Dear Dan:

I am a 26-year-old woman and I’ve been dating my boyfriend (he’s 31) for a year and a half. We have an awesome sex life—we’re both GGG and we communicate really well about our likes, dislikes, fantasies, etc. He feels totally comfortable approaching me about what he wants (including some emotionally tricky things like threesomes), I have always been willing to try anything with him, and vice versa. Generally, if something we’re going to try warrants a discussion beforehand (like a threesome), we talk about boundaries before we try them to make sure the experience will be good for both of us. One of the few things we haven’t done or talked about yet is anal sex. I’ve never done anal at all, and my current boyfriend is the only person I’ve had sex with, so he knows that.

Last night, we were out drinking with some friends and we came home and started hooking up. I was a lot more intoxicated than he was (he was only buzzed), but I noticed from the beginning that he was being more aggressive than usual. He leaned me over our bed and started having sex with me from behind (which I was totally into), but after about a minute, with no warning at all, he pulled out and shoved himself into my ass. I drunkenly tried to turn my head and tell him that anal wasn’t something I wanted to try for the first time while I was hammered, but my reaction time was pretty slow. He thrust in deeper which hurt me, and I made a noise so he stopped and didn’t try that again the rest of the night.

I haven’t said anything to him yet today because I’m not sure if my reaction is totally rational. I feel really upset and kind of violated, but at the same time, I’m aware that if he’d asked me I would have been completely willing to try it, just on condition that I not be hammered the first time so as not to run the risk of tearing something without noticing. He’s never done anything like this before (he always asks or at least says something, even if he just wants a new blowjob position or to come on my face or something), so I don’t know if I should just treat this as a minor lapse in judgment and try to stop feeling upset. Is it rational to be upset about this?

Hungover and Hurt

My response after the jump...

Dear Hungover and Hurt:

It makes perfect sense to me that you are upset and feel violated. You were violated. Your boyfriend did something without your consent and hurt you. Just because you may be willing, even interested, in having anal sex does not make it okay for him to go there without asking—especially when both of you are drunk. If you’re hammered, you cannot give informed consent. I think you need to pay attention to your gut feelings about this situation, because even if you think he wasn’t “that drunk,” you did describe him as more aggressive, which tells me his inhibitions were probably lowered. You’ve had an open dialogue about lots of sexual things and never discussed anal by your own admission, so I am not sure what he was thinking. This was a lapse in judgment, and not a minor one in my book. Was his lapse fueled by alcohol, assumptions, or something else? I think you need to have a serious discussion about it. And you need to re-examine just how open your communication is around sex because he didn’t say anything to you before shoving his dick in your ass. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and apologize for violating you.