haha. so true. like the "calm the fuck down."
This girl is seriously misguided about what is and what isn't sexual coercion/violence.

Seriously, just go watch some porn and mellow out.

exactly.

Ditto.

It doesn't change the logic of the answer, but the LW saying "I am biologically female" is somewhat confusing--is LW a gay trans man? Otherwise why not just start by saying "I'm a woman who got drunk and knocked on my roommate's door and confessed my attraction to him," etc. Is male roommate gay? Anyway, roommate is cool. Someday maybe we'll all be able to express polite sexual interest as adults in whatever combination, and be politely accepted or declined without further drama, freakouts, or violence. Though I suppose a trans person would not use the term "biological" to describe genetics or present anatomy but rather heartfelt identity. I know... maybe Telsa can help.

This is the kind of roommate every college guy wants.

Wow, "calm the fuck down" indeed.

Well what do you know! A woman who lumps all men into the sexual predator catagory finds herself the victim of her own ill advised assumptions. I love it! Good answer Dan.

@6 I'm guessing her phrasing is a symptom of the general over intellectualization she's submitted the entire chain of events too.

Seriously? AISP, you are why I didn't join any of the feminist groups in college. Really? If your drunk male roommate came to your door and asked to get into bed and then went away when you said no, you'd feel ... unsafe? I hope to hell you ain't that fragile, otherwise the world's gonna throw you some real curveballs when you leave the higher education incubator.

Lighten up. Chill out. You got turned down. Don't make a bigger deal out of it than it is.

@7 and @13 Why are we assuming these people are in college?

Come on people, the ethics of this situation couldn't be any clearer.

If the guy is attracted to her, then her pass was cool. Otherwise, it was sexual harassment, possibly sexual assault if she didn't slink away quickly enough when he said no.

Andrea Dworkin is not pleased.

15 nailed it.

So I recently realized that I have never asked anyone out (just responded to others advances), because I am rather afraid of rejection, thus rejecting myself before the other has a chance, you know the story. So these lines...

'All you're guilty of, AIASP, is asking someone that you wanted to fuck if he wanted to fuck you. It's a legit question and no one gets fucked without asking it.

And the question doesn't magically become assault when the answer is "no."'

... are incredibly helpful and amazingly reassuring. Thanks for putting it in perspective Dan!

AISP, the fact that you're experiencing remorse & embarrassment says "probably not a predator" to me. However, you probably shouldn't oughta drink *that* heavily on a work night.

@14. Probably because everything she's said is so clearly influenced by Women and Gender Studies classes.

@15 Ummm... Harassment occurs when the power dynamics are uneven or the situation is totally inappropriate. Like, in the workplace. Or if one party is rejected and persists in pursuit to the extreme annoyance of the other. Asking someone once, in an appropriate social setting (like shared residential premises), and promptly acquiescing to rejection, is hardly harassment. It may, however, be supremely awkward unless handled in good nature afterwards.

@6 That's what I thought... What's the deal with the 'biologically female' comment? Trans person or ultra feminist?

Otherwise, yeah. You sound a little sheltered and that you over-think things, AIASP.

@23: Ummm, yeah, thanks. Might I suggest sprinkling my comment with a generous helping of irony and reading it again?

Shit, after all these years I still don't know if it is possible for a woman to sexually assault (rape) a man unless the act involves a foreign object or results in some kind of serious physical damage. How can anything else be even remotely compared to sexual assaults on women by male perpetrators?

And when I say a man, I mean over the age of say fourteen.

From the roommate's perspective the young woman is humorously naive.

This is kind of random, but the title of this letter is also the title of one of my favorite porn wrestling stories. Obviously NSFW, and contains violence, although it's not anything bizarre (not that I don't enjoy some more over-the-top ones!). It's actually pretty well-written.

http://www.seakingsfemfight.com/stories/…

The lack of detail on the roommate's response screws this entire letter - it makes a huge difference to me, and changes the context completely. Since we get the little comment that he "doesn't feel threatened and that I should stay" I must conclude with others that she is hysterical and depressed and embarassed that he did not accept her advances, and she wants to use some kind of excuse to slink away: "Please label me a horrible person, so I can leave honorably for your own good". Bull shit - grow up.

Indeed, making a pass is not sexual assault.

Not only is it the case that our culture's ambivalent attitude to sex ('it's good but it's bad', 'it's healthy but it's shameful', etc.) leads to this overthinking; but current attitudes about male sexual violence and its importance and/or possible prevention add to this overthinking.

Sex ought to be simple. Do you want it? No? OK, cool. Yes? OH YES!

In our cultural climate, this is not simple. Despite the heroic efforts of people like Dan, this keeps not being simple. And there is no big reason for this lack of simplicity, other than traditional stereotypes, fears, and confusions.

Why can't we make it simple? What's the problem? What keeps us from jumping into simple mode when it comes to sex?

