos of it and tell me Im boring because I won’t do it, in the end I agreed then changed my mine and got told “but you promised so you have to” I honestly thought it was normal to be pressured like this and if you give in it doesn’t count, it’s only now as an adult I can see how wrong it is.

In the case of another woman i know this happened to, he also locked the door of the room, pushing it into more obvious rape.

She kept seeing him for the duration of her holiday though .. which I think is common behaviour among women who've been subjected to this. (As a result of "confusion" about consent, feelings & attachment they already had towards to the guy, more oxytocin bonding due to the intimacy (even if it was coerced), not being able to or want to see him and his behaviour for what it is, wanting to cling to the previous perception of the relationship/romance, not wanting to see themselves as any type of victim etc etc)

Also if they told other ppl, until recently (and many ppl still think.this way) they wouldn't have been validated by many ppl .. they'd have been told its not any form of rape because they eventually consented and didn't physically fight throughout etc.

Thete would probably have been all the usual victim blaming as well; I'm sure if I'd told for example my Mum about a guy who acted like that, I would've been told "well, what were you doing here with him in that room" and things along those lines.

Like women have no rights to their own body, no right to accept some intimacy but not full sex, if they don't want to, just because because gone into a private space with a man theyre seeing or have gone "home," with. Like "you should know what they want/expect, you shouldn't have gone there with him". I know lots and lots of ppl who continue to gave that attitude.

In ops situation, I still know plenty of ppl who'd believe it can't be rape with a partner either; that previous consent implies ongoing/perpetual consent.

I have a compilation cd with "Timber" by Kesha & Put Bulk on it, along other misogynist lyrics amis the line;

"She say she won't, but I bet she will"

Released in 2014.

Our society has always been fked up on this front, and continues to be.

*Pit Bull

OP, It was rape but I understand why you would question it, especially when you had sex afterwards.
Same thing happened to me with my husband who is now my ex husband. I took I to the police about a year later, when he also sexually assaulted me and I began to wake up to see the sexual coercion had gone on for so long I normalised it to cope. He was my husband and the father of my children, but I was ill with an incurable illness, and he would want sex even more when I was ill.
I had sex with him after the rapes and the sexual assaults, but when it was rape the upset after was different to the coercion. Someone reminded me you don't boil a frog by putting it in hot water or it will jump right out, you put it in cold water and crank the heat up until it's too late, they're cooked, but they didn't see it coming.
I am not sure if my ex will go to prison or not, I suspect not because he gets away with everything. But I am glad for you this man was put away and I would also get help for yourself to deal with this, so you can be at peace and move forward with your held held high.

Definitely rape.

Do not blame yourself.

Whilst you may not want to go the full way with him being charged, you could still report him to the police, so that they know he has form.

I think you should reach out for support.