Comments

1
Looks like you forgot to log into Dan's acount to post this, Nancy.
2
Get thee to therapy: Your 14 y.o. self has traumatized your 21 y.o. self, and you have some things to work out.
3
eye roll.
4
Cognitive dissonance: "…he started rubbing up against me. I didn't realize he was dry-humping me until after he had to leave to clean himself up."

I suppose with the kissing and whatever his hands were doing, if the LW were completely unaware of the role of rhythmic stimulation in producing orgasms for both men and women, like if she had no sex education or self-experimentation ever, she might not have noticed him going a-poosh, a-poosh.

So what did they do for the remaining few months before he broke up with her—sit primly in the glider on the porch while Ma and Pa listened to Fibber McGee and Molly on the Magnavox next to the open window?

Imagining myself a straight guy (ha) being contacted by her years later and asking, however nicely, for an apology, I would freak the fuck out and think I was being set up for a rape charge or paternity suit when I knew full well no penetration or unclothed GG rubbing ever happened (assuming that's the case).

Makes me think of the memoir by that Mormon woman some years ago in which she and a boy were dry-humping, she experienced her first orgasm, and in her ignorance thought that she was having a spasm of religious ecstasy.
5
…if only she had come first.
6
WSN I hope youre reading thie because you are young and can learn from some of the people who post here. I'm sure you'd like to be one of the approximately 4 (made up statistic) women in North America who make it adult hood without having at least one bad sexual experience with a guy. (Or gal... I really don't know the stats, real or made up, on that). Basically, you need to suck it up, realize that this experience, no matter how horrible, is part of your life now and forever, and take back your right to experience joy and revel in your own sexual self and ability to love sex, however you like it. This probably won't be the only crappy experience you ever have. That will never make you less of a human. Stop letting the stupidity in life cause you to suffer.
7
I didn't realize he was dry-humping me until after he had to leave to clean himself up. He never asked for my permission. Once I understood what had happened, I felt violated.


I can certainly see why she felt violated. A proper young gentleman should always ask his mistress' permission when he wishes to remedy the unplanned soiling of his trousers.
8
What do you really want LW? I think often times people focus on the concept of 'closure' to avoid dealing with their problems. I mean what if you get the apology, and nothing changes? What if you get cursed out or blocked? Are you going to track the guy down, knock on his door, and demand an apology? I think there's more going on here than an asshole boyfriend's antics. It might be good to ask yourself why your still holding on to this after so long.
9
If that had been 14-year-old me, a virgin, I probably would have ejaculated before any humping started, It would have been the most embarrassing moment of my life.

If I weren't afraid of my then-Catholic fear of Hell, I would have considered killing myself. And, if she wrote or called me now, I would reconsider my reservations about hell.
10
This letter has to be a hoax.
11
There's A great Zen story that applies here. An old Monk and a young monk are walking next to a river. They have taken a vow never to touch women. They are also under a vow of silence. On this river, they stumble upon a young woman crying. "Somebody help me," she pleads. "My mother is sick on the other side and I cannot swim. I'm afraid she will die without my ever seeing her again." The young monk picks her up and carries her across. He comes back and the two keep walking. 4 days later, the old monk breaks his silence and asks, "Why did you pick up the young woman? You know it is forbidden." The youn monk turns and says, "Why are you still carrying her? I put her down 4 days ago. "
13
Rob - she was 14 and potentially very naive. I can see how this could catch a young teenager off guard. Plus, some of us expect to be asked for consent or at least informed if someone else is going to use our bodies for one sided sexual gratification.

Also, I hope the LW was able to work through this with some therapy or self reflection. Sometimes even a small thing can be disturbing in the long term. I find it most important to be able to tell yourself "That really happened to me, it wasn't ok, but I am in control of my life and I can free myself from worrying about it."
14
Hold on, I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Clearly, she would have known he was rubbing against her. I mean, assuming she has sensation in the lower half of her body.

I get the whole consent thing. I do. But I've rubbed up against lots if girls that I've been on top of, making out with, and I have never specifically asked if I could rub against them. And I am quite sure they didn't mind.

So is the problem that he came? Would she have been ok if he DIDNT come?

Brings up an interesting question: with regards to consent, do you need consent to yet yourself off if consent was given for the action? What I mean is, let's say the girl was ok with dry humping and you're abkut to come. Would it be necessary to get consent to come? Considering her body is the vehicle that's bringing you thete? Or is the consent to dry hump enough, and whatever physiological response you have from said dry humping is your own concern?

In any case, with regards to this specific case, I hope it doesn't make me a rape apologist if I just don't see this at that big a deal. Because I don't. I almost wonder if sometimes ppl feel like they HAVE to feel trespassed against, even if they don't actually fefeel it.

Without knowing the particulars or motivations of anyone involved in this incident, this to me just seems like a pretty typical, awkward, teenage sexual experience.

15
There's a great Zen story that applies here: An old Monk and a young monk are walking next to a river. They have taken a vow never to touch women. They are also under a vow of silence. On the bank of this river, they stumble upon a young woman crying. "Somebody help me," she pleads. "My mother is sick on the other side and I cannot swim. I'm afraid she will die without my ever seeing her again." The young monk picks her up and carries her across. He comes back and the two keep walking. 4 days later, the old monk breaks his silence and asks, "Why did you pick up the young woman? You know it is forbidden." The young monk turns to him and says, "Why are you still carrying her? I put her down 4 days ago. "
16
(long time reader, first time commenter...Is it possible to edit or delete comments? I didn't mean to post twice.)
17
@13

Just want to make sure I.understand. is it your opinion that if she was about to come from.dry humping, she needed to ask consent from her dry humping partner before she came?

I disagree. And even if we agree that that's necessary, any partner, guy or girl, who declined their partners request in such a scenario is a fucking moron.
18
@15

Boy, you can say that again!
19
@13

To clarify: I think absolutely consent is paramount to begin the sexual encounter in the first place. But if someone is ok with, say, dry humping, then I disagree that you need to explicitly ask that persons consent to have an orgasm.

