I had been in love with her for years, secretly and not so secretly. I loved her from afar in high school and in the last year I had even gone on a date with her. It was a pity date on her part. But I still loved her and she was a friend. I had been to her place a few times and I was always nice and held back, as only a autistic boy can be—my emotions don't play across my face or body until you really know me, at least back then. She knew I was in love with her and she offered to show me how to have oral sex with her, but I declined because I knew that she just wanted me to get off the subject. She was not interested. She made that clear on the date.
So, when she called me late at night October 31st, 1996, I ran there to her place, not quite a kilometer away. I thought that she was going to announce some horrible change in her relationship with me and I wanted to find out for good or bad. If I had a clue I would have brought a condom or two, but I did not have a clue. When she let me in she sat on her bed and since there was no seat, I sat on the floor. And then it happened, or rather it did not happen. There were boobs and vaginas and a floppy penis. Then she told me to go. A week later she told me that I had taken advantage of her. And a week later she tried to tell me I got further than he boyfriend in high school. She told me that I took advantage of her, but she made the first, the second and all the moves. That was her way of justifying bad sex and the bad experience. When she said no, I stopped and when she said go, I went. She took advantage of me, I was a sure thing and as I later found out all her other advances fell on deaf ears that night.
That was bad sex. No one got hurt, no one pushed advantage. Everyone felt dirty and guilty later. No crimes. Lots of bad feelings and trying to get past them and be friends later.
I had a friend who had bad sex and she told me about it. She said she had been drinking and she was invited over to someone's house. She was travelling in Europe, visiting friends. She went to this person's place and when she got there he plied her with more alcohol and then had sex with her. She resisted and was saying no, but then calmed down and let it happen. For her that was bad sex. The next day she was feeling really shitty and the day after she was heading home. That night one of the men she was staying with, one of the roommates of the person she was visiting had sex with her. She said no, because she had the bad sex the day previously and was not in the mood. He persisted and had sex with her despite her objections. She had great sex with him so that counted as good sex.
I looked at her and I explained that when someone forces you to have sex with you and you say no and does it anyways, that that is rape. It is not bad or good sex, it is rape. She stared at me and said that bad sex, when she says no, happens all the time. She did not understand. But she started to get a clue. She realised that when she said no, they had to stop. She did not have to continue if they insisted. If she had fun during the sex or not, it was still sexual assault. She then started ticking off the number of times that she had been raped.
Another wise friend then told me that I was in the wrong, I had turned her into a victim. I said that it was not my intention. I stated that it was important that she know, so she could press charges if it happened again, because if a man does it once, it might be a pattern. For the record, the wise friend is a woman. It suggests that there is another problem out there, that there are more than a few women that think rape is bad sex. It is not. They are fundementally different. Bad sex is when you you have sex, no coercion, and you regret it and feel guilty and it was just wrong, it might have hurt or it just made you feel bad. Rape, sexual assault, is when you say no and it continues. You can like the sex, and there are a number of reasons why you may like it, but it is what it is: wrong.
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