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.

There’s definitely a question over how able you were to consent in that moment. A drunk, injured, upset woman is likely not in a place to give informed consent.

So in that respect what happened was possibly not ok and I would question whether it was assault/rape.

Thinking about the specific question around him removing the condom/ejaculating. People have different views/practices. Personally I never have sex and use the ‘pull out’ method so if there’s no protection being used then I would assume that means they can cum.

You have a different sense of the boundary and that’s fine but it does need defining which again you may not have been able to do in that moment.

I’m sorry this all happened, it sounds horrendous and I do think it would be helpful if you can reflect in therapy how and why it started and escalated with your friend to think about what happened later.

Yes but he still had sex with her despite it sounding like she was all over the place and very upset. If someone is so intoxicated and upset that you’re trying to get into a hotel in the middle of the night then maybe giving them a blanket on the sofa is more advisable than going for more drinks and then hooking up with her.

She agreed to hook up. She remembers that. Hooking up is sex to me.

clearly she has issues but that doesn’t make it rape.

I’m not saying it absolutely is rape I’m saying possibly it could be. Was she able to give informed consent or was she so drunk she didn’t really know what she was doing? I thought we had moved on from the days of she didn’t say no/she seemed up for it etc If she was so wasted she didn’t have full control of her decisions/actions then maybe she didn’t have capacity to consent.

@Remingtonsteele stealthing (removing a condom without consent) is rape it just is. But incredibly hard to prove and in this instance next to impossible but it is an offence.

at every stage of hooking up as you call it consent needs to be given (on both sides) and the ability to say no at anytime

and condom less sex on a one night stand is incredibly reckless on both sides tbh

I tell you something. If I ever found out one of my sons had found a women with injuries to her face wandering around drunk with no where to sleep then had given her more alcohol and taken a condom off during penetration with her I would be disowning him. My concern wouldn’t be false accusations. It would be what he had done to a vulnerable person.

In the U.K. - but the op wasn’t in the uk.

So that is the defence? It is in quite a few countries so actually we have no idea. Either way it should be seen as assault

It could be depending on the country but it also might not, depending on the country.

So it can still be seen as assault which is what is important here for the OP becuase even if it were in this country reporting it would frankly be pointless

But for her own recovery recognising both her part in this and his part (including the potential assault) is vital for her recovery from it

Well I think you did this to yourself. You were both consenting drunk adults.

the double standards on this site are astounding.

But it might not be, depending on where it happened. And I don’t think it’s helpful to say it is when we don’t know what the legal position is of the country where it happened.

She should, as I said in I think my first post, discuss this with her therapist.

I disagree I think part of them process is recognising that all what he did was wrong and the fact she feels uncomfortable is correct

You were drunk, drunk people cannot consent

She had a fucking head injury,she was stumbling around drunk , trying to get in to a hotel.
She wasn't looking for sex ,she was looking for a bed in a hotel.
Confused and disoriented injured and drunk
She didn't want sex ,she needed help

Op don't let this split up your marriage
Tell your husband,you were injured and disoriented and taken advantage of
You were clearly not in your right mind and had no idea what you were doing

In the past, and actually not that long ago, she would have got compassionate support here for being assaulted in this way. I don’t know if the demographic changed but I don’t like it.

No. A drunk woman cannot consent to sex, particularly with a stranger. To add to that she was clearly in physical distress.

Agreed. I’m disgusted with what I’m seeing here.

I’m also disappointed that a number of these posts berating a woman for being sexually assaulted haven’t been deleted.

I hope you don't have any sons.

Or daughters for that matter.

Of course a drunk woman can consent to sex.

I've had drunken sex many a time and my all accounts it's been great.

are you saying then each time I've had drunk sex, I haven't consented, and therefore I was raped?

FWIW I was raped at aged 7.

But she consented to sex and maybe consented to no condom.

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/sexual-consent/

linking this as it might help people understand about consent

OP you were in an incredibly vulnerable situation with nowhere to sleep and you said you felt pestered into intercourse. That is coercion.

You were very very drug with some parts of the night missing and/or hazy. I don’t think you had the capacity to consent to anything. You had visible injuries to your face and were dustresse. In my view it would have been clear to the men involved that you were unlikely to have the capacity for rational consent.

I believe that you were sexually assaulted following an out of character episode where you reacted unusually to alcohol.

I would contact rape crisis for support as well as working this through with your therapist. I hope you can get the help and support you need.