Everyone has a right to agency over their body, including their orgasms. If a certain act is ok with one partner, then the other partners natural physiological response to that act should not necessitate a renewel of the consent.

20
Or, put simply, if having your partner come is going to be traumatizing to you, then in no way should you consent to dry humping. Because that, especially in kids where sex is not going to happen, is the natural conclusion of said act.

Nothing in the letter suggests that he forced her. We have no reason to believe if she had said she wanted to stop that he wouldn't have.
21
@14, "In any case, with regards to this specific case, I hope it doesn't make me a rape apologist if I just don't see this at that big a deal."

I feel the same way... but that's just from MY imagination and perspective. Her experience was obviously different, and she perhaps has not explained why that is. Perhaps said boy ignored her discomfort with what was happening, which is a horrible feeling no matter how it plays out. And, I have to say, 14 is SO YOUNG. So many mistakes can be made at that age. Jeebus.
22
Holy shit, if this is the kind of thing that traumatizes a girl, I must be an alien. A real life tragic event is going to propel this lady off an overpass.
23
...why did *I* read the comments?

She doesn't have to justify her goddamned feelings to you assholes. She feels them, therefore they're real, therefore shut the fuck up and let her try to deal with them. That's all she was asking here, after all. Advice on how to move on, not if you lot would be so magnanimous as to validate her subjective experience. No wonder the trauma is still fresh for her -- imagine facing this kind of reaction every time it is brought up. How could anyone process a trauma of *any* caliber in this environment?
24
armyguy26, it might be a natural and expected outcome but it was not one she was expecting. How would she know?

It’s not about asking permission to come, it’s about letting someone know that you’re masturbating with her body and now you’re going to come because if you don’t tell her she won’t know. (Not that the boy necessarily could.)

[Above is inexperience. Below is speculative complicating factors.]

She might have been raised by purity-obsessed fundies. When she made out with her boyfriend (“I wanted to explore my sexuality a little”) she didn’t expect him to come on her. She wanted to experiment with being physically close to another human being. She felt used, dirty, humiliated and objectified. And frightened.

She might have carried the shame of being a slut for a long time, and now she wants to put the shame back on the boy instead of carrying it herself. Maybe she wants him to apologize so that she can forgive him, fundigelical/ Southern Baptist style.

You haven’t had the chocolate bar lesson inflicted on you, have you?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfemi…
25
@13: "Plus, some of us expect to be asked for consent or at least informed if someone else is going to use our bodies for one sided sexual gratification."

They were making out, under the rubric of (to quote LW) "I wanted to explore my sexuality a little." To hear you talk, she was mad because the deal was that they were supposed to be exploring HER sexuality, dammit, not HIS.
26
@21: "Perhaps said boy ignored her discomfort with what was happening, which is a horrible feeling no matter how it plays out."

The letter is pretty clear about that. There is no indication from the letter that what he was doing felt the least bit uncomfortable to her or unwelcome by her while it was going on. She didn't object to the _way_ he was rubbing against her -- which means that whatever he was doing must have felt like a pretty normal part of making out -- she objected (after the fact) to the fact that he came.

Plus, he's 14 at the time, he's probably still having wet dreams. When I was 14 I would get an erection just from kneeling. (No altar boy jokes about what I must have been kneeling in front of, please. I'm talking about the simple change in hydraulic pressure that results from kneeling. Things like kneel down to flip through the vinyl record collection, then be unable to stand back up without embarrassment.) I'm with Dan on the likelihood of it being an accidental discharge.
27
@23 of course she's entitled to her feelings.

We all have that entitlement. She's not entitled to our validation of her feelings however. We've all lived lives. We've all been in uncomfortable situitions. So even though we aren't THIS exact person or been in THIS exact situation, it's not like we're completely feeling around in the dark.

In any case, it's not like anyone is rushing to give this person unsolicited advice. He'll, we're not even giving her advice. We're having a discussion because she wrote in to an advice columnist.

In any case, I feel sorry for the poor girl. Life gets a lot harder then this.

28
@24 I see what your saying, but I just don't buy it. According to the letter, the encounter was consensual. She appears to feel no guilt over that. What WASN'T consensual was his orgasm. In ither words, she says she didn't consent to that.

I just reject that reasoning. She has every right to domain over her own body. She DOESNT have domain over his, however. In other words, what she allows him to do with her is her business. But how his body reacts to it is his own.

and if she consented to a make out session with him humping on her, then I don't see why she has to be consulted if he comes from doing exactly that. Makes him shit in bed and possibly selfish definitely. But he didn't do.anything wrong.

What if he was sucking her breasts and she had an orgasm? (This is possible). Clearly he consented to suckling her breasts. He DIDNT con sent to her orgasm. I wouldn't say she did anything wrong because her orgasm is her own business. She doesn't need his consent to come.

Of course, if she did NOT consent to the making out and dry humping, then that's an entirely different ball of wax. It would appear she consented to the encounter, her qualms only came after she realized he came.

29
I just like Rob's a- poosh a- poosh.
30
Finding a good therapist is the best solution to this.
31
@24, that's it, thanks. Her discomfort seemed to arise from the fact that she didn't know what was happening... and was, shall we say, "surprised" that it turns out he was being sexual with her body , before she even knew what was going on... or had a chance to participate, or veto, or discuss.
All your points may be related: she seems to have not learned to check in with herself, and never learned that it's OK to talk about sexual boundaries, and relatedly... that it's OK to slow the roll of horny boys you're involved with.

SO GLAD I'm not in this age group anymore. I'm not being condescending here- I just think it's hard to be young nowadays.
32
@28, she consented to "something" and maybe got "something else"... hence her discomfort.
34
@31, exactly.

armyguy, my point is that a 14 year old simply might not have realized that a little rhythmic movement = a guy basically using your body as a masturbation aid. It's my experience that there is a point when a makeout session clearly shifts* from just a makeout session to fooling around with the goal of one or both people coming to orgasm.