Er... it's sexual assault when the person you are pursuing is the one who is too drunk to say "No." It isn't assault when you, the pursuer, are the one who is too drunk to say "Yes."

I'm guessing that Roomie was in control of his faculties. You don't say whether he sent you away, or let you come in and drunkenly slobber all over him, but in either case he did what he wanted to do. Provided that you didn't physically hold his sober ass down and force yourself on him, anything that he did, he consented to do. If he consented, then it wasn't predation. Seriously, duh. Hell, he is probably more disappointed that you disavowed the whole thing the following morning.

You seem to be squicked by the "active consent" thing. (And yes, I'd say you've been hoist on your own Womyn's Studies petard, in that you now have firsthand experience of being drunk enough to do something that you regret the following morning, but you don't get to wriggle out of your own responsibility by claiming to be too drunk to "consent" to your own bad ideas. ) Why are you worrying about whether you consented? If you have daydreamed about doing this while sober, I'd say your drunkenness wasn't a factor in your consent, merely in your being daring enough to go for it. My question is, why would you never dare to do it while sober?

@27: Ever see "40 Days and 40 Nights"? The movie about the college guy who gives up sex for Lent? Spoiler warning - On the last day, he's drugged or sleep-deprived or something, and ends up tied to a bed, and his ex-girlfriend comes in and rides him until he climaxes. He's semi-conscious at the time, and thinks he is having sex with his new girlfriend. Then he spends the last few minutes of the movie apologizing to new girlfriend for betraying her. Granted, this is a slightly unlikely scenario. My point, however, is that it could be possible to perform actions that would cause a restrained or incapacitated male's body to respond against his will. Hell, slip a roofie and a Viagra into his drink at a bar. Would you qualify that as rape?

There are ALL SORTS of details left out of this. For example: How did you later find out that he was in his skivvies? Are you a tranny or just from Olympia? How did he react to your confession of lurrrrve? How did he react to your query about sleeping in his room? WHERE DID YOU ACTUALLY SLEEP? How did the follow-up conversation go? Were you sober when that happened? Did he seem skeeved out? Did he laugh out loud when you asked him if you should move?

You are either a horrible storyteller, or you totally phrased this entire scenario in such a way as to make you less/more of a bad guy then you actually are, OR you overreact to every single thing that has ever happened in your life and your friends are done listening so you turned to Dan Savage.

@32, yeah, your body can respond even when you don't want it to. One thing that isn't well publicized is that women come during rapes (though it's hard to say if it's most or not). That -- in addition to the physical violence, risk of disease, mistreatment, etc -- is why it's such a mindfuck: you didn't want to but even your own body wouldn't do what you wanted to.

RE: the 'men can't get raped' thing: what, is the world filled with attractive, disease-free women? Straight guys, imagine yourself getting drugged, tied up, whacked off, and then fucked by some woman who's totally gross looking and has, I dunno, sores or something. After enough manual stimulation, you would likely get hard, no matter how grossed out or creeped out you were. And if you didn't, there's always your ass. Are you telling me you wouldn't be messed up after that experience? Sheesh, you people have no imagination!

Oh for fuck's sweet sake, let's not turn this into the interminable "is this rape?" discussion about consent, gender reversals, blah blah blah.
Yeah, I know: but not *this" letter.

She didn't rape anyone. It sounds like she didn't get through the doorway.
Can we please save the "what constitutes rape" discussion for a letter that warrants it?

Dude i totally hate man-hating pseudo-scientific sex-scared intolerent feminists. nowadays all us super cool gender equality sex positive trans friendly scientific types get lumped in with those jerks, and women who admittedly agree that they should be allowed to vote deny they're feminists to avoid the label of idiot "reverse" bigot. and girls like this get some really dumb ideas in their head listening to those outdated ideas, thinking that's "feminism". it sucks. Maybe we should get a new word?

@33's "Are you a tranny or just from Olympia?" FTW

Aaaand this is why dating undergraduates is a mistake.

@15, If she didn't take no for an answer and stayed in the doorway drunkenly saying "pretty please", I'd say that was closer to annoyance than harrassment.

@38: Ugh, right? I really want to stick to the word and just try and change it, but it's so bogged down. "Gender equalist" sounds idiotic though.

Why did we assume these people are in college?

Because if they aren't, or they aren't at least 18-22, then God help us all.

But for advice: Seriously, with the calm the fuck down. But also, if you want to feel better, tell your roommate that you feel like a shit for doing what you did. Don't make a big deal about it, because I guarantee that's going to make him more uncomfortable. But mention it casually without an expectation of him saying anything and you'll go a long way towards better communal living.

In response to responses to me:) Feminist groups at my college in the 90s tended to interpret any unwanted advance as a sign of male aggression or sexual harassment. It was a bit ridiculous. I didn't think this represented feminism at all. I kind of assumed the LW was a college student based on the flashback caused by this letter...

@ sirkowski...Has Andrea Dworkin EVER been pleased?