Comments

1
What a fucking piece of shit.
2
Dan for the win.

Now apologize to her, TLTOACA, and if you can't get past it, move on and be somebody else's damaged piece of goods.
3
Fuck you TLTTOACA. And AA? Seriously? That's your fucking answer? She got wasted...seriously wasted but AA? If this was going on often, then yeah but this letter doesn't suggest that. Man, you're a milquetoast shit.

If the girl is reading this, DTMFA.
4
This is the perfect response, considering he isn't close enough to punch in the face.
5
having been a victim of rape in a very similar situation to this guy's girlfriend, i have to say that it wasn't until one of my friends who i told about the experience said "that's rape" that it hit me. it's such a scary situation that you don't want to admit it to yourself or anyone else that it actually happened.

your advice is spot on, dan. this guy needs to let his girl back into the apartment, and if he's truly there for her, help her call the police, get her to a rape clinic to collect the evidence, and hold her hand the whole way.
6
Hate to say this, but if this is very out of character for her, might she have been slipped something in a drink? Might explain how the person knew she would need help later and be available for the blackout moment?
7
No kidding. I love the bit about "what do we work on?" "We" nothing, you sonovabitch. YOU have to work out why you're blaming the girl that you supposedly love more than anything for being RAPED at a party that YOU left early.
8
If you look at the letter, and just sort of stare at it blankly, you can see all of the "I"s pop out like a magic eye.

Seriously, TLTTOACA, you need to take a long look in the mirror and cry when you realize that you hurt the person you loved more than that rapist asshole did. She may not remember all the details of the rape, but she remembers the disgust, dismissal and the long walk she had to her friends when you kicked her out.
9
I am twisting this a million ways from Sunday to come up with any angle whereby the writer is not a piece of sh*t for the way he is handling it, and I got nothing. I just canNOT believe that NONE of her friends are being more supportive than this too. Although, all he says was "everyone I know is blindsided," but by what, by his reporting that she cheated?

I hope hope hope her friends and family can give her the support she is not getting from this idiot, and that he wakes up fast and realizes how horrible he is being, mans up, and begs her to come home.
10
Wow. That poor girl. It boggles my mind that someone's response to their girlfriend being in a catatonic state would be to decide that they need some time apart and then to kick her out. How could this dude be so self-obsessed? Jesus fucking christ. I have no words.
11
Nothing to add here. Spot-on response.
12
Asshole indeed. If you LOVE HER, you make sure she's all right before you pay any attention to your squicked-out-ness over the incident. You can give her hell for it later if it turns out she did mean to cheat on you, but right now the only right thing you can do is to stay with her to make sure she's all right.
13
Oh yes, definitely raped -- and years later it's still too raw for me to give personal reasons why I know it's so.

Too Lost: you owe your girlfriend a big apology, at the least -- and if you're not capable of giving a true heartfelt apology, as well as unselfish comfort and support -- she deserves someone better than you. Much better than you.

Nice touch blabbing her "indiscretion" to all her friends, with the overlay of you blaming the victim.

Get over yourself. But if you can't quit the victim abuse, and making yourself the victim in your girlfriend's rape, first admit your own shortcomings (yours, jerk) to her and her friends before you move on to where you can't hurt her anymore.

And the that's the very, very least of what you SHOULD be doing, rather than the damage upon damage you're causing now.
14
If my boyfriend, who I'm also "disgustingly in love with" had this response to my being the victim of a sexual assault, he'd be leaving without his balls. You should beg for forgiveness while you still have yours.
15
I assume that the asshole boyfriend is a Mark Driscoll follower. Right?
16
Oh Jeez. Just...incredible....
17
I hope like hell that somebody knows who the hell the rapist is and he gets what he deserves. I'm sure he's "helped" other women in a similar state before and will again.

Gah, now I feel like hitting something. Grrrrrrr
18
a complete stranger was helping her throw up in the bathroom and they ended up going at it right there.

