New man confessed to past poor sexual behaviour. How bothered would you be?

[Inengland]

Been seeing a man for a few weeks. We get on famously. He seems kind, has his life sorted. I want to see more of him.

Last night he seemed nervous and told me he wanted to be honest and confess something. The something was that fifteen years ago he had sex with an ex-FWB when she was paralytic drunk and he was sober. Apparently he gave her a lift home after a work night out, some months after they'd last had sex. When they got back, he said she asked him to have sex with her, and despite her being too drunk to give informed consent he did anyway.
He said he'd regretted it ever since, even though she has never mentioned it again and the two of them are still friendly acquaintances.
What would you think of you heard this story? On the one hand I am pleased he told me, it was a long time ago and he obviously feels bad about it (worse than she does by the sound of it). On the other hand he did do it...

Just no.

If he were really caring and sensitive and feeling terrible that he probably overstepped the line of consent, he would have cleared the air with the person he actually did this to, not dumped it on someone he barely knows in the early stages of a relationship.

And if the sex was - as he tries to suggest - fundamentally wanted and consensual and everything is fine between him and the other person, even if there’s a little bit of a grey area - there’s no reason that he should be hanging onto it and bringing it up in new relationships 15 years on.

He’s either a rapist who is relying on the victim’s lack of memory of the incident to get away with it, or a neurotic who overthinks decade-long situations and overshares with near-strangers to process his anxiety.

The point about, if he was really guilty he'd take it up with the person he wronged, is so important - surely at some point in the last 15 years, if it was really eating him up like this, he'd have sat her down and apologised and promised never to do anything like that again, and it would be between him and her, not new sexual partners - it's all too weird

Yes, whether it was consensual sex or rape, there is a massive issue with the fact that he is so conflict-avoidant that in 15 years he hasn’t fronted up and either taken responsibility for his actions or cleared the air and set his mind at peace.

Millions of drunk women (and men) give drunken consent every night of the week.

Too drunk to consent is rape. Especially if other party is sober enough to know theyre too drunk to consent. Tbh i would have asked - im sorry you raped your friend?

If it was ages ago, shes fine and friendly why has he told you? I suspect this is a get my version in first type thing.

You cant be around him drunk. Id bin him.

I don’t think a fundamentally decent man would want to have sex with a ‘paralytic drunk’ woman.

That’s not me being naive, I’m sure lots of men would do as I know lots of men aren’t fundamentally decent.

But having sex while sober with someone who is paralytic drunk would be so offputting to a decent, well adjusted, caring person.

Yet he still did it.

My first thought was to wonder why he told you this, just a few weeks into a new relationship. Apart from the criminality, it just seems like a massive over-share to someone you’ve known for such a short space of time. I’d be suspicious that there is much more to the story and you’re getting the minimised version.

True! I sure as hell have.

This is from the CPS guidance on the Sexual Offences Act 2003:

• A complainant does not need to be unconscious through drink to lose their capacity to consent. Capacity to consent may evaporate before a complainant becomes unconscious. A prosecutor must consider the complainant’s state of mind at the time of the alleged assault. R v Bree [2007] EWCA Crim 804 paragraph 34.
• Evidence of a lack of recollection of events cannot of itself be determinative of issues of consent and capacity.
• Issues of consent and capacity to consent to intercourse in cases of alleged rape should normally be left to the jury to determine. R v Hysa [2007] EWCA Crim 2056
• In R v MA, PA and RS, during cross-examination the complainant accepted that sexual activity could have happened consensually and she may just have had a blank in her memory. However the Court of Appeal held that, in video recordings taken by the defendants, the complainant was depicted throughout as being sufficiently inert and unresponsive as to leave it open to a properly directed jury to be sure that she was not consenting and that she did not have the freedom and capacity to do so.
• In R v Tambedou [2014] EWCA Crim 954 the Court of Appeal held that the complainant’s evidence that she could not remember was not sufficient for the judge to remove the case from the jury.

It's tricky. Very much comes down to specifics and, if it's gone to court, on a jury's interpretation of the various factors. Bearing in mind that the man in OP's post knew at the time his friend was too drunk to be fully consenting, our various personal histories are irrelevant. He raped her.

If you had a little sister, or a daughter, would you trust that man alone with them, especially if she's incapacitated?

But others on here have said drunk consent is not consent.

So therefore, presumably their opinion is that no woman should ever be allowed have sex if they're drunk because they've been rendered incapable of consent?

And why are you tying yourself in knots to justify what a man did to a woman when she was blackout drunk? What's so special about him that you don't walk away from this obvious predator?
You've only known this man for 3 weeks.
I think you also know that there's so much more to the story than what he told you.