I really have no opinion on whether or not your impression of the situation makes you "a rape apologist" and in fact I find that question to be a bit catastrophizing on your part... your opinion on this letter isn't some kind of character test. I simply am saying I can sympathize with the LW thinking "wait what, oh jeez, EW" and having some lingering issues with the idea of her body being used as a masturbation aid.

*with affirmative consent from both parties - which remember, doesn't necessarily mean verbally "asking for consent" at all!
35
I have had a similar but not the same experience. EMDR in therapy really, really helped. It helped mere move some of the stress and trauma related to memories around what happened. Ask a therapist for more info.
36
Armyguy26: SHE WAS A CHILD.

A CHILD.

A girl of 14 understands next to nothing about sexual response -- neither her own, nor especially boys'. What she understood to be kissing and cuddling turned out to be something she had no experience of and found quite traumatic. Sure, an adult surprised by their partner's orgasm should take it in stride; BUT SHE WASN'T AN ADULT. And this clearly grossed her out at the time and has stuck with her since. She couldn't "consent" to the ADULT activity of orgasm-inducing behaviour BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT AN ADULT.

Not saying that what the boy did was "wrong"; as Dan notes, it was most probably completely accidental. But that doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic for her.
37
Since you've never been a teenage girl, I'll clue you in: development is very different between the sexes at that stage of life. A 14-year-old boy is probably having several orgasms a day. A 14-year-old girl is likely to have never had one, and have no idea what they even are. She is certainly not likely to have any clue about what can cause a male orgasm. Her knowledge of sex is probably limited to adults telling her not to do it. Sure, some 14-year-old females are more precocious; this one obviously wasn't.

In other words, the behaviour of both the teenagers involved was completely normal for their genders and ages.
38
Also, @25, please. Firstly, my expression of support doesn't mean I am acting as the LW's lawyer. It's not my job to justify her exact phrasing or phrase my own words to harmonize perfectly with hers. But by all means, use your advanced literary analysis to tease out the hidden misandry that MUST be at work here.

Secondly, what on earth do you even mean "she was mad because the deal was that they were supposed to be exploring HER sexuality, dammit, not HIS"

When the entire point that what happened was shitty because it wasn't MUTUAL. You know... mutual? Two people consensually exploring their sexuality together?
39
@38
Within sexual activity, are partners required to request permission to orgasm? Is either partner allowed to deny permission?

I can slightly imagine that the young woman was surprised at what wss happening. But astonished that she could think, at 21, that she would have the right to grant or deny permission to orgasm.
40
@18: Win.

@16: The double-posting thing happens sometimes; no idea why, and I think there's no way to delete it.

@23: You've probably had lots of orgasms without my permission. I feel violated by this, and demand an apology. One apology per orgasm, ideally. What? How dare you question my feelings!
Once that's done, you'll need to apologize to everyone else who's permission you didn't get before orgasming when you were 14. This may take some time.
41
@38: "But by all means, use your advanced literary analysis to tease out the hidden misandry that MUST be at work here. "

You're not hiding it as well as you think. This girl is horrified at the thought that she doesn't own other people's bodies, and that other people are allowed to have involuntary physical responses without her advance permission, retroactively.

This may come as a shock to you, but other people are theirs, not yours.

If reading this makes you angry, then I feel violated by the fact that your heart rate is going up, and you have to apologize for it, and for not asking my permission to have your heart rate increase.
42
@39: She doesn't say that at 21, she thinks she should have the right to control her partners' orgasms. She says that at 21, she is still haunted by memories of a traumatic event that she experienced at 14, and it's affecting her sex life, and she'd like to get over it.
43
@36: "Not saying that what the boy did was "wrong"; as Dan notes, it was most probably completely accidental. But that doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic for her."

If finding out, after the fact, that 14-year-old boys sometimes have orgasms was traumatic to her, I really want her life, because she's led the most pampered existence of anyone that's ever lived on planet Earth.
44
@42: The traumatic event she's referring to is finding out that her partner had had a (possibly involuntary) orgasm without her explicit permission.
Notice how that's exactly the same in every way as being offended that she doesn't get absolute and retroactive control over other people's bodies?
45
39, please read the thread. Your questions have been asked and answered. If the answers aren't to your satisfaction, I guess you can ask around for someone who will let you JAQ off to completion. By the looks of the two last posts, you may already have a willing partner!
46
@44: Please read comments 36 and 37. Then mansplain some more about what it's like to be a 14-year-old girl for those of us who actually have been 14-year-old girls.
48
Wow the commenters are incredibly harsh. Fuck y'all. She's not a horrible monster or a fucked up freak. Although therapy would be a good idea especially after reading through the comments.

Sounds like she had a common female problem of not speaking up about what her sexual feelings and instead accommodating a guy. She didn't even break up with him, just waited for him to break up with her. That's what I think she needs therapy for. She's using the word rape for something that is not illegal, just bad manners. I don't think you need consent to come, but I think you should apologize if you come quickly, especially if you shut down a nice sex session when you jumped the gun. And an offer to reciprocate is only polite.
48
@46: Ooh, mansplaining! Let me go get my Bingo card.
Apparently this needs to be said: 14-year-old girls who think they own their significant other's bodies are wrong. I do not care how much you think they're right, and I do not care how much they think they're right, because that's completely irrelevant.

39's questions have not been answered, because yelling "RESPECT MAH FEELS" is not actually an answer to the question of why you think you're entitled to control other people's bodies retroactively.

Are you aware that other people's bodies belong to them, and not to you, and that if finding this out traumatizes you, the correct response is not to shout your buzzwords? The correct response is to get the hell over your massive entitlement complex.