Helping her throw up? the only complete strangers that "help" blind drunk women puke and then immediately fuck them are rapists. yikes
19
....... Wow. Dan, I don't know how you manage to stop at calling him an asshole. I have far less polite words for him.
20
When will we live in a society where everything isn't immediately the victim's fault. Ignorant (and I think secretly misogynistic) people assume that the victim is somehow asking for it, by what they wear, how much they drink, ect. This is why campus rape is still such a problem. The school officials just brush it aside and let the asshole get away with it...sorry, I know I digress. I just hope this guys reads Dan's response adn literally gets down on his knees and begs for her forgiveness...and she doesn't give it. Honestly, isn't true love not about possessiveness, but caring for the one you love when they are hurt? I think his is just an infatuation and I hope it's the same for her so this won't hurt so bad (though it still will hurt horribly).
21
I don't think she's as much in love as he thinks she is. In fact, I think this was her way of saying she wants out.
22
kids. 23 and your a total stupid kid. take care of your love first if you even think she was a victim. dont think about yourself. grow some.
23
@7 and @18 are right.
24
Thank you, Dan. Oh thank you. Right fucking on. Right on.
25
Oh my fucking god, thank you. I just got into it with some random friend of a friend on Facebook about Polanski and the piece of shit motherfucker called me humorless. Thank you for giving him as many barrels as you could in the limited time you had, Dan.
26
The writer of this letter seems to be motivated by deep, dark and overwhelming feelings of insecurity. These feelings are motivating his terribly destructive actions. He needs long-term professional help to address this sucking void of inadequacy that he feels within himself. I truly and seriously hope that he recognizes how incongruous his reaction to this event is to the reactions of this group of disinterested observers. I hope that it motivates him to seek counseling to address his actions, feelings, and thoughts during this episode. It would do him, and those around him, a tremendous amount of good.
27
Wow. Dan's advice was spot-on here, even harsher than I was going to say.

The very thing this TLTTOACA person needs to do is stop thinking so much about himself so grandly and realize that something very not-right happened to his girlfriend. If all her friends — and their friends — were just as stunned, that should be well more than enough to selflessly be there for her. TLTTOACA is not doing that, and she needs to find nothing less than people she can lean on as she processes and comes to terms with this jarring event.

As for TLTTOACA's girlfriend, stay away from him until he wises up a lot and asks for your forgiveness. She should make sure in her heart that he means it, too.
28
This asshole definitely does not deserve coddling.
29
I think this is the first time all the comments on a LotD have been in agreement. Kudos, you asshole. And kudos (less sarcastically this time) on the great response, Dan.
30
What a worthless piece of shit this guy is. Seriously. He really thinks that when someone is blacked out drunk they can make a conscious decision? What a whinny piece of crap to try to play the victim when his girlfriend just got raped.
31
In short, TLTTOACA: you have a lifetime of growing up to do. Do it without her so you can spare her the growth pains.
32
Not only will this woman deal with the trauma of being raped for a very long time, if not for the rest of her life, she will also have to deal with the trauma of being betrayed by the only other person she's ever had sex with in her life and who claims to love her. I can only hope that "I decided that we need some time apart, so she's staying with a friend down the street" is a self-defensive interpretation of the fact that she realized what an asshole you are and got the hell out. The idea that you can only be with a pure woman is beyond misogynist. In fact, that kind of thinking (the patriarchal, asshole kind) is what causes rape in the first place. I hope that this woman has some feminist friends who can be there for her and counsel her to break up with you. She might go through some short term pain, but that would be far better than staying with you, you fucking asshole loser.
33
This is the kind of tough love that leads to beating pets and tazing children. She should get into a safe environment and never contact this monster again.
34
I shall now attempt, because nobody else is brave enough, to defend this dipshit:

1) He's young. I know when I was 23, I was too deeply immersed in my own navel to feel much of anything but self-pity. As far as youthful stupidity is concerned this is admittedly pretty egregious. But guys mature slower, and let's acknowledge he's still kind of a kid, at least emotionally.

2) He's inexperienced. His girlfriend was a virgin, and the entire tone of his letter suggests a guy who hasn't been around the sexual block too much. He's probably never been within a hundred miles of this situation.

3) He's trying. The tone of his letter isn't angry or condescending, at least not deliberately so. He genuinely wants to help her. He knows his response to this situation isn't working, and he's at least reaching out to someone (albeit an anonymous advice columnist) for assistance.