As far as the rape victim goes, because that's what he did, he raped a woman, how do you know that the female friend he texts with is the same woman that he raped?
It could be ones of his bros that he just changed the contact name to "Nancy" so it seems like he's texting a woman.

( just joined so I can't figure out how to edit a comment so I'm making a new one)

Get a Claire’s check on him by the police. He clearly has a record for raping women he’s trying to cover up

Agree with previous posters, he's gauging your reaction and morals based on what you are showing as acceptable. Personally, I wouldn't bother with Claire's Law on this, I just wouldn't bother with him full stop. He's one big matadors muleta! A big red flag and he's waving it around under your nose. Get gone and don't look back!

I can't answer for other opinions. To me, and as the law says, it's more nuanced. Wrt OP's boyfriend, though, he knew she was too drunk and he wasn't 'strong enough' to resist an opportunity to rape her. It's bad.

Tip of the iceberg would be my immediate thoughts.

The most generous interpretation of his motives for telling you is that he has strong morals, knows he did something awful and is being transparent. If this is true and it’s playing on his mind he’d be better discussing it with the woman herself to apologise and seek forgiveness. You can’t absolve him of his guilt on behalf of all women.

i imagine she’s still friendly with him because she can’t remember being raped by him. Maybe she feels relieved a friend got her home safe in that state and trusts he wouldn’t have done anything to her.

Request a Clare's Law check. Please. He's trying to cover something by being "honest".
Either way, he slept with a drunk woman when he shouldn't have. What would he do next? He obviously has no morals and is dangerous.

There are incidents that happened to me 15 years ago where I was saying no and eventually gave in to just get them to leave. I still think about that occasionally, but I know none of them think about it. One in particular I’ve heard has done that to people since and I think he thought it was a pickup line / tactic, he absolutely doesn’t feel guilty about it because he thinks he did nothing wrong. I highly doubt if it was how he described that he would feel so guilty that it was eating him up still to this day so much that he has to confess it a few weeks in to dating someone new. There is definitely more to this, it’s so bizarre.

I think something else has happened, and he is trying to give you an excuse before you find out. I’d do a Clare’s law request. But even if nothing comes back this would make me end it. You can be drunk and give consent, and if we believe him, she enjoyed it. Why would he feel bad?

The maths isn’t mathing here.

Yes, the confession part is very odd.

Different perhaps if you’d been discussing a similar scenario, or watched something on tv and he said, “you know, 15 years ago so and so came round after a night out asking for sex and I didn’t think anything of it as back then we just considered that a “booty call.” I’d see it really differently now, though. I shouldn’t have done it.”

For what it’s worth 15/20 years ago I wouldn’t have thought anything of it either, I have texted FWB’s after a night out and invited myself over! Not parayltic drunk - that bit is worrying and agree with other posters something is off here.

Yep. Why tell you and not her if he’s worried.

I’ve been in that scenario 20 years ago ish, gone to a casual fling’s house after a night out with the whole intention of hooking up. Drunk but not incapable. If they messaged me now saying “It keeps playing on my mind about that time you came to mine when you were pissed” I’d tell them they had nothing to worry about. I’d be really uncomfortable about his motives for telling you about something he says he’s worried about if he’s never approached her?

A good and decent man would not need the law for him to choose to do the right thing and make the right choice for someone other than himself. What he did was the epitome of male entitlement.

So therefore, presumably their opinion is that no woman should ever be allowed have sex if they're drunk because they've been rendered incapable of consent?

Allowed???? What fresh hell!

This.

Sure, 15yrs ago, clarity on consent was maybe less clear, and they’d done it before, so, I get why it felt like a green light for him, and he may be plagued by his conscience, if giving him the benefit of doubt for personal growth, but as other said, he didn’t make sure she was ok, he thought, oh opportunity to get my dick wet!! Do men really change that much?

And the fact he’s senior in the public sector was the other concerning point for me! A lot gets overlooked and normalised as they’re all at it!

He’s definitely got more in his closet!!

Proceeded with caution, OP.

Oh my gosh can we stop telling op to do a Claire’s law on a man she’s only known a few weeks.

What a waste of police time and resources.

Even if there are potential yellow flags a few weeks in you just.dump.them.

This guy dropped a major red flag. She doesn’t need a police report ffs,

It’s not a cloudy issue anymore but when I was a teen (far longer ago than 15 years ), a lot of the sex people had was blind drunk. I’m sure it still is for some people.
im convinced that people took advantage of my inebriated state many times though and it speaks to their character that they did.
in @Inengland ‘s situation, a ‘confession’ like this would play on my mind, regardless of the truth of the circumstances, I’d always be wondering exactly how drunk she was and how it played out .
I would be feeling hypervigilant and alert for any signs of boundary crossing, ergo I could not continue with the relationship based on this.
he has told you upfront for a reason, and obviously at some level he knows it has potential for you to end the relationship.