Comments

102
+1 @95
103
@95

Have you been on SLOG before? Or the Internet, for that matter? It's not like mostly-anonymous people need permission to call a guy an asshole.

What is different about this situation is that everyone is calling the same person an asshole, rather than referring to each other. That says something. Well, everyone but you, which also probably says something.

I don't exactly follow the whims of crowds, but if everyone had a different visceral response than I did, I would wonder if they were seeing something that I missed.
104
@78

Excuse me. There is a likelihood that this girl was helped along in her semi-supposed-catatonic state. She may have not known that she was that drunk. She may not have MEANT to get that drunk. I know when I get that drunk I sure as hell didn't mean to.

This kind of thing has happened to me before.

I wasn't raped thank god, but I could easily have been.

I did drink too much. I didn't know a lot of people at the party. I was 19. I threw up and passed the fuck out on the couch. Literally, the next thing I know I'm waking up to some guy's hand down my pants and I seem to be encouraging it. I have no idea how that happened. To this day. I started to get freaked out but I was still REALLY drunk so I made up a lame excuse about going to the bathroom and somehow (again the blackout) I got back to the couch.
Safely.
As far as I know anyway.
Please let me stress that I didn't plan to get that shitfaced. Sometimes that just fucking happens you ass. Perhaps you don't know this, but when you get drunk, your ability to reason and your sense of what's maybe not such a good idea kind of goes out the fucking window. The more you drink, the easier it is to drink more. Please don't think that this girl planned to be catatonic. You should never leave someone alone at a party. NEVER. Just for that, this guy is the biggest douche on the planet. Then he gets into the bullshit about kicking out a rape victim and trying to paint himself as a victim himself.
I won't deny that the arguments for him don't have merit, they just don't hold up to the incredible douchiness and utter assholiness of the motherfucker.
Being drunk is not the same as ASKING FOR IT.
You bastard.
105
@88 -- really? A man needs to protect a woman at all times? That's pretty sexist. Hope you were being ironic.
106
@95, um, no, he's an unmitigated douchebag. I'm trying to conjure a scenario where this would have been acceptable even among my high school friends and I'm sorry but I can't. He banished her from her own home after she was raped (and it was definitely rape). He deserves every kick in the teeth he gets. What, you think people should be patting him on the back going "there there, how could you know exiling your violated girlfriend from your life was a shitty thing to do"?

Hell, I felt violated reading it - it literally made me ill. The narcissism and the insecurity this man displayed are simply breathtaking. Centrists, do you seriously think that at the age of 23 you would have kicked your penitent, confused and violated girlfriend out of your apartment because some other guy laid hands on her while she was vomiting drunk? Seriously? There is not a guy I know who would not have backed this young woman up.

A lot of people keep citing 23 as a young age. It is for some things. But not for this.
107
Also? I'm totally over the whole "too young to deal with it" shit. I'm that "young" but I can call a spade a spade. Emotional and physical trauma are physical and emotional trauma.
23 is young, but come on. We're not babies here.
108
I was "disgustingly in love" at age 23, too. At age 24, I kicked the douchebag back to his home state and haven't looked back since. One of the best decisions of my life! Hopefully the letter-writer's (ex) girlfriend will one day be able to look back and say the same thing, hopefully to a lover who understands what it means to be there for someone during a crisis.

And I agree with a couple of folks. I have had evenings where I've been pretty fairly sloshed. So far, only one night has ended with me throwing up and blacking out. I don't remember drinking any more than I usually do, but I suppose I must have. Sometimes, it all just hits you at once and you fall down.
109
I'm just... wow. This is your standard for, "Neither of us have ever trusted someone so completely,"? It's unanimous among the commenters that she trusted you, and you threw her out with the garbage. I don't think there's anything you can do to make this up to her. She'll accept you again, as you've stated, but she's shattered. You deserve the shaming that has been brought upon you.

I think it's time you researched rape and got yourself very familiar with what it is. Go to Wikipedia. Buy some books. If you want to fix this, you need to become an advocate for women and beg on your knees for forgiveness for what you've done.
110
I've always thought that part of the reason victims avoid calling this sort of thing rape is that they're worried about the consequences of actually having "been raped", and if it can just be drunken bathroom sex, they won't have to suffer the consequences. It's a coping mechanism, albeit one that lets rapists go free and re-offend. I'm hardly going to go around telling rape victims that they need to face up to the crime and be courageous though, because I haven't been there, I don't know what it's like, and I can't imagine the pros and cons of coping this way.

Perhaps the way to get more victims to file complaints (which makes the world a better place because it puts rapists in jail) is to get people to understand that the consequences are from what happens, not what you call it. You face the consequences of what is done to you regardless; the term 'rape' is just that: a word. It can't hurt you: that was done by the asshole who needs to be put in prison.

As, of course, separate from the asshole who threw you out of your house after he found out you'd been raped. He's the one who HAS made the hurt worse. HE'S the one letting it be 'your fault'. HE'S the one reinforcing that by throwing you out, like you're the bad person here. In my experience, this sort of reaction comes from the ridiculous idea of 'purity' that religion foists on society, but it could just come from general ass-hattery. In short, this guy needs a good thorough ass-kicking. Hopefully the written one Dan handed down will do.

Even if he gets it, @ his girlfriend: ditch him. This guy seems to not get 'love' or 'compassion', and I'm sure you can do better. And call the police.
111
TLTTOACA,

To me it does not sound like your girlfriend messed around on you. To me it sounds like she was taken advantage of, probably raped. The fact that she vomited and blacked out indicates that she was not capable of giving consent.

You can not go back in time and change the past. You have
essentially rejected her. But, you can help her now. Firstly, you need to apologise profusely. Secondly, you need to get her to a
doctor. She could be pregnant or have contracted a STI. She
may need counseling. Thirdly, this needs to be reported to the
police. Fourthly, stop telling people. This is not news. This is her story to tell. She is the victim. You may be a secondary victim, but your victimization is secondary to hers. Fifthly, learn from this.

112
Yes @ 93, If he loves her beyond his own sexual convenience, he'll get her to a RAPE CRISES CENTER. Then, he'll pretend that he's a gentleman and let her dump him. But, how likely is that given that his instinct was to let her down when she needed him the most?
113
This guy is probably still buying the line, rampant among men who have buddies who were once suspected of rape, that it's a perfectly common occurrence for a woman to be puking drunk and then turn around and demand that an near-stranger fuck her immediately. I know some perfectly lovely young people who believe in this story.
114
Okay, dude, it's probably fair enough for some of us to tell you what to do next, in addition to calling you the most outrageous asshat we can recall in a long, long time.

I get that you're shocked. A criminal burst your "only me and only you" bubble. Now get the hell over it. Go find your girlfriend. On bended knees (that's plural), apologize to her from the depth of your heart. Beg her to come home. Get both of you to a rape counselor, and strongly encourage your girlfriend to report the rapist to the cops. Hold her hand. Reassure her that you still love her, treasure her, want her. Cook for her, rub her back, hold her, dry her tears. Support her for the years that she'll deal with both the rape and the serious trauma you caused. If she'll let you, that is. If I were your girlfriend (and thank God I am not), I'd be thinking hard about how badly you treated me, and making some logical conclusions about what kind of support I'd get in the future if/when I'm fired or I'm sick or I make a mistake. Bad things happen and people make mistakes, you stupid man-child. Get busy owning up to yours.

Whether she'll listen to you or not, tell every friend the real story of what happened, combined with an apology (to your friends) for misrepresenting the incident and treating their friend--your girlfriend--as if this was 1) her fault and 2) all about you. This is the right thing to do, but it's also the only way you'll salvage any meaningful friendships--those that you may still have. If I found out you had treated my friend like this, I'd never speak to you again. And I'd make sure that everyone you and I both know heard the real story. Let them hear it from you. The ass you save may be your own.