I understand that this girl's massive entitlement complex is causing her pain. You don't need to keep explaining that, though frankly it's kind of offensive that you think all young women are so entitled. Maybe it'd be a better use of your time to help her with the entitlement complex, rather than to yell at us for not treating her entitled bullshit as valid?
49
@45
STFU. Please.
50
BiDanFan @37. ( follow on from).
Therefore, LW, cut the kid( in the past), some slack
Boys! And cut yourself some slack. Boys! They do such weird things, when we are girls (after a while you sorta learn to find your way with male stories, learn to find your fun in it).
He liked you, his sex was too strong to be controlled. A male climbing on a female, it's what their bodies expect.
You maybe didn't realize this, at the time..
Hope you can find a way to look at this experience, as one of your stepping stones into womanhood. Boys!
52
If a woman writes to Dan about how she wants to preserve her sex drive in the face of dates who use her for sex, trusty Avast and Eud are around to make sure women know that it's NORMAL to be used. The woman's feelings are not the important part dontchaknow so suck em up. Mutually enjoyable sex is feminist trash that will ruin the world.

Now if a woman gets off great but her man does not, he should dump her bitchy slutty ass (violating new rules sllotd). But Eud and Avast are not twisted in the head.. it all makes sense, honest...
53

Assume you are curled up close to someone, with more or less full body contact -- and whether naked or not. You are kissing, touching, fondling etc. It is clearly a sexual encounter of some kind.

So, question: Is it considered correct polite behavior to ask -- explicitly, whether by voice or text -- your partner if you are allowed to come?

Consent to engage in sexual activity has been mutually agreed to. That is clear. And obviously consent can be withdrawn by either party at any time.

But the question is whether a woman (or man) must explicitly ask for permission to orgasm?
55
@ 46

Seriously? "mansplaining"? The definition of which appears to be "any man who dares open their mouth about male/female relationships".

What a pile of bullshit. I don't need to have been a 14 y/o female to have a decent grasp of the situation. It's like you think that the female is so massively complex and different from the male one that us dumb guys could never possibly imagine the struggles.

I'm white, btw. I've never been discriminated against because of my skin. And yet I still am infuriated by racism and all its forms. I may not have experienced RACIAL injustice, but I certainly understand injustice. Every human does.

Most reasonable well adjusted people have the ability to understand another's plight, even if they themselves have never lived it. And if you think that's impossible, then maybe the problem lies with you and not someone else.

The LW is absolutely entitled to her feelings, and they are every bit as real to her as mine are to me, or yours are to you. So I would fully support her getting therapy. But she isn't a victim here, nobody needs apologize (except for being a shitty lover perhaps), and words like "I don't think I was raped, but......" or "I don't want to call the police...." are wholly inappropriate for this situation as she explains it. Even bringing those things up in not appropriate, because it implies that there WAS wrongdoing here, and the LW is simply choosing to not pursue that.

Nobidy did anything wrong here. Not the LW. Not her bf. Its an extremely typical teenage sexual experience. But a shitty sexual experience that makes one feel bad afterwards is not retroacretroactively an abusive experience.

It's unfortunate that she is traumatized by this and i hope she seeks therapy to help herself deal with it. If she feels she's owed an apology or anytjing from this dude to get that closure tho, she's wrong. Full stop. (Unless, of course, the situation was not exactly as mentioned and there was a coercive element to it. That would be completely different)

55
I don’t think anyone here has criticized the 14-year-old boy in question.

I definitely haven’t seen anyone assert that the LW is entitled to an apology.

But I’m seeing an awful lot of failure of empathy for girl children on the part of some of the men here. That’s really disturbing.
56
Buried feelings come out in odd, unpredictable, and often dangerous ways for the people around.

I kind of hope Avast or Eud meet her after 10 more years, no therapy, just hearing this same bs "suck it up" shit, and get Bobbitted.
57
The problems with the apologists here is that her reaction to this event is not normal and not legitimate. She has built it into something far worse than it was (her idea that she was exploited and it was nonconsensual), and as a result she is having, despite her protestations, significant limitation in her sex life ("I avoid having sex with someone on top of me because it reminds me of what happens and I start panicking"). This woman has been unable to shift the nature and importance of this event to put it in its proper perspective, and it is doing her a necessary favor to tell her that, as long as she is told kindly. She can't get over this on her own, apparently, so she needs some therapy as soon as possible. Not victim comforting, not validation of her feelings, and certainly not encouragement to seek some sort of closure which she won't get from a guy who has no need to apologize now for his 14 year old awkward attempts at physical connection. Her closure must come from some uncomfortable confrontational therapy as she is exposed to the idea that the one who has primarily victimized her is herself.
58
@ 55

The LW seems to imply wrongdoing with phrases such as "I don't want to call the police, it's not necessary. ...it was so long ago" - well, yes it's unnecessary, but not for the reason she states. To even bring up the possibility is completely off base with what actually happened.

"As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't rape" - well, yes that's true. It's also true as far as ANY sane and reasonable person is concerned, it isn't rape. Nor was it sexual assault, or any other type sexual misconduct (except being possibly selfish and inconsiderate).

As far as the lack of empathy goes, I guess we all view life through the prism with which we live to a certain extent. I try to put myself in others shoes as much as I can. I'm more then we'll aware that as a white male, age 18-35 there may be lots of shitty things out there that I'm shielded from and I think I do a pretty decent job of that.

I guess I just can't muster up the " empathy" for the "trauma" comes from when their partner came too quickly during a consensual sexual encounter 7 years.

And that's ok. It doesn't make me a bad person or a piece of shit. I just reject the notion that to be a good and caring person, we must always validate and legitimize every feeling someone else has.

59
@ 57

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Not EVERY experience is subjective. It's ok for reasonable people as a group to say "you're overreacting. And if you think you were wronged here, you wernt".

It just seems like sometimes there's this culture where EVERY view/feeling/emotion is equally valid as every other one. And that's just not correct.

This is one of those times.
60
@53

Yeah that's exactly the question I brought up up thread.

I guess I'm open to being swayed on this, but it's my opinion that your orgasms are your own and you don't need to ask anyone's consent to come, PROVIDING the activity that's MAKING you come has been consented too.