Also, we don't know what kind of shitty advice he's getting from other people around him. Maybe he lives in some shithole backwater where this variety of rape is still considered a case of "she was asking for it."

Feel free to castigate the poor bastard...God knows, his mail is the fucking lamest thing I've read in a while. But maybe there's a good heart in there somewhere trying to get out. I hope so, anyway.
35
There are times that I really wish I personally knew the person writing to dan. So that I can punch said person in the face. This is one of those times. How sexist douchebag piece of shit asshole can one dude be?
36
you, TLTOACA, are a colossal turd. i hope you read each and every one of these comments, because you really deserve what's coming to you.
38
What really gets me is that this asshole KNOWS IT. He says right there that he wondered if it was rape, and noticed that his girlfriend was in a catatonic state... and yet he still categorises this as something SHE did. "I know she won't do it again" - "I know she won't GET HERSELF RAPED" again. Goddamn fucking fuck rape culture. This guy is an asshole, but frankly by some standards he's an enlightened asshole - he can tell when something's rape - but he can't figure out that it's NOT HER FAULT and that is partly because of the way we culturally handle rape. Ughhhhh.
39
"Everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news"? What kind of asshole goes around telling a story like this to everyone he knows? Aside from everything else that's so deeply, deeply wrong with your attitude, TLTTOACA. If you were my boyfriend, which you thank god are not, you'd be on your ass at the curb so fast you'd think you were still drunk.

To "girlfriend" of TLTTOACA with whom he's disgustingly in love: DTMFA. Not already, not tomorrow, not when he finally lets you come home to your own apartment. Get a warrant, go in and toss his shit out the window if you have to, but Dump The MF Right Now. Do not wait. Do not pass go. Throw his self-absorbed butt out. Just do it. For yourself. For humanity.
40
schmacky -- I think if this was coming from an 18 or 19 year old, maybe, just maybe, I would buy your logic. But... 23? Post-college (presumably)? Unless he was sheltered in some crazy way (e.g., religious fundie childhood), he's definitely old enough to know better.
41
TLTTOACA needs to have his kneecaps removed with a rusty screwdriver and then fed to him.
42
Julie @ 40: Agree that age is the weakest of my arguments. But also will continue to argue that many 23-year-old guys are really, really immature. And you have no idea if he went to college or not, just as we don't know if had a fundie childhood and/or adolescence.
43
Where the fuck is this kid from? I hope the girl gets herself out of this relationship and away from these so called "friends".
44
TLTOACA, did you happen to notice that @34, the only person who offered any remote support for you here, had to insert "conditions" for his support both at the beginning and the end of his post? That's how fucking pathetic you are. The only person who is offering you any remote support here felt the need to defend that support not once, but twice in about 100 words.

You mention yourself that "it borders on rape", so you're not completely blind here. But even after that realization, you booted her out of the home you share? Stay classy.

Why is it that after reading every letter to Dan I get the overwhelming desire to rush home, kiss my wife and thank her for not being frigid/crazy/insensitive/overly insecure/a complete psychopath?
45
No. 6: Just a note to concur. Yes, I've been black-out drunk many, many times ... but on three separate occasions (including once when I was in Seattle for a job interview), I've had one drink and blacked out, with a very "helpful" person waiting in the wings. Too bad for those lucky people that once my brother was at the party with me, another time I just got in a cab (and threw up in it), and the third (the Seattle time, when my unattended drink was A CUP OF COFFEE), I was too busy passing out in the women's restroom for the guy to find me.

The Seattle time was the best, though, because I ended up in the ER, where the doc told me they didn't have GHB in Seattle -- and yet the guy who'd been so attentive to my coffee cup had just moved up from LA. (The ER doc also said nausea and gastrointestinal distress weren't effects of GHB. Dan Savage, can you send a memo to Seattle's ER docs, please?)
46
Oh, and TLTTOACA, one other thing. Getting shit-faced drunk one time (completely out of character) is not a reason to send someone to AA. Enough with the self-indulgent dramatics, already. Maybe you'll get lucky and grow up in the next twenty years to the point that some other woman will be willing to devote herself romantically to the care and feeding of your ego.
47
@39

"Everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news"? What kind of asshole goes around telling a story like this to everyone he knows?