A couple of final thoughts: You say that you are in love and that the two of you never trusted anyone so much as you trusted one another. I think that your girlfriend's trust was seriously misplaced, but here's your big chance to prove me wrong. Love is a verb, you twit, not just a series of happy sensations. Go act lovingly. Prove that her trust in you was (ultimately) not a mistake. RIGHT NOW. Go.
115
Hey Dan, I just read this letter on your oft-hyped iPhone app. You can't read the comments. Lame.
116
@105, I think #88 is gay. I also think he's saying if you go to a party *with someone* especially someone very close to you, you shouldn't abandon them with a bunch of strangers after they've started drinking some. It's just not a good thing to do.
117
@105: jaydog5280 @88 is a gay man saying he wouldn't leave his male partner at a party if he was that drunk.
I wouldn't dream of leaving my partner behind at a party or club, particularly if he's been drinking.

(emphasis mine)
It isn't about "man protecting woman" as much as "sober person protecting the drunk person they love."
118
@99:

"What part of uncertainty do you not understand? You don't know whether a rape happened or not. Neither does he."

What part of "can't have it both ways" don't you understand?

His words say she must be a rape victim because she doesn't remember any of it. His actions say that he thinks she is a cheating POS, that it was totally voluntary, which can only be true if she is lying about blacking out. It can only be one of the two. It cannot be both. Calling her a rape victim and then treating her like a lying, cheating POS is psychotic.

If he is going to treat her like a lying, cheating POS, he had better be prepared to make a strong case for it. It would be one thing if his story had been "She says she doesn't remember any of it, but the three of my friends saw her standing up, French-kissing the dude, and laughing the entire time. I want to fix this, but I don't know where to even start." But he didn't do that. The way he tells it, he basically accepted the blackout as a given, but then punished her as if she had been a willing, active participant, based entirely on his own squick factor.
119
@60: 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.

Wrong.

With this kind of sexual assault, the real trauma begins with the way the victim feels afterward. How people respond, what they say, how many people know, how they look at you, touch you, treat you... all of this has a HUGE impact on how much the victim suffers and how long it takes to recover. By making it clear to her that he thought she was so dirty and shameful that she did not even deserve to be in the same apartment as him, this guy has done far more damage than the first one. Much of her emotional trauma could have been prevented. She will not remember the creep in the washroom (she's already forgotten), but she will always remember the way the man she loved and trusted treated her. What he did was an act of psychological violence.
120
@55: I find "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." to be a VERY dangerous way to put it. It's the kind of line that rapists use when they get girls drunk and then rape them when they're too trashed to say no. It implies that it's only rape if she was actually unconscious. Wait, no it doesn't. There's no 'imply' about it. It SAYS that it's either 'passed out' or 'not rape'.

She THREW UP. You cannot be drunk enough to throw up and yet consent to sex. The only way this could be anything but rape is if the guy was just as drunk, but then he probably wouldn't be helping her, would he? He'd be outside throwing up in the garden, 'cause he stumbled to the toilet but it was in use.

I'm not a proponent of the 'all drunk sex is rape' line either, but 'passed out' is a much worse line.

If the girl is very drunk (DEFINITELY if she's drunk enough to throw up), she cannot consent to sex. It doesn't take her passing out to make it so. If a girl is just a bit drunk, tread VERY CAREFULLY because you're toeing the rape line.
121
@117 hahaha! missed that. But it didn't seem like she was that drunk when the shithead left. I guess that could've been an understatement from the shithead.
122
I got about 50 comments in and then my brain cut its way out of my skull and ran for cover, so i apologize if someone above me (probably the person above me, knowing my luck) has already raised this point.

To wit: I want to know why he left the party early.

Were they fighting? Was she drinking so much because she was upset about a fight? Did he leave because HE was so drunk he was afraid of vomiting and blacking out?

Inquiring minds, and all that.
123
What a fucking asshole--that happened to me and it literally took a year to admit that it was rape. Fuck him. What a self centered ignorant asshole.
124
Yes, he's young, naive, stupid and an asshole. He's also fumbling around trying figure what to do and what to feel. Dan should have made better use of this teaching moment. He may also be wracked by guilt over what happened to his girlfriend, I know I would be. None of this would have happened if he had stayed at the party. Never ever leave your girlfriend alone at a party. There are just too predators and assholes out there perfectly willing to create or take advantage of any opportunity.
125
The fact that he left his girlfriend alone at a party where she proceeded to get raped and isn't WRACKED with guilt is telling.

The sad part is, I've seen it happen before.
126
As I was reading that letter, I thought, "Here comes your new asshole, torn courtesy of Dan Savage!"

Great response. I hope one of them writes back to you - either him recognizing the error of his ways, or her, letting you (and all of us) know that she's ok.
127
TLTTOACA, I'm going to give you benefit of the doubt that you want what is best for your girlfriend.

The majority of responses are particularly offended by your actions, and I have to agree your actions are very hurtful to someone you love who has been through an ordeal. However, as some have identified, that might be due to your upbringing and your surroundings. That's a reason, TLTTOACA, but not an excuse.

As Dan identified, you have further victimized your girlfriend by actions that suggest you are blaming her. You seem unsure whether or not she deserves blame. You're hurt by what happened, and I understand those feelings. I just wonder if you realized how much you have been adding to her pain before reading all of these responses.

I empathize with your confusion. I believe you really want what is best for your girlfriend. The truth is that you will never know what really happened that night. I think the question you should be asking yourself is how what happened that night changes how you feel about her. Knowing you'll never know the truth of what happened that night, TLTTOACA, do you love her enough to accept she survived a horrible ordeal and act accordingly with the love and support she needs?

You will never fully know what happened that night, but what you are doing right now is victimizing your girlfriend. You are betraying her in her time of need because you feel betrayed. I don't know what happened that night, so I don't know if your feelings are justified. However, her feelings of betrayal are certainly justified. No matter what happened that night, your actions suggest she betrayed you, TLTTOACA. As the evidence suggests she was assaulted, your betrayal is far worse because she was not guilty.

TLTTOACA, let me tell you my story to help you understand my position. I'm a 31-year-old single, straight male. Ten years ago, a dated a girl for a month before we slept together. A few days later she missed our next date and wouldn't respond to phone calls or email for a week. I finally saw her on campus and she told me she had been sexually assaulted by a ex-boyfriend who drove up to see her. She refused to go to police or a counselor because her ex was from a wealthy family and she feared he would point out she received mental health assistance for depression.

I supported her from the moment she told me because I loved her and cared about her. I haven't shared all of the details that I can recall about the story, but there seemed to be some inconsistencies, and she had a knack for telling stories. I asked a couple of questions to make sure I understood, but I felt guilty making her retell her trauma, so I stopped asking, and just offered to listen.

As the next few days passed, I spent a lot of time thinking about it while demonstrating with actions that I believed her and trusted her. I trusted her knowing that she could be lying, even though I didn't fully believe her story. I had doubts, but I trusted her. I knew that something horrible happened that week, and no matter what it was, she needed me. I reasoned that even if for some strange reason, she was lying about such a horrible event, she had really good reasons for withholding the truth. It was clear to me that she needed love and support, which is exactly what she got.

We dated for a year, and our trust grew very strong until geography strained our relationship to the breaking point. She was trustworthy throughout our relationship, and I was happy many times for trusting her even when I wasn't sure if I knew the "truth."

TLTTOACA, clearly, whatever happened to your girlfriend that night, she needs love and support now. You aren't going to know the "truth" of what happened that night. So, what are you going to do about it? The information you presented suggests overwhelming evidence that she survived assault. Are you going to betray her because there's some remote possibility she might be lying or not telling the whole truth? Even if the events of that night were different, she's now dealing with the horrible ordeal of your relationship problems and your friends all talking about what happened with her that night. That's traumatic enough especially as a direct result of what happened that night.