Seems to me that (assuming the activity is consented too) to require consent from the person to have a physiological reaction is to cede agency ovee your own body to someone else, and no one should feel they have to do that.

Now, whether it's a smart idea if you want to see that peespn again is another story.....
61
My take? She's traumatized and hurt, but not because he did anything outside what can be expected of a 14-year-old, but rather because she ended up feeling powerless and she's disappointed in herself for failing to advocate for herself.

The idea that a 14-year-old boy is going to have the language and maturity to ask for explicit consent during one of his first awkward and fumbling sexual encounters is not really reasonable... just as it's not reasonable to blame her for failing to explicitly outline what her boundaries were. So her pain is certainly valid; she had a sexual experience that she later regretted, and that's unfortunate. But she needs to forgive herself for failing to exercise her agency rather than blaming him.
62
@60
I agree and the LW explicitly states that her permission (or lack) was the pivotal event. Many writers here seem to agree that even within a consensual sexual encounter, permission must be sought and gained before orgasm. I am astonished that D/S has become so engrained in vanilla sexual behavior. Fascinating.
63
@61

Why should she even have to forgive herself? Forgive for what? She did nothing wrong. The boy did nothing wrong. The only people at fault might be the ones who have fed her such an odd POV.
64
@22 - I agree with you 100%!

This woman is the consequence of the Oprah phenomenon, where everyone is a victim of something or someone. Come on, kids have been exploring with each other (which is what she admitted she was doing) ever since there were kids. Everything is not a fucking sex crime!!! When 14 year old boys make out, sometimes they come in their pants and usually they are very embarrassed about it.

WTF, do we need a Sheldon Cooper style 50 page Make Out Agreement, signed in triplicate and notarized before two 14 year olds can have a make out session? "The party of the first part may kiss the party of the second part whilst laying atop said party of the second part. However, should the party of the first part engage in torso gyration for the purpose of self gratification, said party of the first part must cease said gyrations prior to the emission of ejaculate and obtain written consent from the party of the second part prior to the resumption of any gyration which may end in climax.

Furthermore, neither the party of the first part, or the party of the second part, shall at any time enjoy themselves while in the scope and course of this agreement, without first obtaining the consent for said enjoyment from the opposing party."

No wonder kids today would rather play video games!
65
Have any of the commenters called him a rapist?

Have any of the commenters denied she needs therapy?

Have any of the But She Consented! commenters genuinely tried to figure out what the ex-14-year old-girls among us mean when we say she didn’t know they were having sex, or why we might think that’s relevant to her experience of distress at the time?

Yes of course her continued brooding over it appears odd to us. Her use of criminal language appears bizarre. From my perspective that had to be the result of having received a truly fucked-up sexual and emotional education and upbringing — the kind that is being increasingly popularized by the fundie right in the US.* If she was denied an appropriate vocabulary to describe what happened or what she is feeling, does that make her an appropriate target of derision or outrage? Especially when she explicitly *rejects* the legal model and instead reaches out for help to a sex-positive advice columnist?

* (People think that the Duggars of N-Kids-And-Counting must be doing something right because the kids are always happy. Did you know they are beaten for not smiling?)
66
@12 & @30 +1

67
This isn't about "permission to orgasm". It reads to me that she didn't understand she was doing anything that would lead to an orgasm, and wouldn't have consented if she did. This is lack of sex ed, and defiantly a whiff of fundie influence. I had the "chewed gum" analogy in church, I can see how she might have felt this way if she bought into that - she thought she was just kissing and now look what happened. She's not quite a chewed up piece of gum, but now there's cum stains on the wrapper. No, she does not need an apology from this guy, who is not the real source of the problem.
68
The problem with the apologists on this thread, is that his actions in this event were not normal and not legitimate. A normal guy would be able to tell if a woman was completely unaroused and try something different instead of continuing on until orgasm. A normal guy apologizes for initiating badly after immediately noticing body signals of rejection. Certainly doesn't keep going until she finally has to explicitly say "no" or push him away. A normal guy asks if the sex was ok for her when he wants to stop having sex. A normal guy would lift her on top after he came, so she could try out what she liked to do. And he didn't even apologize for any of these mistakes. Such a freak as this should have been in therapy long ago.

Before the mens start shouting foul, this was satire aimed at the apologists who are mad this girl isn't perfect yet excuse him. I'm quite aware he was a stupid 14 year old who is now a slightly less stupid 21 year old, still unlikely to apologize. Just as this lw is slightly less stupid, still unlikely to be over it. But. Straight gender wars!!

If more men would speak up about the need for sex to be mutually satisfying, we wouldn't be having these arguments. But most don't see the need to stress this point. Only that women should keep putting out. For them, at least. Oh yeah and shut up about what they want and how they feel. It's not even subtle, how insulting.
69
@67
Reread her letter.
She says that the problem started because she never gave permission.
It's her own words.
I am not making it up.

70
Rewording Alanmt @57 taking the other side, I mean. Even armyguy.. really.. possibly selfish and inconsiderate? But yeah, he was 14, which means he was very embarrassed/stupid and didn't know what the hell was going on probably.
71
Philophile @68: thank you.
72
You could take it literally, she wanted him to ask if it was ok to have an orgasm. She also said she didn't know they were "dry humping" until he came. So it was a shock to her, she hadn't realized they were doing anything that would lead to his orgasm. It was likely not his intention either, like everyone is saying, he is not at fault here. Why is she traumatized so much? Because of fucked up ideas about sex, that sound much more religious slut shamey to me than "victim culture".
73
Bear in mind that her letter was written 7 years after the fact. So if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- which it doesn't -- shouldn't be too surprising.
74
@2 - I'm sorry, I missed you. +1 also.
75
I think the important thing here is not whether she was right, how she should feel, whether we bring out certain loaded terms to talk about what happened--but rather, given that what happened happened, and that she feels what she feels, what to do?

