When I was assaulted, it was the culmination of a long sequence of events in which he pushed over boundaries. And the assault went:
He asked me over to his place for a movie. I went, like a little idiot. He stripped naked, pinned me down, and tried to forcibly remove my clothes. I panicked, shut down, tried to curl up into a little ball to protect myself.
I never said no. I never had space for it.
"I made a bad decision" would be a lie; I never had space to make a decision about sexual activity. (And, furthermore, I had been carefully taught that I had to say "yes" for sex to happen; nobody had given me any guidance on what to do when dealing with a guy who didn't give enough of a damn about my consent to ask or even give me space to volunteer input.)
Your response to cshiley does not appear to have space for me to exist.
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He asked me over to his place for a movie. I went, like a little idiot. He stripped naked, pinned me down, and tried to forcibly remove my clothes. I panicked, shut down, tried to curl up into a little ball to protect myself.
I never said no. I never had space for it.
"I made a bad decision" would be a lie; I never had space to make a decision about sexual activity. (And, furthermore, I had been carefully taught that I had to say "yes" for sex to happen; nobody had given me any guidance on what to do when dealing with a guy who didn't give enough of a damn about my consent to ask or even give me space to volunteer input.)
Your response to