So if you're "Too Lost" and need direction, then I'll point out the two directions that I see for you. Either 1) you choose to trust her, which means you apologize, let her back in the house, and work on helping her through this ordeal including the damage to your relationship. Or, 2) you choose not to trust her. You apologize for not being willing to deal with her and this situation, and you do whatever is best for you. It's better for both you to give up now if you can't trust her regardless of whether you have the full "truth," as if you ever know the full truth in any situation.

She needs a friend right now, and you're acting like her enemy. If you really care about her, and love her as a human being, then you ought to be doing more to help her. Set aside your misplaced feelings of betrayal to act like a FRIEND should act. If you start to behave like a friend should throughout this situation, then you might have a chance to be the boyfriend we all want her to have. But right now, you aren't even acting like her friend.

Here's my final thought, TLTTOACA.

Quit worrying about yourself, and start being the friend she needs.
128
Seriously, guys, 23 isn't even that young. Granted, I just turned 26 last month, so I might feel differently a few years down the line, but using age as a defense for this guy's behavior is, frankly, asinine.
129
Okay, CLOACA, or whatever the hell you're calling yourself. Here's an easy way to think about what you should be doing in this situation.

Say this was you. You drank a few too many. Some guy, all friendly and helpful, was helping you throw up in the bathroom, and then, with you not quite understanding what was happening soon enough to stop him, sodomized you. You went home, confused and scared, told your girlfriend, and she threw you out of the house and said she didn't want to touch you anymore.

How do you think you would feel?

You are doing her serious, serious damage right now. Having been assaulted myself, having seen far too many friends suffer the aftermath of assault, what I can tell you the person needs after an assault is emotional support. You are falling down on the job. You are acting like a toddler whose favorite stuffed animal got wrinkled in the wash. You are not acting like a decent adult human being acts with someone he purportedly loves.

Right now, I am fighting every impulse I have that screams at me to swear curses at you. You call her and fucking apologize on your goddamned knees, and then you take care of her until she accepts that you love her. Or you deserve whatever you get.
130
...I am quite literally shaking with fury...
131
He left his girlfriend at a party where people were drinking to excess? It's totally his fault that she got raped, and he should commit suicide to show her how sorry he is and to prove once and for all that he won't act like a total fucking asshole ever again.
132
I don't understand so many commenters' insistence that one should never leave a party without his or her partner. Really? Is that a thing? Maybe it's because I party with a bunch of grad school lesbians whom I trust, but that rule seems really demeaning and paternalistic. Some people work in the mornings. Some people like parties more than their partner. Some people go to parties alone without their partner!

The letter writer is a dick for victim blaming his girlfriend, but his leaving the party early is immaterial. The rapist is responsible for what happened at the party.
133
Oh, and to those who don't understand why so many of us are quite certain this scenario spells R A P E - this whole "helpful guy assisting you to throw up after an unattended drink" is a notorious predator tactic.
134
i have had this situation happen to me several times, although in different settings. i have been roofied, taken out by the helpful stranger, raped & left for dead in an alley. i've had a very, very close friend have sex with me while i was passed out. Etc.
So, speaking from expeience, i will (unbelievably to me) offer a defense for the writer of the letter. When trauma occurs, everyone in your life that you are closely connected to is affected. What i got from his letter was that he has an intuition as to the truth of the matter, but it is traumatic for him as well. It seems like he is fishing for it to be infidelity, because the prospect of the woman that he loves being violated in that way is incredibly traumatic. And in my experience, it always is for the SO. It is a valid feeling not intended to devalue her trauma. He is allowed to feel. He is allowed to question whether or not his girlfriend got drunk & cheated on him.
What i noted particularly, was that he did not write in claiming that his girlfriend got drunk & cheated. He included enough indicators to imply that the circumstances were anything but a simple one night stand ( i mean, really, what person gets so drunk that they are hurling in a toilet, & then wants to fuck right after? ). It sounds like he is as confused as she is. He's hurt. Not because she is his "property", but because the intimate connection & bond that they shared has been violated- consensually or not.
Never once did he say that he kicked her out of her house. He said that she was staying with a friend. Obviously, if she chose to seek comfort with a friend, it was because he was not offering her the nurturance & compassion that she needs. That does not mean that he doesn't love her. It means that he has some serious lessons to learn. The fact that he would write such a confused letter, that he would write at all, shows that he acknowledges that he doesn't know what the hell is going on. He should be taken to task for his selfish behavior, but in a way that shows him a more compassionate & loving path. Most people go on the defensive & turn away when they are torn down.
@104 "when you get drunk, your ability to reason and your sense of what's maybe not such a good idea kind of goes out the fucking window." Why does that only apply to intoxicated women? What about the males who get too drunk to use common sense, in this respect? i don't mean fucking a girl who just got done puking, but the logic goes that if a girl is too drunk to consent, it's rape. If a man is equally drunk, & as incapable of reason, how does that make him a rapist? All that says to me is that we get to continue to be victims, & that we hold ourselves to a different standard than men. I.e. Men have to be more sexually responsible than we do when drunk. i won't play the "weaker sex" card for anything.
135
@127...Excellent. Sage, compassionate & experienced advice. Truly admirable.
136
@134: You write that he didn't say he kicked her out. Does this bit change your assessment (of the whole situation)?
"I decided that we need some time apart, so she's staying with a friend down the street. ...
She desperately wants to come home, but I don't know if I can handle it."

I just think you might have missed it, and you sound like you have more perspective on this than just about anyone so far, so I'm interested to hear how that changes things.
137
@132 yes it is a thing. It is called the buddy system. You and your buddy keep each other out of harms way. Especially when going to a strange place or being with a strange people.
138
"If the girl is very drunk (DEFINITELY if she's drunk enough to throw up), she cannot consent to sex. It doesn't take her passing out to make it so. "

Not sure I would agree with throwing up being the bright line.

The reason is that I have gotten drunk enough to throw up more than once where I had sufficient reasoning faculties left to discuss the stupidity of my actions. ("I guess four beers in two hours is a bad idea when you are dehydrated and hungry.") Also, one can be drunk enough to throw up, subsequently climb in a car, and still be held responsible for drunk driving. You are presumed to have consented to get behind the wheel; claiming impaired decision-making will not excuse you. Drunkenness should not mitigate one's agency and responsibility during sex more than it does during driving. If you possess sufficient motor control and initiative to participate actively in sex (as opposed to being only able to protest feebly or not at all while something is done to you), then it is drunk sex, not rape.
139
@132 - At a party with mostly friends, the "never leave a party without your partner" rule is not necessary. But mostly strangers? I wouldn't say never, but there'd have to be a decently good reason to leave without your partner. I didn't really take exception to that part of the story here because he doesn't specify what kind of party it was...
140
I wouldn't normally write... but I'm a female in the Army.

You know what scares me the most? Is that I'll be assaulted one day and my command, my squad, and my friends will turn on me just like this douche bag did to his girlfriend. That the people I trust and rely on will turn their back on me when I need them the most. There is nothing that's quite as terrifying as that. There are an awful number of people out there whose first response is to blame the victim instead of helping the victim.

Whoever his girlfriend is, I hope more than anything that she leaves this douche and finds someone who'll stand up for her, someone who will ALWAYS have her back, instead of someone who'll blame her and make her crisis and her victimization about him. If he's going to turn on her in her hour of need, what will he do in the future?

The world makes me want to cry sometimes. All I can do is hope things are better someday.

141
I've read a lot of Letter of the Day comment threads. Slog commenters seem to be, on the whole, a very free-minded and independent-thinking crowd.

The very fact that, pretty much without exception, all the comments have agreed with Dan's advice, is very telling.

I have no advice to add, it has already been said a hundred times over.

Dude, you're the one with the deep seated issue you need to work out. Get over it, apologize, and let her come home.

That is, if she'll have you. Certainly, you're no boyfriend I'd put up with.
142
It warms the cockles of my heart to see so many people identifying and calling out bullshit on victim-blaming. I suppose I should expect nothing less than that from readers of SLOG and of Dan's, but I will often not read comment threads on articles having to do with rape ("grey" or otherwise) because I've shared my story of being raped on the internet and was ripped a new one for everything from not saying "no", to not reporting it, to just about everything you can think would be said to make a rape the victim's fault. You guys calmed my triggered nerves, and I have to say thanks.