And Dan's advice here is pretty good about that, in my opinion. She has to game out the possibility that contact with him will turn out to be a mistake. My only spin on it would be to frame the conversation as something other than "I demand an apology." It could be very healing for two adults to discuss something that they experienced together as children, to share their adult perspectives on it. To say, "Do you remember what happened?" and hear his memories of it, whether he was feeling embarrassed, whether he now feels regret, whether there was something else going on that she wasn't aware of. The worst possible outcome is he says, "Oh, yeah, that was cool, I was so excited I was gonna tell all my buddies I got to second base with you."

I see lots of cases where "I demand an apology" becomes problematic; I'm thinking more of public cases and media feuds, but it plays out as well. Because even if the apologist says "You're right. You deserve an apology. I'm sorry. I was wrong." the demanders sometimes don't seem satisfied. They say, "No, really apologize, and tell me why you did the awful thing you did." Which are two goals really at odds with each other, leading the apologist to justify, to try to fix the demander's perceptions, to make excuses. That's not going to make her feel better, to hear him say, "Cut me some slack, I was a horny teenager!" But it might make her feel better to hear that he remembers, and he recognizes that he shouldn't have done what he did.
76
@Alison :) No reason a few idiots should prevent other guys from scoring a regular lay. You'd think women would put up with anything in bed as long as there was consent to sex, from this thread. That's the legal line, boys. Not the dumpable line.

LW, find a good dumpable line for you and dump the guys on the wrong side of that line without apology. It's not mean, it's accepting who you are and what you like and refusing to apologize for it.
77
@ 72

I took her use of the phrase "dry humping" to mean orgasm. As in, she didn't realize he had came until.he got cleaned off. It doesn't make sense otherwise, as the stimulation required to come from dry humping, although probably slight for a 14 y/o, is still enough to physically feel.

I'm not sure what this has to do with "slut shaming" tho. I think sometimes ppl go to that label a little quick. Nobidy at all us slut shaming everyone. I think everyone should fuck as many people as they like, as often as they like, amy how they like.

Nobody is saying her sexual experience was wrong in any way whatsoever. Some are just saying she wasn't "exploited" as she thinks she was, (being shitty in bed is not exploiting your partner), and any talk or thought whatsoever of involving police or contacting this person for an apology she isn't entitled too is not at all appropriate.

Also, I think that lots of people here are really underestimating the sexual knowledge/interests/faculties of teenage girls these days.

My wife will keep tabs on what our 13 y/o daughter does online t make sure she's safe. Some of the stuff her and her friends talk about (not so much in experience at this age but in terms of knowledge and interest) would probably make some of us here blush.

While im sure there are exceptions out thete and some really naive 14 y/o exist, the idea that a 14 y/o doesn't understand what dry humping can naturally lead too, or understand male orgasms is completely out of touch with reality and, dare I say, kind of smells like the same patriarchal "father knows best" sexism that we all would like to see in the past.

78
When I said she was victimizing herself, it wasn't meant as an indictment of her discomfort or inexperience at the time, but the recognition that she has given and continues to give this event way more power of her than is warranted by the innocuous (albeit with an unexpected result) exploratory sexual encounter that it objectively was.

I do take into account that, although you can't tell from the letter, there is some likelihood that her emotional reaction has been substantially colored by external cultural or societal factors like religious fundamentalism or elevation of unquestionable victimhood. To my mind, the "other side" is not that of the boy involved, but of whichever of these phenomenon, if any, interfered with her ability to successfully emotionally process this event in the long term.
79
Little story.

I was terribly abused at the age of 5 by my half brother. (Graphic detail is about to start, stop reading if you don't want know about it.) He forced me to give him blow jobs, he did oral on me. He stuck his nose in me. He fingered me until it hurt so bad I cried. This went on for a while 6-7 separate times.

He was 17. My parents got mad, the police didn't give a fuck. So he was kicked out. He then went into the Navy for lack of anything else to do.

My parent then forced me to write him nice letters while he was in the Navy. He sent me gifts on occasion. I was young enough still (7-8) that I didn't think there was anything wrong. I accepted this life I had. My half brother molested me but now that is all done and ok.

Forward to the age of 12. He leaves the Navy and my parents allow him to move back in with me. All mental hell breaks loose. I start to suffer from severe depression that manifested itself by severe anger. I hit kids, I threw chairs at teachers. I cut myself. All in the 5th and 6th grade. My depression settled a bit and I became a disturbed person, but it was internal so they didn't care.

No one put two and two together. That my mental illness had to do with living with and being forced to like a man who hurt me so badly. The part that makes it worse is I remember watching America's most wanted with my family. Every time there was a molester on the show my parents would say things about stringing them up by the balls. And how they should be put to death in painful ways. So, in my adolescent mind it became clear: It's ok to rape and hurt ME. But it's NOT ok to hurt and rape other kids. I'm the exception.

I've since gotten therapy, lots of it. I'm very happy now and functional. I have a successful marriage, a home business, a healthy daughter. I am providing the home for her that I wanted to have for myself. These things are therapeutic and healthy.

I have tried 4 different times to try to get my mother and father to acknowledge and apologize for their part. They won't hear it, they won't have it. They call me names. They tell me I'm a drama queen no matter how calmly I try to express my need for them to apologize.

My point is, it doesn't work. closure isn't something you GET from OTHER people. It's something you create for yourself. Those people who hurt me are broken and they cannot give me what I am demanding. So...I have to create it for myself.

LW, contacting this guy will do NOTHING for you. Not one fucking thing.
80
@68

I agree we should all be considerate sexual partbers. I dont see this as a man problem tho, as in "if only men cpuld learn....."

As a pretty sexually active guy before I was married, I can tell you there are plenty of women who are selfish and inconsiderate in bed.

I don't see this as a gender issue at all. There are shitty and selfish ppl of bith genders.

Seems to me before one says anything when debating gender topics, before you say something like "guys need too...." reverse the gender in your head and think about what you'd think if a male said the exacexact same thing.

If it sounds shitty in your head, maybe it's not a constructive thing to say.

