Cheekymonkey, I hope you are OK. I think this is a much deeper issue than most people are recognising and the focus that you, and other posters, are putting on the emails, is not really the issue here.
His email may seem like the issue as it has dredged up all the old feelings and fears that you haven't fully dealt with, but ataully the real isue is why did you behave in this way in the first place all those years ago, how do you really feel about that now, why are you still so hurt by how people were towards you then and why do you still care what these people who now have no bearing on your life, think of you now?
Your behaviour was not uniquely bad, but it was quite an extreme version of what many of us were doing at that time.
I can realte to it though. Although my numbers do not come near yours and I was never involved in group sex, I did sleep with more men than I now feel comfortable with, and I have spent alot of time lately thinking about why that was, and discussing it with those women who know me well, and who also behaved in the same sort of way.
This has become particuarly relevant for us as mothers, when considering the signifcant impact that sexual attention plays in a young girls self esteem and image. And it is quite rfightening for those with daughters.
So mnay young womens self esteem is wrapped up so closely as to be inspeareble from her view of herself as attractive and sexy. As I have got older and become more consciously aware of this, and as my life circumstances have changed and become more settled, I have been able to see how true this was for me and how my behaviour reflected this, and how I wish i'd known then what I know now and behaved differently. but of course I didn't know I had to learn.
I remember someone on Mn (probably MP)saying something like 'when I was younger if anyone showed any interst I'd sleep with them and if they'd asked I'd probably have married them.' That struck a chord with me about how I felt about myseklf in the past.
I certainly didn't think like this at the time though, i thought I was having a laugh, being a liberated party girl and just doing what the blokes did (it was the time of ladette culture) but I see it differntly now.
forget this bloke and his email. Think about you and your life now. think about your past and what that tells you about you, but more importnatly waht it tells you about people, about women, about young women, and how having been through that, been like that, you have, painfully, actually learnt soemthing, and then use that knowledge in your role now as a mother and as a women in understanding the world and other people.
You behaved badly, we can all argue endlessly, about how relatively bad we think yurs vs the housemates behaviour was, but really that doesn't matter now. what does matter is that all experience is a learning opportunity, and the more we learn and know the wiser we are.
I imagie you've been in turmoil over his emaia dn what he still thinks of you, and now in turmoil over what some posters have said. forget him and his opinions of your behaviour, forget all us MNer's, and just do some real thining about you now, about yourself then, talk it through with people who really know you if you can, I reckon some serious self refelection will help you to realise that actually you're OK.