When I told my boyfriend about having been raped (about 10 months after it had happened), his reaction was to make it all about him too; "I feel guilty," he said, "Cuz if I hadn't broken up with you, that wouldn't have happened." Granted, he wasn't an asshole in the way he made it about him, but this is a 30+ year old man, who didn't know how not to make my rape by someone else about him. I think he felt just as violated, because of how much he loves me, and had a hard time seeing it from my perspective or understanding that it wasn't his actions (wanting a relationship "break"), but rather the actions of the rapist (deciding that my consent didn't matter to his penis), that lead to me being assaulted. Anyway, I think Too Lost is going through something similar, emotionally, because he can't understand what it feels like to be her.

Either that or he's busted up and in denial because she left his ass after he reacted so badly to her recounting the events of the night to the best of her ability. Her near-catatonic state might be because she's so fucking pissed at him for claiming that she cheated on him by being raped. I almost hope it's that.
143
@138

You're wrong. I understand you want to make a point about personal responsibility, but you're wrong as a matter of law. Don't know Washington's criminal laws, but here in California:
Penal Code 261. (a) Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person not the spouse of the perpetrator, under any of the following circumstances:
...
(3) Where a person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused.

Most states have similar laws.

In other words, it's rape if she's drunk and he's sober enough to know that she's drunk. It isn't rape if they're both too far gone to know what's going on, or if they're both sober enough to know what's going on.

If you want to dispute my interpretation of the law, go right ahead, but I strongly suggest you not attempt to put your "personal responsibility" theory into practice. Unless you want to spend several years in jail.

(BTW: The "not a spouse" clause is a legal historical artifact. Spousal rape is defined in Penal Code 262.)
144
re 138: I hope it was obvious that getting someone drunk counts as a form of coercion, and therefore makes it rape, every bit as much as slipping a drug, restraining, beating, frightening, etc.

The argument comparing it to drunk driving only applies to voluntary drunkenness. You don't get to deliberately do something that is well known to impair judgement, make a bad decision while impaired, and then clamor for a free pass because your judgement was impaired.
145
@136: As weird as it is, i think that what he writes about not being able to see her or touch her without having this creep come to mind, says alot about where he is at. Everyone seems to be unwilling to acknowledge him as a person who loves this woman. From everything that i have experienced & everything that i have researched on the experiences of survivors of rape & their partners, this is not out of the ordinary. Sad, but true. i've counseled rape victims AND their partners. This is an issue. People have the right to point to his behavior as being selfish & calloused. They are right. But that IS how alot of partners feel after something like this. And it takes alot of work to get through it. When the bond of love & intimacy is shattered so painfully, so invasively, everyone has the right to feel & to question.
Having been through this, i know that doubt is always present. In particular, when the experience is not recalled with clarity. It really is easier to believe that your partner cheated. Alot less painful.
But, to answer your question, the fact that he decided that they needed time apart indicates to me that he is conscious of the fact that he is in turmoil & does not want to hurt her further. i see that he is being honest about how he is feeling. And even though we, from the outside, feel that we have the liberty to judge how he feels, i still respect the fact that he is being honest. And obviously he is being so with her. i could wish that he felt differently, acted differently, but he's human. And he's processing what, on the surface, may appear to be an ambiguous situation. At least for those that are living with it.
i think that the more honorable thing would have been for him to go elsewhere. But here is why i think that didn't happen. That would have left her alone in her place. NOT safe. She went to be with a friend. i see that there is alot of emphasis on HIS feelings, rather than hers. But she didn't write the letter, he did. He was the one seeking advice about what HE should do. She was the one who was victimized, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't affected or that he isn't allowed ambiguity or emotion. In fact, i would have been glad that he wrote....if he had gotten some actual advice instead of an off the cuff emotional spanking.
146
People are all so quick to judge, without knowing anything but 2nd hand information from an anonymous e-mail from the guy who's a total dick. Anything could have and probably did happen, but I think it's important for her to decide what the next step is. How horrible would it be for her friends to push a rape charge on an "innocent" (clearly taking advantage of a drunk guy doesn't earn him a medal) man and then she go along with it because she feels guilty and wants her boyfriend back? Quit being such insensitive pricks and give some real advise, not just what you'd do in the worst possible scenario. Plus, this topic should be way more focused on how fucking stupid this guy is, and not what this possible victim needs to do. The way he's treated this lady is totally unfair, and from the sound of it she doesn't have a strong history of this behavior. At some point she needs to address why she got blackout drunk, but that's not for TLTTOACA to decide.
147
"It isn't rape if they're both too far gone to know what's going on, or if they're both sober enough to know what's going on."

My point was originally that puking may still have been sober enough to know what's going on. Also, does making bad decisions under the influence count as being prevented from resisting? I agree, certainly not something I would ever want to get close to testing. Aside from my wife getting upset with me for finding such a person, sex with a sloppy drunk sounds pretty unsavory. I'll take your word for it that it poses a huge after-the-fact risk.

re: the "not a spouse" thing being an artifact, that's a relief. As laws go, that was creepy.
148
This man is a colossal cock.
149
Wow, this is completely fucked up.

Dude, your girlfriend's problem isn't alcoholism or that she's a cheater. The reason that it seems so out of character for her to have sex on the bathroom floor at a party is that SHE WAS RAPED. This isn't some stupid relationship drama between college students, it's a serious crime that was committed against your girlfriend.

You need to get her back home ASAP and contact a rape crisis center so that she can get some counseling from a professional who can help her through this extremely different time. Because don't even think that a little hand-holding from you is going to do the trick. You've doubted and betrayed her, and abandoned her in her time of need, and "working on" your relationship is not anything close to your first priority right now. So don't fucking call her up and tell her that you've realized she was raped, so now you're super sorry and doesn't she also know it was rape by now? or some stupid fucking shit like that.
150
Spot on, Dan. I haven't read the comments, but I'm sure they give the guy his due flaying. For me, the first red flag was, "Everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news." HE SHARED THIS "NEWS" WITH EVERYONE HE KNOWS? What a douche. This is like a lesson in how NOT to treat a rape victim. This IS an anomaly, right? People don't really treat women this way, do they?
151
Bring her back in. You don't need to "fix" anything. Just love and listen. Take it slow; be patient. Try to hold judgment. Don't analyze the past. You both should stay away from alcohol for a little while. You are in shock, just like she is. I went through a similar situation. You both will heal, and you will be stronger afterward.
152
For the girlfriend:

Sweetheart...do whatever you need to do. Rape crisis center is a great place for you to go. YOU get to decide about the boyfriend. Everyone, including the SLOG posters, are freaked and you need and deserve a voice of reason. Get it for yourself, ignore us assholes online that have easy answers and figure out what you need to do for you.

I am not going to tell you or your boyfriend what to do outside of this: Love yourself enough to be able to ask for help. It seems we all need it in this case. Blame is not the issue here anymore...just be able to love and trust again and the crisis center is a safe place to find the place you need to be able to do that.

Love and blessings to you.
153
I'm with #132. the only thing I don't fault this guy for is leaving the party. People go to parties without their gf/bf all the time. There is nothing in the letter that indicates the woman was at a party full of strangers - only that the apparent rapist was a stranger to her. It's fair to assume she knew people there.

OTOH, as someone else said, the fact that the letter writer isn't wracked by guilt that something so horrible happened after he left is disturbing. I would be completely horrified if my gf was attacked after I'd left her at a party, even though there is no reason that she couldn't stay at a party without me.

I'm with everyone else, though: TLTTOCA is a douche extraordinaire.
154
Thank you for this, Dan.
155
I made word clouds of the letter. (Word clouds are arrangements of words in which the most common words appear larger.)

