TW SA consent?

[Mercier1]

Hi
please be gentle with me I’m currently alone in an airport trying to get home and feeling broken.

I went to my home country for the weekend on my own and whilst there I was staying with my lifelong BFF. We had a falling out last year that was life altering and we’ve been rebuilding and are so much better. Last night we went for dinner and drinks, she said she has never seen me so drunk: I remember that I was drunk but it’s patchy in places. we started arguing and I became belligerent and a nightmare. I feel nothing but remorse. We ended up having a physical fight and both of us have black eyes now. It’s shocking. (This is not normal for either of us)

here is the really awful bit. I stormed out of her house bc we wouldn’t stay there and got in a cab went looking for a hotel. When I got there the hotel door was closed and I was fairly hysterical and had a bloody face etc. some nice young guys helped me and said you won’t find a hotel they will all be full they did check for me and instead said come back to ours. I did think this was genuine.

i ended up going out with them for more drinks and I hooked up with one of them. I’m married and have two kids again this is out of character and I feel like I’m going to die even writing this down.

long story short we had sex and he removed the condom which I maybe said was ok 🤮 but the worst part is he came inside me without my consent. I was horrified.

I left this morning and went to get the morning after pill with a black eye. I then booked into a hotel so I could shower and I’ve been alone with this all day. I’m about to get on a plane to come home to my lovely family and I feel like the worst person ever.

I guess I’m waiting needing if this was rape? Was I capable of consenting? And what do I do next? I am scared to tell my husband of course and I feel like I need to put it in a box and erase it but that’s not that easy. I just needed to get it out of my head.

I wish ppl would stop saying “play the victim” it’s very hurtful when actually I have been a victim. As a child. And this whole incident is not without harm to me. I feel bad enough and have agreed that I’ll be seeking support from my therapist. Sti screen. And everything else I need to do. I’ve been looking up AA etc too

Consent is implied when you verbally agree to take off the condom.
It's ridiculous to expect someone to double check when you've already agreed to sex without protection. It's nice when they do, but the absence of that doesn't make it rape.
If you wanted him to come anywhere else, you should have communicated that when you agreed to take off the condom, or maybe you should have insisted on keeping it on.

Look, I'm really sorry that you had such a terrible experience. However, as much as I empathise, you can't make a serious of terrible judgement calls and then try to shift the blame towards someone else. I know it's easier to feel anger than regret. But you're just going to have to deal with your guilty conscience.

Of course he used you. That much we can all agree on.
These men were looking for an easy prey and they found it.
However, at no point should you have made it that easy on them.

You can't say you didn't get to check the hotel for available rooms, unless they physically restrained you and forbid you from going inside.
They chose to tell you a story, and you chose to believe them.
You also chose to go to their place. You chose to drink even more, when you had already had way too much, and then when presented with a choice, you chose to agree to unprotected sex.

Now, if one of these men came here to ask if he was an asshole for taking advantage of you, I would 100% say yes, he's a terrible human being and rotten to the core. But he's not a rapist. A manipulative pig, probably. Not a rapist.

Please examine what has happened in therapy and try to unpack why you make these poor decisions, what's causing the instability inside you.
I hope you find your peace again.

Why aren't you and your husband having sex ? If your relationship isnt in a great place, to the point where you arent having sex, surely you need to see this episode as the moment to call it quits. No one who wants to be in their marriage has nights like this.

I think call a rape crisis helpful to work through the nuance of what part of this was consensual if at all as you may gave been too drunk to consent, and what wasn’t. Mumsnet posters will get triggered by the ‘cheating’ aspect and might not be kind.

Yes this. She was clearly very drunk and vulnerable when the men took her home. She doesn’t sound as if she was in a position to consent to anything

Have to say, I agree with every word of this.

I doubt the hotel was full. I think you were vulnerable and the men prayed on that.

Having said that, you went along with all of it, so rather than rape, it was a series of bad decisions, made under the influence of alcohol.

Almost all of us have made stupid decisions whilst drunk. I have had sexual encounters that I regret whilst drunk. It is what it is.

Chalk it up to experience. You sound like you are maybe in your 40's/50's, rather than some inexperienced 21 year old.

It's time to reevaluate whether you want to be in your marriage? Your actions say otherwise. Maybe use this as the catalyst for change. You are definitely not happy. What can you change to take the pressure off?

This is why I tell my son never ever to go with a drunk woman.

Because if someone is too incapacitated to consent under the law it is rape so your son would be a rapist?

But the op wasn’t in the uk and hasn’t said where she was? So we don’t know what law applies?

What is your point? It’s reading as if you think that it’s ok to have non consensual penetration if you are in a country that doesn’t recognise lack of capacity as an inability to give consent?

@Vdlormp nope, nice try though. If your advice is different to your son then I'd be surprised.

I tell him this because they wake up in the morning and remember they're married.

No. I didn’t say that. I’m merely saying we don’t know what laws apply as the op hasn’t stated where she was when the sex took place.

She’s not talking about whether she can get a conviction. I’m just of the view that if someone is picked up by a group of men when they are drunk, bleeding from their face and confused trying to get into a hotel late at night, they may not have had the capacity to consent to the penetration that followed.

Perhaps but there is no point in discussing that unless we know where the assault took place.

the men have not behaved well - but the op consented to sex, she remembers what happened, and any discussion around whether or not it was legally rape (or sexual assault or anything else), which is the point I was making, is pointless because we don’t know where the events happened.

Thats really sad. Yuk.

My point is that if she was incapacitated by alcohol to the point she describes, she is unlikely to have had the capacity to give consent. I’m surprised by the number of people of this thread who genuinely don’t seem to understand consent

Why is it sad?

I think don’t shag a drunk person is good advice.

She wasn’t so incapacitated that she lacked consent. She hooked up and said taking off the condom was fine.

she clearly regrets the shagging, but that’s not the same as being so drunk she lacked capacity to consent.

She remembers what happened. She wouldn’t have done it sober and regrets it.

First off if a condom is agreed then that is the status quo the OP does need to agree to it come off otherwise it is stealthing and is indeed rape

and let’s be honest if safe sex is agreed in what basis should someone ever take it off. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that is normal and isn’t in terms of STDs (on both sides actually) dangerous

he took advantage of the OP the problem is the OP knows she placed herself in a terrible situation

But the op says she said taking off the condom was ok?

She’s says she “maybe” agree to it. Details of earlier in the evening are “patchy”. We’re not talking about someone who’s had half a bottle of wine, feels a bit horny then regrets it in the morning. We’re talking about someone with visible facial injuries wandering around trying to find somewhere to sleep.

It says maybe says was ok and now she is all over the place because clearly she was out of it I suspect she is trying to find in her head that she did because that almost makes it better

The blokes had fuck all to do with her injuries. She did those with her best friend.