An asshole of this magnitude? I'd be willing to bet he probably went around to all of his friends and gave them this spiel so he can feel better about being a total shitfuck and wrote to Dan when nobody gave him a handjob to help him feel better. I get the impression he's that kind of asshole.

Me? I think he's the kind of asshole with two kneecaps too many. He'd better hope his girlfriend doesn't have any older brothers.
48
Whoa! Everybody! Go easy on the guy! He's young, never experienced something like this and needs a little guidance. Not an ass-whooping. Not yet anyway.
I'm a 45 yr. old mother of two now but I was once a young 23 year old girl who had a very similar experience as this.
It was very difficult, for myself and my boyfriend (who is now my husband BTW), to navigate around this. I consented to the sex, I have a vague memory of kissing him first, I never said "no", I never pushed the guy away but I was WAY too drunk to know what I was doing and, to this day, I'm not sure what really happened.
I know now that I was, at worst, raped. At best...taken advantage of. But, I honestly don't think the guy I had sex with would agree.
TLTTOACA...do the right thing. Be supportive. Give the girl a little help working this out. Work it out together. Learn from this and be there for her while she is going through this very difficult life lesson.
49
fake
50
Did Mel Gibson write this letter?
51
Trust me, I'm not defending this letter or this guy's mindset, but rather that his line of thinking, which is so flawed, probably isn't intentional in its shocking misogyny and downright cruelty toward his girlfriend. The vast majority of college age men - around this guy's age or younger - when surveyed seemed to be unaware that women too incapacitated to give consent (unless drugged without their consent) were off-limits as sexual partners. I'm also not saying this is right, either. I'm saying this guy needs to get his girlfriend and himself to a rape counseling center so someone can smack some sense into him regarding the legal definition of rape and how best to treat a victim, especially when that victim is his girlfriend.

He needs all these comments, yes, because I think this sort of outrage is exactly what he needs to see, hey, everyone thinks I'm a dickwad, but man, it scares me that education for young adults, but especially men, is so piss fucking poor that even now this mentality is way too prevalent. Women aren't the only people who need to know the definition of rape, and neither are potential rapists: every man who ever wants to be in a relationship with a woman needs to know too.
52
You know, as I was reading the letter I thought "If only they let me answer this, I'd start out with "You fucking cunt". Dan, thank you for that, I think we all needed it. I shall now vent.

You self-centered, egomanaical piece of shit. Your girlfriend is raped, she tells you as soon as she realizes it, and as she's settling into shock you KICK HER OUT because poor little you can't handle the idea of some guy touching "your" girlfriend? Oh yes, poor you, the victim here, "needs some space" and "can't touch her". Do you know, creep, that one of the things rape victims feel the most is dirty? They feel defiled and dirtied, even without the benefit of an ĂĽber-douchebag boyfriend feeling like they can't touch her.

I hope this was some moment of insanity, you march right over to her friends house, fall to your knees and beg forgiveness and mean it. She probably needs a lot of emotional support after being physically assaulted by a stranger and psychologically abused by the very person she needed support from the most. Unfortunately she probably still wants that support from you, so for her sake I hope you are actually up to the challenge. Still, I hold out a sliver of hope that she'll let you get through your grovelling and then kick you in the balls, then kick you out of the apartment and, after therapy, can find a guy whose head isn't quite that far up his own ass.
53
@39, that kind of jumped out at me, too -- "everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news". It's not THE NEWS, it's a private trauma, and it's not the sort of thing you call up everyone and blab about: "hey, Timmie, my girlfriend cheated on me, when she was unconscious!" Blech. If I saw that in a movie I'd sneer that it wasn't believable.
54
@42 does bring up a good point.

Hmm. OK, he needs to realize two things: one, she probably was "date-raped" or "opportunity-raped" (which is why girls travel in packs and guys shouldn't abandon them at parties they don't know anyone at). Two, regardless, it's time for him to grow up, apologize - and if he can't he needs to get out of this relationship.

At least part of him realizes part of it ...
55
If there is any question whether she was raped the police should be notified.