In this one, common words removed:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2227095/…

This one has all the words. You can clearly see the "I" jump out at you.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2227096/…
156
Are the people blaming him for leaving the party trying to be ironic?

Replace "he shouldn't have left the party" with "she shouldn't have gotten blackout drunk" and it would be slightly less stupid.
157
Sorry guys, but I can certainly see the insecurity that this guy is explaining. What if she did consent and is lying about being blacked-out? Hate to just give a free-pass to a cheater. There is enough room for questions and pretending that there isn't is fucking ignorant.
158
Everybody has said this already, but I have to say this. Reading this letter made me nauseous and I was hoping Dan would rip him a new one. Damn!!
159
Of course, I'm not saying that they guy was wrong to fail to move out himself because there is simply a gray-area between "rape" and "cheating" as the various possibilities. If she says "rape" that should be enough for him to move out while he deals with whatever (reasonable and unreasonable) questions that he might have.

Likely rape, but the Peanut Gallery in here needs to calm down a hair and recognize that it isn't nearly as black-and-white as Dan or anybody on here is portraying.
160
Sorry if I'm repeating what anyone else has said, but it's late and there are too many comments for me to read through.

Some people have remarked on this statement: "Everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news."

It doesn't necessarily mean all her friends are assholes too. If someone told me his girlfriend got drunk at a party and fucked another guy, that would probably be my reaction too - oh, you poor thing! I can't believe she'd do that! If he's the one who's been telling everyone about the night in question, this is probably the story they've been getting. And if SHE thinks she got drunk and cheated instead of realizing she was raped (or at the very least taken serious advantage of), or if she is too shell-shocked or ashamed to tell her friends what really happened, she isn't going to have very many friends on her side.

Guys like the one who "helped her out" at the party don't do this by accident or by mistake. He's probably done it before, he'll probably do it again, and hopefully word will get out. If this isn't the backward type of place some people have speculated, she may still end up getting the support she needs. Maybe TLTTOACA will wake the fuck up and set the record straight himself, with apologies. Or maybe the truth will come out anyway, and TLTTOACA will get his ass kicked like he deserves.
161
@157 ~ Look at the scenario. He gathered, from 3rd parties, that she was shit faced, in the bathroom puking. He said that "there was no impression that it was non-consensual". That could mean alot of things. What it says to me in this situation was that she was wasted on the bathroom floor & the man who had been helping her decided to fuck her. How would you feel about that situation if it was your girlfriend? And i, for one, know that if i am drunk to the vomitous degree, i am also spinning, nauseous, & pretty incapacitated. From the toilet to the floor. The fact that he had sex with her right there tells me that she was probably too sick to leave the room.
He isn't basing the majority of his information on his girlfriend's brownout, he's basing it on stories from people who were there. Which makes me wonder what the fuck kind of people would witness this & do nothing, but happily gossip about it the next day?
162
@129 - I think I might be the only one who got the cloaca reference. You're either a med student or a word geek. Either way it made me chuckle. And a fairly accurate description of the LW, although I suspect it'll come as a great shock to him that he is one. Hopefully he'll have the wherewithall to get his head around the ways he's allowed his own stuff to get in the way of supporting her and make good on his great love for her.
163
@129 - I think I might be the only one who got the cloaca reference. You're either a med student or a word geek. Either way it made me chuckle. And a fairly accurate description of the LW, although I suspect it'll come as a great shock to him that he is one. Hopefully he'll have the wherewithall to get his head around the ways he's allowed his own stuff to get in the way of supporting her and make good on his great love for her.
164
@161 - I AM thinking about this scenario from the perspective "what if this had been my girlfriend?" and not from a clinical place that is emotionally far removed and holier-than-thou, as virtually all of the comments thus far have been. That's why I understand that there are emotional questions that need to be addressed that this guy is legitimately asking himself, and it's wrong to just say "get over your skepticism, dude!"

Additionally, if he is getting his information from 3rd party sources who were present at the party and they chose not to intervene gives teeth to the idea that while she might have been tossed, she wasn't so tossed that she was completely incapacitated and perhaps she did "consent" (i.e. wasn't knocked out, appeared to have a degree of capacity, etc...)

All I'm saying is that there is wiggle-room here for the guy and pretending that there isn't ignores the emotional reality on the ground.
165
EH ya.

Planet 23-year-old-head up your ass inhabitant:
no female in her right mind would fuck a complete stranger on the bathroom floor after puking unless she really, really, was out of it. So it was rape. No and, ifs or buts about it. That is rape.

Should she have gotten that drunk? No. getting that drunk could be problematic, if you make it a habit and if you are surrounded by assholes-yourself included.

Should she be raped, abused for getting drunk? AND kicked out because she "hurt your feelings for getting herself raped ? " EH - how dumb can you get?

Get her ass to a doctor and the police. Get your ass to the psychiatrist because you need to get a couple of really really strange things and priorities straight in your head.

No cloaca references here. I hate to see my pretty female genitals being compared to that dark and murky asshole.

166
@165 - Sorry, but I refuse to believe your "exceptionalism" argument. Some people drink, have their inhibitions decreased significantly, and then fuck. That can happen regardless of gender.
167
Oh yeah.. i forgot.

Rereading Dan's comment I just have to say the following-

Damn Dan, I like you even though you are a complete stranger. You call them as you see them, and are right on target. I love what you write.

I will let you rape me anytime, while I am passed out on the bathroom floor.

I just thought I would share that in advance, before I get drunk, that way no one clan claim that I did not give consent , right?
I am sure that is what that poor girl did. She told that guy: "if I pass out it is ok to fuck me"

Right.

Now doesn't this sound kinda weird to you, 23 year old? Makes about as much sense as thinking your girl felt it was ok to do this to her.
168
@164 : i support the first paragraph of your comment. It's painful to say it, but that is the reality of being connected to another person who feels & thinks, as do i.

@2nd paragraph... i don't agree. Have you ever been at a party & walked into the bathroom, only to turn around & leave because the 2 seconds that you witnessed were enough to let you know it was occupied? i think that enough people saw aspects of what was going on, & jumped to conclusions. i see so many comments on Stranger posts that leave out the reality of our humanity. Things have to be black or white, when we all know that life never is.
i don't think that there is alot of wiggle room for what actually happened. But from her boyfriends perspective, i think that the situation allows for some. i mean, to all the other hetero girls out there, how many of you would have doubts about your boyfriends fidelity if he got blacked out drunk & it got back to you that he was sick in the bathroom with some bimbo & ended up fucking her?
Of course, none of this allows for the fact that a man forcefully entering a woman is quite a different dynamic from a man too drunk to get it up. We are a separate species with separate expressions of our dysfunctions & our sexualities.
169
@168 - agreed, generally. It is entirely possible, entirely probable, that this was rape, plain and simple. But I don't think it's possible to completely eliminate the potential that this was not.
170
23 is not that young. If he's old enough to move out of his folks place and live with his girlfriend, then he's declared himself a grown-up and should bloody act like one. Oh my sons are 20 and 22 and if either of them acted like this guy did after a girlfriend went through that *I* would be the one tearing him a new asshole. And I'd then spend the next 20 years berating myself for raising such a cowardly, self-obsessed, lilly-livered cad.
171
@169 ~ i can give you MANY instances where that "potential was completely eliminated". Live experiences...& then you can pass your objective perspective as to whether or not it was rape. Personally, i call some of them soft rape's. Those are by friends. The stranger's....the violent one's, those are...indescribable.
So, please take your pick.
And pass your judgement.
My intention was to defend a guy who was fucked up after his girlfriends rape. It was never to say that she was not.
172
Wow - notice he has no words for emotions? He never says how he FEELS. Look at the last paragraph:

"I think I want to fix this, but when she insists that it was a completely random accident that will never happen again how do I even start? If there's no underlying problem then what do we work on?"