In this case, I can probably imagine the shit I'd get if I said "see, the thing is, women just need to learn to please their man in bed better". And I'd be right to get it.
81
And I want to add one more really jerky thing. Two 14 year olds bumbling their way through early sexual experiences are just that...bumbling kids.
82
I also agree with @75 that demanding an apology is never a good idea. A forced apology is worthless because there is never a guarantee of sincerity. In a politics/media context it is a device for shaming, not seeking an honest acknowledgment of error; in an ongoing relationship it is an abusive power play. In this case, it's also a game of roulette - unless the request is handled exactly right and he is a sensitive person, he will go on the defensive and there is a substantial likelihood she will get an answer which makes her feel worse. She shouldn't give him this power over her emotional wellbeing, especially since it is substantially likely that he will be shocked at the way this encounter has significantly affected her in a way that his reaction may well be dismissive. Therapy is what she needs, not some unlikely imagined cathartic encounter with him.

People are notoriously bad at interpreting what will bring them closure; although we see this most often in the relationship breakup scenario.
83
armyguy26 @77, from the perspective of an ex-14-year-old-girl:

She did not know he was hard.
She did not know that he might come.

I understand that as an ex-14-year-old-boy you find this implausible. I get that. Which is why the women here are telling you — because we don’t expect you to know unless we tell you — that it *is* plausible.

Reread BiDanFan @37.
84
@79

That's a good point, whether she contacts this guy or not, regardless of what he says, no "closure" can come unless it comes from her.

That's a horrible story, btw. I hope everything works out for you.

I guess that's why I'm taking the stand I am in a way. To validate and "empathize" with the LW by agreeing that she was "exploited" (as she says) marginilzes all the people who were ACTUALLY exploited and abused, such as Penny Lady.

The LW is absolutely entitled to her feelings, even if they are not reasonable. If she feels traumatized, then she is. But she isn't entitled to her own definitions, and she was not in any way sexually "exploited" during the encounter as its written.

The way it reads to me, if he didn't come, then she would have no problem. And if that's the case, then she's not entitled to an apology. No one needs consent to have an orgasm provided the activity that causes it is consented too.
85
@Armyguy - being shitty in bed is not exploiting your partner
Sometimes it is. What exactly do you think using/exploiting a person is? And how one can test if they are being exploited?

I think everyone's line for this would be different, but most people would feel pretty used if the person they were making out with orgasmed and started doing something else without talking. Which is a plausible scenario here.
86
@82 not to mention, no wrongdoing was done by either party. Thus, no apology needed, and in fact, it would be inappropriate to demand one.
87
@77, it makes sense if you're talking about an 14 year olds very first sexual experiences, which we are. The rolling around, rubbing together, she didn't add it up until after the fact. Nobody here is slut shaming her, I didn't intend to imply that. Only that the trauma she felt could have stemmed from slut-shaming ideas that were put onto her at the time. She got more of a sexual experience than she bargained for, for most people it would be no big deal. I was sexually active at that age, my friends were, and this was would not have fazed me. I got the chewed-gum spiel in church but I wasn't raised that way, I didn't buy into the purity bullshit. We are all speculating of course, but imagine this:
She has so little understanding of sexuality she doesn't recognize dry-humping when she's engaged in it. She's been taught that pre-marital sex makes you "impure" and less valuable of a person. She's kissing a boy because that seems harmless enough, but all the sudden she's had some kind of sex and she didn't even know it until it was over. It's not quite a full on tarnishing, but she's shaken because she had no intention of going there. It can be scary making out with boys, from my memory. Awesome, but scary. Things escalate. Now imagine your "purity" is on the line, one false move and you're damaged goods. Forever. And you believe that horseshit because you are 14 and that is what you have been taught of sex
88
@ 85. I've been shitty in bed at times in my past.

When I was first becoming sexually active, I found I hard to stay hard because I was so nervous.

When I got over that, I would come quite quick. Like, 30 seconds or less. I did everything. I would jerk off 30 min before sex so I would last longer. I also bought a spray called "stud 400" with a picture of a horse on it. It was basically lidocaine. Couldn't feel a thing but I was a fucking champ those nights.

I do agree though. I should clarify, that there are SOME instances where being "shitty in bed" can be exploitive. Just that this particular case is not one of them. Feminism and equality doesn't mean that no woman ever should have a less then satisfactory sexual experience.

Everyone has them at one time or another. Assuming there is no coercion and consent was given (neither applicable in this situation) then they should not be traumatic experiences. If they are, the issue likely lies with the person traumatized and they def should seek therapy to get at the reasons why such a universal and benign experience has led to such an excessive amount of stress.
89
@ 85 forgot to add.....the scenario you gave (guy came as soon as they started, then did somethibg else) would certainly be classed under "assholery" no doubt. Not sure I'd call it "exploitive".

But even if we agreed it was, I don't see it a given at all this is what happened. The point of my "come too quick" story was that it is ento rely possible he didn't WANT to come. Trust me, I've been there, where your so excited because it's all so new that a slight breeze will make you go.

If we assume this guy is a normal, non psycho kid (and there's no reason to thing otherwise) he prob was just as disappointed and wished it could have lasted much longer.

90
I am surprised the "I don't want to report him to the police because it's not necessary—it happened so long ago. " hasn't drawn more comment. What would she expect the police to do? Charge him with a crime and have him extradited from his home state? Or does she think the police can force him to apologize to her?
91
I think 84 has it right. "The LW is absolutely entitled to her feelings, even if they are not reasonable. If she feels traumatized, then she is. But she isn't entitled to her own definitions, and she was not in any way sexually "exploited" during the encounter as its written."

Her issue isn't that she was sexually abused or exploited or traumatized. Her issue is her psyche isn't jiving with reality. And that IS a REAL issue. It's one that requires cognitive therapy techniques.