But before jumping on the group-think wagon, I'd like to point out that he is aware of the complexities of the situation and she is the one who says they "went at it". Clearly the stranger is a jerk, but weather she passed out or made a drunken impulsive decision makes the difference between a rape and a poor judgment.

I agree that everyone here is likely right in their responses, but who here knows all the details?

Calling this confused dumbass, TLTTOACA, a rapist is a bit much. Dan you are starting to sound too short tempered for this line of work.

56
Hmm, upon second reading I'm less empathetic to this guy.
57
Dan:

"You are an asshole."

And you are my hero.
58
Yeah! For Dan!

It's been a while since he ripped someone a new ass in gory, bloody detail. Ah, the halcyon days of the 90's, when idiots would be twisting on Dan's gibbet of a column on a near-weekly basis....

Bump for the TLTTOACA = asshat thread.

If a woman says "No," or is otherwise incapacitated to make or communicate her choice, it's rape. Which this was. The fact that you haven't contacted the police or any other authority/counseling/support services proves what a fucking jerk/coward/asshat you are.
59
What a fucking douchebag. This makes me sick. Spot on advice Dan. I hope the girl dumps his ass and can figure out who the rapist was so she can press charges.
60
Whoa - Dan.

What this guy did was pretty fucked up and inexcusable, but your headline seems to make a moral equivalency between what numbnuts here did and rape. Its not the same. Granted, this guy did some horribly shitty stuff to this woman, but none of that is as bad as what HER RAPIST did to her. To suggest that somehow what he did was morally or effectively the same as raping her diminishes what rape survivors have gone through.

"Rape" should be held to the "Nazi Standard:" Unless someone is a member of the National Socialist Party, they're not a Nazi. Unless someone forced someone to have non-consensual sex, they're not a rapist.

That being said, I agree with most of the comments and Dan's general advice.
61
I do wonder what kind of "research" he did to figure out that his catatonic girlfriend cheated on him without being aware that it was happening. As in, did she start remembering shit, did some shitty mutual friend of theirs see her go into the bathroom together and just assume, or maybe walked in on them, in which case, WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU STOP THAT PIECE OF SHIT RAPING HER?

This girl's boyfriend is an ignorant piece of shit, but any friend who would hold a party where someone can be raped and the gossip spreads like it's some trashy party hookup rather than a felony is a pretty sad fucking friend.
62
#38:
"What really gets me is that this asshole KNOWS IT."

Exactly. It's almost like he thinks that a woman being raped "brings shame on the family." He can't imagine the idea of touching her after she has been "spoiled" by another man, a man whom he recognizes to be, in his words, a creep.

I'm surprised he didn't ask if Dan thought an honor killing was appropriate.
63
i'm not always a dan fan, but he is in fine form today.
64
Someone needs to kick-fuck Too Lost in the shit-hole until he develops a speech impediment.
65
I'm a bit confused. I've read the letter twice. How are all the commenters so certain the girl didn't just cheat--rather publicly--and then try and make it sound like an assault?
66
@55,

1. "Whether," not "weather," dumbass.
2. The phrase "went at it" comes from the letter writer. There's no indication that it's a direct quote from the girlfriend.
3. No one's calling the letter writer a rapist, but I will call you a dumbass again.
67
"I'm sure you've heard this a million times." Unbe-fucking-lievable. DTMFA, a million times over.
68
@65,

Because, unlike you, we don't immediately assume that all women are liars.
69
schmacky - I have been trying to think of different types of 23-year-old guys that I have known -- college vs. no college, urban vs. rural, religious vs. not -- and the only thing I can come up with that would lead someone to be justifiably that mentally deficient at that age is if they were in a fundie family or homeschooled-in-a-bad-way (i.e., I don't want my kids to be exposed to the outside world). If that is true of you, TLTOACA, then, well, maybe you're not as much of an enormous asshole as we all think you are.

And @61 - that was exactly what I was thinking. How does he know what happened (that the stranger was helping her throw up, etc.)? Did she remember, did someone see them? How does TLTOACA know that she gave no impression that it wasn't consensual?
70
@ 65, meh, hell, how do we know this isn't fake or that he wasn't the one rapped by umpa lumpas? We don't so we can only make inferences based on what was written. Sounds like rape.
71
@68

Thanks. That was very helpful and clarified a lot.