The poor fellow is looking for a mechanical solution to an emotional disaster. He's probably intellectually bright but an emotional illiterate. He totally reminds me of my first boyfriend (dead now, but not forgotten).

There must be some clinical definition for it, but basically it's a condition where a person is so poorly equipped to handle emotions that he tries to construct a world in which emotions are unimportant or don't exist. He tries to rationalize the 'disturbances' he experiences as failures beyond himself - other people are flawed, or they behave badly. Things go wrong and need to be fixed.

TLTTOACA desperately needs help. He needs to learn that living means feeling hurt, angry, jealous, afraid, ashamed (and even 'wonderfully' in love as opposed to 'disgustingly' in love) and he needs to learn what grown-ups do when they feel things. He needs to learn how grown-ups respond to the feelings of others. For example, when people are hurt they need understanding, support, and patience.

I'm not enraged by this guy. I see someone out of his depth with nothing to hold onto. Until he gets some good therapy, he's damaged goods - girlfriend would be advised to stay far away.
173
@171 - I'm not the one passing judgment. I'm specifically saying that we should NOT be passing judgment here. Where the "potential was completely eliminated" then judgment may be passed, but where his questions about the course of events are derived from skepticism about the legitimacy of a rape claim as a result of things maybe not adding up, etc..., then we should avoid just jumping to conclusions and saying that this guy is a total dick - no ifs, ands, or buts.

That said, I agree - if she says that she was raped and the circumstances indicate that she was (which this case does suggest that), she is almost certainly telling the truth and this guy needs to work through his problems in a way that limits further emotional/psychological harm to his girlfriend (i.e. by moving out if he really feels the need, and not by forcing her to move out).

That said - we hardly have a complete picture of what's going on and it behooves us to take a step back and not just lash out with our guts. The emotional reality of this situation is probably much more complex than the vast majority of the commentators in this thread seem to appreciate.
174
I understand why everyone is tearing the LW a new asshole, but I think, based on his letter, that part of what is going on is that his girlfriend is not calling what happened to her rape. He says, "She gave no impression that it wasn't consensual, but I can't help but wonder if it borders on rape."

His instinct is right, but his confusion (treating what happened as consensual sex rather than probable rape) could result, in part, from his girlfriend blaming herself.

I wonder, as others have, if she was drugged. But this young, sexually inexperienced woman will not be thinking clearly and may not think of that possibility. Instead, she will be further traumatized by others knowing about what happened ("Everyone I know has been completely blindsided by the news"), especially if others are blaming her. If she doesn't remember clearly what happened, it could become easier for her to blame herself (which then would make it easier for the LW to blame her).

This is not to excuse the LW, who I hope will trust his instinct that his girlfriend was raped, even if she herself is not calling it rape. LW, be very kind and gentle to your girlfriend. She needs you to be strong; she needs you to take her to a rape crisis counseling center; she needs to have unwavering support and love as she deals with this traumatic event. You too are experiencing something traumatic, but right now, her needs trump yours.

Trust your instinct. Get her help. Be gentle.
175
Okay, I have to ask, since he and the girlfriend (as well as 98% of the posters here) believe this to be rape, why have they not reported this to the authorities? Come on. Rape is rape. The letter writer needs to push this to the next level and report this guy.

Unless the girlfriend doesn't want to push it that far (report the guy to the authorities) because it was consensual, then we've been jumping all over the wrong party.
176
#65. Yup. Same thought.

Since everyone else is being useless to the letterwriter, allow me to play the smart uncle:

Dude, you and the gal need to get tested for STDs. Step one.

Step two: report a rape to the cops.

Step three: you need to spend some serious time thinking about how you *really* view your girlfriend. Did she get raped (likely) or is she bullshitting you (it happens, sadly)?

Interesting how so many people accuse the letterwriter of idiocy and callowness, which is why he does not see this for the tragedy it is. And maybe they are right.

My contrary thought was his idiocy and callowness may be keeping him from seeing his girlfriend is full of shit. Yes, folks, full. of. shit. Consider it.

Women who have sex and then regret it do *sometimes* say unbelievably dumb and offensive shit--"I was so drunk, I don't remember it!" or "I didn't want to, but..."--to duck their feelings about the regretted sex, avoid responsibility, and to cover their tracks with a primary relationship partner.

/cue hysterical cries of WOMEN DON"T LIE ABOUT RAPE!

Yes, folks, some do lie.

I fear it is a real occurrence that some gals, whose boyfriends think they are monogamous, tell vicious lies as coolly as Ted Bundy when they fear getting caught out. Remember that gal who cried "gang rape!" in New York a while back when she feared discovery by her oh-so-sympathetic boyfriend. It was the video that saved the guys (including her clueless boyfriend) from her predatory, sociopathic, scheming ways.

Now, some of you slogophiles are already banging out replies to me as the red mist still covers your eyes. But for those still reading, realize that I am not saying this happened here. But it could be the case. And the boyfriend may be struggling not with his lack of empathy, but with his own spider sense telling him "she is bullshitting me."

The gal's story may be pretty weak once you hear it in person, and his feelings for her may be clouding his good sense which tells him she could be full of crap.

Letterwriter, if my dear loved one came home with this story, my response would be shock, rage, empathy and sincere care. But soon afterwards--as in within an hour of the story--I would politely insist upon (1) going to the police IMMEDIATELY to start a rape investigation, (2) demanding THAT NIGHT that known attendees provide all cellphone images for the police investigation, and (3) asking for affidavits from known attendees as to who was where when and who they knew was at the bar. Etc.

If she is reluctant to criminalize the matter, and just wants to let it go, yeah, that could be a victim not wanting the attention. But it could also be her story is shit. You need to think on that.

If your real conflict here is not the rape, but whether you believe her generally about her honest and fidelity, you need to leave her. Maybe that is because you are fucked up and callow. Maybe that is because you perceive, correctly or not, she is untrustworthy. But yeah, sounds like there is something wrong here, with you or her.

But Dan Savage and rest of these folks have no clue which side is not working properly here, you or her. Chances are, though, it may be you. It might not be, though. Figure it out.
177
It's interesting that he gets so furious at his girlfriend but can only call the rapist "a creep." Where's all the bile where it SHOULD be directed? Because it was HIS girlfriend more than his GIRLFRIEND.

Sad that violation of a possession is his first thought.
178
177: way to reinvent the letter, and create something new.

"furious?" Where did he use the word furious? Oh, he didn't. You made that shit up.

Hey, how about we create other new, useful facts, like it was Al Gore who was at the party?
179
"everyone I know has been completely blindsided."?!? WTF?!?! This asshole went and told everyone he knows within the few days that this has happened?? Even if this girl hadn't been blackout drunk, if this had been consensual sex and this guy needed the advice of friends in order to wrap his mind around it - it would have been reasonable to consult one friend. But consulting "everyone he knows" goes beyond just a violation of her trust and privacy. It seems like a desperate attempt for him to seek validation that he is, in fact, the victim here. This guy must have friends as shitty as he is if not one of them told him what a piece of shit he was.
180
LW, you "can't help but wonder if it borders on rape." I'm going to presume this is your idea and your idea first and only, since you say "she gave no impression that it wasn't consensual")?

So if you heard her account and came to this conclusion independently of her influences, why aren't you helping her at all? Why are you choosing to only affirm her confusion and guilt?

What you should have done was comfort your girlfriend, get her medical help, maybe a rape kit if she wants, and get that guy's ID to keep tabs on him in case you need to press charges, or at the very least, carefully quarantine his ass as an unethical misogynist douche.

Like others, I think it's horrifyingly telling that you wrote "I don't know if I can look at her or touch her without thinking about that creep." If you feel that way, how do you imagine she might feel?

The possibility that she might have lied to you, might have made this up, does not, BY A LONG SHOT, outweigh the consequences of the equal possibility that she told the truth. If I were you, I'd rather be made a fool by one cheating girlfriend than to wound a loving one this deeply. Over and over. Not a doubt in my mind.