If everyone insists that you are a victim then you'd be hard pressed to not believe it yourself. However you are going to be hard pressed to get me, a serious feminist, to buy that a victim was made by this boy. A victim was made by OTHER things. But not by this inexperienced 14 year old boy.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills the more I think about this. Two KIDS are making out, one of them has an oopsy orgasm and now we have a traumatized victim? She's a victim of people INSISTING SHE IS A VICTIM. Whoever that may be coming from. Ultra conservative parents who made her think orgasms were dirty. Over the top SJW's who seem to think each stage of sex needs to be discussed for hours first. She's a victim, but NOT from this boy.
92
+1 to Alanmt's several wise posts in this thread.

-1 @56. Violent assault doesn't become funny when it happens to men.

93
@ 87

Ahhh I gotcha.

I get what yo ur saying, there very well could be some Fundy influence here.

To me tho, it doesn't sound like it was the sex encounter ("I wanted to explore my sexuality") or the making out or any of it that's caused her trauma. She dint use the word "guilt" once. It seems her only problem was that he came and she feels exploited because she didn't "consent" to his orgasm.

I think thats flawed. Shes only entitled to give consent to things that affect her and her body (I.e. "do I consent to make out with this guy?" Or "do I consent to have him on top of me rubbing?"). She isn't entitled to be consulted on his physiological responses.

Now if she WITHOUT her make out/hump consent and he 8 gored it and came anyway, then that is comoletely different. But there's nothing to suggest that happened.

Honestly, to me it sounds like a young girl who went to college and took some women's studies classes perhaps with an overzealous prof and thought back to that unsatisfactory experience and thought "why, I was exploited! I didn't consent!" and then the trauma came.

And yes, there are people who seek or embellish injury in order to gain access to the nurTuring attention of a group. I'm thinking about "gift givers" that Dan touched on a while ago, of gay guys who seek out HIV on purpose in order to gain access to what they believe as a support system.

Either that, or the trauma was there all along and she actually WAS scarred from an incredibly normal and universal experience that probably close to 100% of people have experienced at one time or another.

In any case, her reasons or motivations are irrelevent. She should probably see a therapist regardless. Regarding the actual encounter, she was not exploited in any way, assuming the story as she tells it is accurate.
94
armyguy26, it appears you’re being willfully dense. (I’m really tempted to take the bait of ‘hard penis is necessary and sufficient for being good in bed’ but I’m sure we can pick up that ball on another thread.)

Thought experiment. You are a technician at a help desk. There’s this guy a little above you in the company hierarchy. He calls you two or three times a week at around noon with various small problems. You never get to the end of solving the problems because he hangs up the phone after about five minutes while you are trying to walk him through a solution. You eventually realize he’s not calling you for the explicit reason (technical help). He’s beating off to the sound of your voice. You feel dirty and gross even though you consented to take the call. You aren’t sure what to call this. It’s not sexual harassment because he never says anything explicitly sexual. You aren’t sure what you would tell your boss. Should HR be involved? But really, you’re a grownup and can deal with adult sexuality. Should you say something to the guy? Try to get him to admit what he’s doing? The whole thing just feels weird and upsetting.

Now imagine that you write to a forthright HR advice columnist to ask about how to think about this and what kind of action to take. You get helpful and sympathetic advice from the columnist but half the commenters are loudly complaining that they don’t need anyone’s permission to masturbate and that you consented so suck it up.
95
Ugh, shitty auto correct.

In the above paragraph that makes no sense, I meant

"if she WITHDREW her consent to make out/rub genitals and THEN he came, that would be comoletely different"
96
@88 I wonder if the personal experience you describe has some bearing on your strong reaction to this letter. If the boy is to blame in the story, then you might also be to blame for some stuff that happened when you were younger. I'm not saying that you or he ARE to blame but in the face of a (perceived) accusation we all tend to get defensive and have trouble empathizing.
97
I guess the difference is, in your scenario, both individuals are not willing partners.

Obviously when I said "bwing shitty in bed is not exploiting your partner" I meant assuming both partners were consenting to the sexual encounter. I thought that was self evident.

My point remains: if both people consent, and nobody was coerced, and the only problem is that one or the other is unsatisfied (whether it be because they can't get hard or wet, or can't come, or come too soon etc) then that is not exploitation.

In this scenario there is nothing to suggest coercion or lack of consent was the issue. The issue was that a) he came and b) she didn't give him permission to come.

Sorry, there is no wrongdoing here by either parry.
98
@90 - this is what makes me think she had some kind of fundie sex-negative upbringing. She thinks because he came in his pants while they were making out, they must have been having some kind of sex. She had no idea, but she thinks he knew what he was doing and took advantage of her inexperience. Maybe, maybe not, but why escalate the encounter to a sexual assault? Because she felt something was taken from her, a chink out her purity, her sexual innocence, which is a big deal if you've been taught that losing your virginity outside of marriage makes you like a used piece of chewing gum that no one decent would want anything to do with. Also, the type of sex "education" that leads to complete ignorance of male orgasms and how they occur. Hell, at 10 I knew about erections and ejaculation.
99
@ 96

Lol that's some nice pseudo psychoanalyzing. And you did it through the Internet too!

Get out of my head!!!!

Orrrrrrr it's just that I have a brain and am a reasonable person and I can tell that the guy in this particular story did nothing wrong.

Really nothing deeper to it then that. Most adults can reason and use logic without having a secret hidden agenda.
100
@ 98 I guess so. But that's so many assumptions that are not remotely even suggested at in the letter that we can't really consider it.

Anything is possible.
101
(Who'd have guessed a dry hump in 2008 would be discussed ad nauseum online by 100 strangers in 2015? Little does this guy know...)
102
@63

>Why should she even have to forgive herself? Forgive for what? She did nothing wrong.

That's exactly my point. My take is that the root of her issue is that she feels guilt or regret about her lack of agency in the situation, and that she's projecting that outwards. She should (1) accept that her bad feelings have more to do with how she interprets her own actions than his, and (2) recognize that her own actions weren't wrong and that she shouldn't feel guilty about it.

Caveat: this is all dimestore psychoanalysis based on one letter, and should be treated as such.
103
armyguy26, Which commenter is blaming the boy?

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