I asked because I've never seen the commenters all come down on one side of an argument before. That, coupled with my huge respect for Dan, leads me to believe there's something that I'm missing here. In other words, I know it's ME, but I just don't get it.

Oh, and, some women ARE liars.
72
@65 even if she even vaguely semi consented by whispering a tiny little yes, she was still so fucking drunk that she was vomitting her brains out and that asshole was taking advantage of her. Her so called boyfriend should have more sympathy and care.

He also shouldn't fucking run around and tell the whole town and all their friends about her getting it on with some dude at a party. It was obvious that she was guilty and thought it was wrong since in his own words - she told him as soon as she remembered it happened. Going into a near catatonic state means she was god damn traumatized by the event.
73
@65, all we have is the letter, and the letter screams "assault" unless the girl is an Oscar grade actress. She remembers little, as soon as she remembered she promptly reported to the boyfriend (keep in mind that a cheater could have the option of keeping silent and then claiming to remember nothing). She went into a nearly CATATONIC state. Keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who is not trying to convey that his girlfriend was raped, because his head is totally up his own ass. The indicators are pretty clear. Not all rape happens with a knife to your neck and enough bruising that it is obvious. Some rape happens in this fashion, and then the victim has to go through the further indignity of having their story disbelieved automatically by others.
74
What is this "She gave no impression that it wasn't consensual" bullshit? What do you need from her? Bruises? Declarations that she fought him off viciously?

And then this "how out of character" and "I know she won't do it again" horseshit? How could this possibly be on her? Either you think she is lying, telling you she was blacked out in order to evade the consequences of her own decision -- in which case why didn't you just say that? -- or you think that getting shit-faced equals consent with whoever happened to be there at the moment. (Or more likely, with "whoever" slipped her a drug and made himself so conveniently available right when she was the process of throwing up and passing out.) OF COURSE it "wasn't consensual."

But you on the one hand taking the blackout at face value and on the other still treating it like it was a conscious decision, and kicking her out of her own house, makes you the worst sort of idiotic asshole. What's worse, your reaction probably has seriously compromised the possibility of tracking down this complete stranger and putting him behind bars.

You want to know what you need to work on? You need to work on: a) acknowledging that you completely failed her in her hour of need; b) being able to think clearly under pressure; What she needs to work on is to decide whether she should put up with your pathetic self.
75
Julie @69: Upon further reflection, I think it's more likely than not that he is indeed in some kind of crappy small town setting (though that doesn't necessarily lead to fundie/home-schooled).

Reading the "everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news" implies he's in one of those rural backwaters where everybody is in everyone else's business and you can't take a dump without half the population knowing. Some here have taken the line to mean he himself went around telling everybody, but maybe he didn't; maybe the rapist did. Or maybe the word got around via gossip, which tends to happen in places where there's nothing better to do.

It all screams middle-of-nowhere, Bible-thumper, doesn't-know-any-better to me.
76
@72 - Would the guy still be "that asshole" if he was also drunk?
77
I live in a rural community where, even in 2010, this misogynistic attitude prevails re: wives, girlfriends and women in general. "She's my property, and nobody but me gets to dip it in her, ever." He's just a rube, and hopefully these comments will wake him up to the real world.
Spot on advice, Dan. Have a great trip.
78
What does further research mean? Until that question is answered, I think it is highly irresponsible for Dan or anyone else to conclude that this was rape. The propensity of evidence suggests that it was, but in my book you don't accuse someone of rape without being sure. Blackout does not equal unconscious. And this guy has no definitive evidence that his girlfriend is not just fibbing because she knew she would be busted. So yeah, he has a right to wonder if there was a deep-seated issue. The very fact that she though it was OK for her to get that drunk in a somewhat unsafe environment in the first place raises questions. So if further research means the girl immediately came clean about what happened, then she probably deserves a pass. If not, I say fuck you to those of you who want to blame this guy for being confused and hurt.