I think you made a huge mistake -- the kind you'll regret to your core for the rest of your life.
181
179 et al: You are assuming she did not tell people what happened. Back the fuck off on that issue, because you do not have the facts you need to blame him.

Also, everyone playing CSI here should address this interesting set of facts: " She doesn't remember it AT ALL, but after FURTHER RESEARCH a guy—a complete stranger—was helping her throw up in the bathroom and they ended up going at it right there."

Um, so some third party saw this going on and gave boyfriend a report on what (s)he saw.

So *who* exactly was watching her get fucked by a total stranger, after vomiting, and then reported it later to the gal and/or her boyfriend?

If the people watching was a crowd of cheering frat boys, who kept others out of the bathroom, that is vastly different from the witness being friends of hers who reported, "She grinned stupidly and slurringly told us to get the fuck out while she worked this guy's tool." The former, probably rape. The latter, a drunk girl engaging in sex. Blackout drinking does not equal rape, folks. Drunk people can consent.

But hey, jump all over him and get your yah-yahs off. You guys look like a fundie group getting all self-rigtheous and some doing slut-shaming of girls who like sex, in my humble opinion.
182
I could type a huge, long response to this and explain all the different ways you've all misinterpreted what I wrote. Maybe I will if she thinks it's a good idea. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. We'll never really know what happened that night, but it doesn't change how we feel about each other.

I firmly believe she had no intention of doing this. She says she may have at the time, but I didn't fall in love with the blackout drunk girl. I fell in love with the one I make dinner for, the one I cuddle on the couch with, the one I'm going to work through this with.

She is back at home, and we have an appointment with a professional counselor. If she/he recommends calling the police then we will.
183
Please don't ship her off to an AA meeting. AA is no place for a woman who has been date-raped, drunk or not.

There's a huge number of men in AA who are very, very sexually predatory towards female newcomers.

There's even a bit of AA slang for preying on female newcomers -- "the 13th Step."

184
182 ----
Thanks for the update.
We all appreciate your seeing this as an opportunity to grow. Please look at this morning's post ---- do you see all the "I" words? This isn't about you. It's about something terrible that happened to HER.

Please call the police now. Oh, and the rape crisis center. And tell your girl you love her.

Oh, and prepare yourself: your counselor is going to say the same things we've been saying.

185
Jaydog @87 that's exactly what i was thinking.
186
Just to be clear on the expectations of a man dating a woman and what he is expected to do vis-a-vis the party:

* If you stay at the party to keep an eye on her you're demeaning and paternalistic.

* If you don't stay at the party to keep an eye on her you're a wussy and not a man.

Got it. Clear as crystal.
187
@105 i see it more as protecting each other. or really even just being there for each other. if i went to a party with my boyfriend, and he wanted to bail out early and left me there when i was very drunk i would be offended. conversly, if we were at a party and he was shitfaced, i'd of course either stay with him or bring him home.
188
Depends on whether the partner, male or female was drunk or sober, no? But even that doesn't preclude the possibility of being roofied.

Count me in with thinking that the people who saw a man in a bathroom fucking a vomiting girl and did nothing about it are faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more slimy than the letter writer.
189
@186: Yeah, it's pretty crazy that different people could have differing views on something! So ... hypocritical?

I mean, yeah, argue each on their merits/lack thereof, but come on. Receiving differing advice is the advised's problem, not the advisers.

Overall, I'd say it's a bad idea to leave your SO (man or woman) at a party IF (1) there are lots of strangers, lots of drinking, and you're the one who wants to go.

So under particular circumstances, I do think it's important to be aware and keep an eye on your SO. If you don't *know* -- without a shadow of a doubt -- another friend will take care of them in case he/she starts drinking too much, you do have a duty to stay, regardless of your personal desire to go home, etc.

And yes, this is coming from someone who called her boyfriend on worrying about her walking home alone in the evening.

Bottom line: If you both think your SO will be fine or more-than-fine alone at a party, that's not much fault to be handed out, unless both of you read the situation terribly.

Frankly, when I read the original letter, it really did not strike me that he did anything wrong. I figured she said, "I really want to stay, go on home" and that he just listened to her because neither figured anything could go badly. Something I'd probably say.
190
You go Dan!!!!!!!!!

I have nothing to say to this man, but if the girlfriend is reading:

Sweetie, you didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't your fault. Please, sweetie, get some counseling. Talk to someone who really understands. I wish I could do something more, but at least here is a mental hug in hope that you take care of yourself!!
191
182, you still sound as if you're graciously forgiving her for making a mistake, when it should be the other way round. "I didn't fall in love with the blackout drunk girl". Really? She gets drunk, you don't love her? While blackout drunk she was *raped*, and you've rescinded your love for her for the duration of that event? Oh well that's just fantastic.

If you'll "never really know" -- then you DO know. If she was too drunk to remember what happened - then she was too drunk to consent, and was RAPED, which was not her FAULT - a point you still seem to be having trouble. Not the fault of her usual sober self, and not the fault of the "drunken blackout girl" EITHER -- because they're the SAME GODDAMN GIRL. You can't try and separate her into two people, the person you claim to love and some other reprehensible person who seems to disgust you. She's a whole person, who has done nothing wrong, and needs to be TOLD that she's done nothing wrong, not to be "forgiven" or have the significance of this horrible experience erased from her life erased by someone else.

I hope to God she reads this, and gets something from it. Because by whining about how misinterpreted you've been, you don't sound like you're taking in much at all. If you're out there, girl, none of this is your fault, I wish you all the best and I hope you find people who will treat you with the sympathy you deserve.

192
@176 - You don't get to insist that your loved one file rape charges, and her refusal to do so isn't evidence that she's lying. Investigating and prosecuting a rape charge can be extremely traumatizing for victims, and to insist (even politely) that a woman do so in order to prove her fidelity is an asshole move in the extreme.
193
GO DAN! AND GO SLOG COMMENTERS!!!

Girl, you need to DTMF!
195
The difference between the classic examples the airline industry uses of the plane that crashes, and the plane in trouble that doesn't, is the role silence plays in the cockpit.

In the plane that crashes, the black box is almost exclusively silent. The crew, typically raised in countries overseas, default to authoritarian social norms. They tell ATC at JFK, "we've been up here a while," or "we're kind of low on fuel" -- or something like that -- when they should be asserting, "we have 20 [or 10 or 3] minutes of fuel left," or "our visibility is unacceptable." Then they get ignored -- because there's a lot of chatter going on on all the channels -- and they crash.

In the plane in trouble that doesn't crash, the pilot only stops to talk long enough to take a breath. The pilot talks to ATC -- a lot -- talks to the crew, talks to the passenger they're landing for or whoever is acting as his of her doctor, and talks to the other passengers.

In other words, having a big mouth is a privilege for those of us who don't have ours. If you don't like a big mouth, and the big mouth is hanging off of a billionaire, then the billionaire is imposing on you. If you don't like a big mouth, and the person is grinding and grinding in his life and still doesn't have his or hers, then ask yourself what you've done to secure what's his or hers to the big mouth. Nothing? Well then leave it, because that person is entitled to the labor to keep his plane in the air. Or show TLTTOACA you haven't got yours either, with your own big mouth (which I don't mean necessarily as bad). But don't be unrealistic about what your options really are.

TLTTOACA and his girlfriend had theirs and knew it. Now they don't know. Even TLTTOACA's girlfriend is hedging on whether or not she's been raped. Then TLTTOACA did what everyone whose plane gets in trouble should do, and he opened his big mouth.

You can't think through wisdom. Wisdom is practice, then observing the outcome of your practice, then adjusting your practice. What practice is there to get people through what TLTTOACA and his girlfriend are going through? If practice doesn't start with having a big mouth -- the struggle to build a story -- then it probably doesn't get started at all. Being as asshole is the risk we have to take to keep our planes in the air.