Now,
79
One more thing: regarding the crack about shipping her off to an AA meeting: you do realize that she might well have been drugged? How can she be expected to get personal control over something that someone else did to her? You might just as well blame a driver for causing an accident after somebody hacksawed his brake lines.
80
Something similar happened to me on my 25th birthday. I got wasted yes, invited a bunch of friends back to my place post bar hopping. Proceeded to act stupid and get naked in my own home, probably because I was comfortable with my friends in my home.
Some friends put me to bed and kept hanging out in my living room which was fine by me. Well, a few guys slipped back to my room and took advantage of me in my mostly blacked out state. I remember coming to going down on one of them.
I kicked them both out, thankful nothing else happened to me. It took a few days for the realization of what happened to settle in, and a while after that to feel comfortable talking about it because these guys were supposed to be friends.
When I did tell people about the incident no one took me that seriously. I still don't consider it rape, as when I told them to leave they did, but it was a big violation that ended a lot of friendships.
The biggest violation to me wasn't the act necessarily, but the reaction of people I trusted when I told them. One guy later apologized because he was almost as drunk as me. The sober one doesn't think he did anything wrong because he just goaded on the drunk guy and didn't actually touch me.

TLTOACA, I hope your girlfriend is strong enough to move past this without your help because obviously you're too self-centered right now to be who she needs. Situations have grey areas, and you support those you love to understand and come to terms with what happened. I hope she has other people in her life that care about her enough to believe her.
81
@78: If the Letter Writer thinks his girlfriend is fibbing, that is how he needs to present the story. The way he told it, he believes that she was at very least seriously incapacitated, blacked out even, but then wants to treat it like she chose what happened. You can't have it both ways.
82
It's been said before, but it's not said often enough: There's no grey area once vomit is involved.
83
@78

"The very fact that she though it was OK for her to get that drunk in a somewhat unsafe environment in the first place raises questions"

Victim-blame model in the house!
84
For anyone who wonders if this was rape: seriously, who really wants to have sex with a girl who just vomited? (I know, it's some people's fetish, but I doubt there are that many people in that age range who have developed such a fetish yet).

That said, I don't think we should come down so hard on this guy. Quite the opposite: we should applaud him for throwing her out; he did her the greatest favour anyone ever will. He showed her exactly how much of an asshole he is BEFORE they got wed or had kids. He saved her from a lifetime of abuse.
85
Agree with @60. The letter writer is an unbelievable asshole, but he isn't a criminal.

I want to punch TLTTOACA in the face several times, but I don't want to lock him in a small dark room where he'll be raped by gorillas for the rest of his natural fucking life. That fate I reserve for the actual rapist.
86
@74: yeah, spot-on. if you were too drunk to remember whether or not sex with a stranger was consensual, it PROBABLY WASN'T CONSENSUAL.
87
Okay... I think we've pretty much established the fact that this guy is an asshole for how he's treated his girlfriend over a probable rape. Excuse me for a moment while I rip him a new one on another issue.

Anyone who is "disgustingly in love" does NOT fucking leave his girlfriend alone at a party so he can take his wussy ass home early! NEVER! If you are truly "disgustingly in love" it's not an issue of trust, but of protecting the most important person in your life. It's what a MAN does. I wouldn't dream of leaving my partner behind at a party or club, particularly if he's been drinking.

Bottom line, you don't deserve to have this girl in your life. You haven't proven you have the level of maturity or responsibility to be entrusted with something so precious.
88
Okay... I think we've pretty much established the fact that this guy is an asshole for how he's treated his girlfriend over a probable rape. Excuse me for a moment while I rip him a new one on another issue.

Anyone who is "disgustingly in love" does NOT fucking leave his girlfriend alone at a party so he can take his wussy ass home early! NEVER! If you are truly "disgustingly in love" it's not an issue of trust, but of protecting the most important person in your life. It's what a MAN does. I wouldn't dream of leaving my partner behind at a party or club, particularly if he's been drinking.

Bottom line TLTTOACA, you don't deserve to have this girl in your life. You haven't proven you have the level of maturity or responsibility to be entrusted with something so precious.
89
I REALLY really want this guy to write back, to acknowledge that he's actually heard Dan's response, to say that he's seen the almost universal consensus in the comments that he's an asshole, and to report on how he made things right with his girlfriend (by apologizing, letting her back into her apartment, and then removing his misogynistic and undeserving ass from her life).
90
I hope the friends who took her in after this empathy-impaired, self-centered asswipe kicked her out have the sense to counsel her to DTMFA. Rape is bad enough (especially for someone who is relatively sexually inexperienced) but to be treated this badly afterward by the person who *should* be standing up for her, seething mad at the rapist, and reassuring her she's still loved and treasured is unforgivable.
91
sounds very much like drugs in the drink situation,
which happens more than you want to know
92
@75: Agreed about not putting the blame on him for spreading the news. Of all the things that he did wrong here, that probably wasn't one of them.

It happened at a drunken party, fergodssake. Show of hands: who here thinks nobody else at the party saw it happen? Who thinks that of the drunken partiers who saw this terribly out of character thing go down, none of them gossipped about it?

If she honestly didn't remember any of it, then news of what happened almost certainly came to them (possibly first to her, not entirely clear on the sequence) from external sources. "Further research" probably consisted of sampling the grapevine for more eyewitness accounts.

I'm guessing somebody saw someone who was at least sufficiently conscious to be a participant, rather than completely inert. That would explain LW's ambivalence. However, that doesn't mean much. Back in college I got drunk enough once to get the "Dude, you'll never believe who you were making out with last night," talk the next morning. If somebody drugged her, she could easily have been completely cognitively incapacitated, blacked out, but still ambulatory.
93
@89: Nice thought, but it will backfire. If he removes himself from her life, however profuse the apologies he makes in the process, he will for all intents and purposes have dumped her.

She needs to be the one to dump HIM.
94
Pondering the motherfuckin' ifs here...

...it sounds like rape to me, but i can't definitely say so coz i ain't heard it from the gf and i ain't heard the bathroom-fucker's (bf) side of it and it sounds pretty thoroughly unprosecutable even if it's SC BF's black and GF's white.

But who knows? maybe there are a bunch of gray-area reports out on BF and this is the one that gives the 5-O enough probable cause to get BF in for the interview where he incriminates himself.

Even if it's a case of gf's just drunk enough to benefit from vomit-coaching, bf's just sober enough to see this through and then she offers for him to join her in the shower and the sex occurrs forty mins later after the hot water peters out, which would be a consensual scenario in my book, if at 23 you can't write this off as a get out of cheat free card the first time some shit like this happens you're an asshole.

Especially if she's "nearly catatonic" over it all. Asshole.

I would tell gf to DTMFA here, no reservations. If she's the sort who can forgive this sort of assholery, asshole, she really does love you and you should devote the rest of your miserable life to making her happy. Asshole.
95
What a cowardly mob y'all are. Everybody wants to get in a kick after big Dan's knocked the guy down. Hope all the self-righteous indignation is doing somethin' for ya, 'cuz it ain't helping the guy or his girlfriend any.

He's confused. He's looking for help responding to a situation that looks a whole lot clearer to you than it does to him. And what do you do? You kick him in the teeth.

From reading his letter, she sounds confused. She probably can't say for sure what happened. She probably blames herself. I'd like to think that at 23, I'd be emotionally mature enough to see through her confusion, choke down my own fear and tell her: "You were raped. Let's go the police and get this guy."

But you know what - I probably couldn't have been that strong. And I could've used someone lending me some strength, not an advice columnist comparing me to the rapist or a bunch of anonymous dittoheads calling me names just because Dan Savage had a bad day.
96
JordanX@71, yes some women are liars. And some men are rapists. This letter writer says it's very out of character for this girl, so we have to take him at his word, since he knows her and we don't.

I can't imagine being abandoned by the very person that you are supposed to be able to rely on in a crisis. I hope she gets the support she needs elsewhere, since the letter writer doesn't seem to have the capacity to deal with it.
97
@83 The fact you assume victim-hood tells me all I need to know about your opinion.
98
I'd like to be the 96th person to say that TLTOACA is a fucking piece of shit and his girlfriend can do better.

Thank you.
99
@81 What part of uncertainty do you not understand? You don't know whether a rape happened or not. Neither does he.
100
I'd like to be the 96th person (ignoring the rape apologist at #95) to say that TLTOACA is a fucking piece of shit and his girlfriend can do better.

Thank you, that is all.
101
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