Maybe TLTTOACA's girlfriend can't talk to him about what's going on. But, also, maybe she won't. That doesn't make her an asshole, but TLTTOACA is entitled to that talk, and that's a circumstance in which the failure of the relationship shouldn't fall squarely on TLTTOACA's shoulders.

If this is the only bad thing TLTTOACA has done, well, then, I'd hate to see lost the opportunity to learn the lesson, only for his girlfriend to move on to some other guy who can't give her that compatibility who's only opportunity to learn the same lesson is from scratch (which seems to apply to 99% of TLTTOACA's contemporaries out there).
194
Wow, can't take time to read _all_ these comments, but have to add that Dan is my hero. I wish he had been around about 40 years ago when someone put half a sleeping pill in a beer I was drinking as a freshman in college (tasted funny but what did I know?) and then tried helplessly to protest as I was raped repeatedly. The horror has haunted me all my life, especially because the school did not believe me/thought it was my fault, my friends did not want to know and made me feel ashamed that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My thoughts are with TLTTOACA's girlfriend - find yourself a guy who cares about you. And how can "she doesn't remember it at all" become "she gave no impression that it wasn't consensual"????? What an immature moron. Is that "further research" he did questioning his buddies? If he wants to know what to do, he should get some help with his ability to love.
196
@119 - I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit, and say the "real" trauma begins with the ACTUAL trauma.

No doubt, how people react to you after the fact can compound the trauma you've been through and make it all the worse, but the bottom line is that it all comes back to the fact she was raped. No matter how much other people pile on, kicking responsibility down the line away from the rapist only minimizes the horrible thing that he did. Call me me wacky, but I really don't think its appropriate to let rapists off the hook, even a little bit.
197
People are bringing their own hangups to this, and it is hard to control personal biases when viewing a relatively blank slate of facts like the ones given here. But reading over the letter and the above follow-up from the letterwriter, I found the following revealing:

"We'll never really know what happened that night, but it doesn't change how we feel about each other."

We never really know what happened in most instances in life, but we make judgment calls based on probabilities and our sense of things. You need to here. And whether she was raped or consented, it did change things. Hence your letter.

The judgment call you face is how this should change things and to what degree. People here are basing their views on the degree of change depending on where perceived responsibility for the incident lies. If she was raped, many people are of the opinion that it is your job, letterwriter, to now to help fix things by getting all loving and supportive and therapyish. That is up to you if you want that role in life. And it is up to your girlfriend if she wants you to play that role. Good luck sorting that out.

But then you say this: "I firmly believe she had no intention of doing this. She says SHE MAY HAVE at the time, but I didn't fall in love with the blackout drunk girl."

She says *may* have?

Ahem. Well, now. You can believe whatever you want. But in exploring beliefs, let's start elsewhere and then come back to your circumstances. (Kind of like how you should consider faith in Zeus before considering your faith in God.)

Cops and prosecutors talking to people about a crime often listen to people say, "I may have intentionally done X...." Those people are typically confessing to intentionally doing X, but are only baby-stepping towards the full admission that, "Yeah, I did it. I am sorry." People confessing in baby-steps are trying it out, to see how the "halfsies" confession goes over. If the cops and prosecutors freak out at that point, and say "WHAAAAT?! You are telling me you did this!?" the confessor *thinks* he can still step back and say, "Oh, I didn't say I did do it intentionally, only maybe...and now I feel differently. I didn't." The person is simply trying out the truth, to see how it goes over.

Hence cops and prosecutors taking a confession keep a placid face when people are baby-stepping towards a confession, and they wait until the whole truth is given, which comes once the confessor feels that the truth will not be met with severe consequences. People often want to fess up to bad acts--they seek absolution. (Ask catholics about the comfort of the confessional.) That is how so many confessions to police are obtained in circumstances where you would generally not expect them.

But people concerned about significant consequences to them will engage in games of denial and blame-shifting to avoid real consequences, so they baby-step towards their absolution.

In your instance, when she told you about what happened, ask yourself: was she baby-stepping toward the truth? Did she do so knowing that you would get a report on what happened from third party witnesses who saw what happened? When you found out a little bit, did you freak out? (Sounds like it.) Are you too besotted to be skeptical of a person you love? (Happens all the time, mi amigo.)

But dude, in college I saw people have a few beers (but not enough to be blackout drunk, which is a hard state to achieve, actually), screw some dude they dug, and the next day sniffingly claim to their oh-so-understanding loved one back home that they don't remember a thing and are really upset about the whole thing. In short, the people lied, but gave enough truth to absolve themselves, at least in their minds.

I also heard plausible accounts of guys trying to screw near-passed out women, which does happen. The world is mean.

It is up to your judgment which one happened here, or at least which set of circumstances more closely fits. Then *YOU* have to decide what role *YOU* want to play here. Don't let all these harping assholes here tell you what you should be doing. It is not your holy obligation to fix a rape victim, even if your girlfriend suffered the assault. You may not be able to fix it, and putting it on you is just wrong. And it is not always the case she would want you to white-knight her like that.

Finally, if you eventually conclude that she baby-stepped towards the fact that, yeah, she willingly fucked another guy at a party and now regrets it, both you and her need to simply deal with that fact and let the chips fall where they will. Rallying around her baby-step story about being too-drunk-to-know-what-I-was-doing is a bad idea.
198
@192 - Bullshit

If you are raped and DO NOT report it you let a rapist go free. Free to do it again.

Traumatic or not, you STILL report it and prosecute. This has nothing to do with infidelity and everything to do with prosecuting a rapist.

What you're saying is the victim has the right to continue being more of a victim and not do the right thing.
199
120: "She THREW UP. You cannot be drunk enough to throw up and yet consent to sex. The only way this could be anything but rape is if the guy was just as drunk."

What a bizarre jurisprudence you suggest. If a guy boots and then has sex with a hook-up, can he consent, or is the woman/man sex partner raping him?

If regugitation is the standard for determining consent, I suspect there are a few gals on this board who unknowingly raped inebriated men if your standard is applied with gender neutrality.

And if the *guy* is equally drunk it is not rape? Since when does the inebriation of the assaulter make the difference? If a man or woman gets wasted enough, the issue of conset by the sex partner goes away, and they get a pass?
200
@tlttoaca

Glad she's back in the house and you're going to a counselor. I'd also suggest she go to a rape counselor by herself. This shouldn't be about repairing your relationship. She needs to heal. Being sexually violated is one of the worst things to happen to a person. The after affects are terrible (confusion, self-hatred, shame, guilt) and last a long long time.

I agree with a lot of the other comments in that if she's too drunk to remember the events of the night, she did not give consent. Black-out drunk consent (if she did say yes at all) is not consent.

Also, in response to the comment about guys getting black-out drunk and therefore not being responsible for their actions. (Which doesn't seem like the case for the letter-writer's girlfriend. The guy helped her throw up, therefore he was more with it than she was). If a guy gets black-out drunk and rapes someone, yes he might not remember it the next day and he probably wouldn't have done it if he was sober, but he still committed a crime. I met a guy once who did do this; he raped a friend while he was in a black-out. She didn't report him but she told him she couldn't be friends with him, anymore. Needless to say, I felt bad for him but I felt much worse for his friend. She paid for his drunk actions, she was the one violated.

@tlttoaca
What about the guy at the party? Do you know who he is? Can he be confronted?
201
@182 - I'm glad you wrote back, and I'm glad you are going with her to see a counselor. She may also need 1:1 counseling time, and you might too, if only to be able to learn, privately, what she may be going through and how else you can be there for her.

I do give a pass on the leaving the party earlier because we don't know the circumstances of that. Sure, there was at least one stranger there (how often have you been to parties where you already knew every single person there?) but we don't know that the party was filled with strangers. We don't know that he left her drunk in a party of strangers. He may have left her sober (at the time he left) in a party with mostly friends because he had to work early the next day (or for whatever other reason) and she wanted to stay and hang out. While I do believe the original writer failed her in every other way (up until now), leaving early is not necessarily one of them.

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