Thank you, Dan, says this 43-year-old woman.

Perfectly, fully, completely, honestly, compassionately taught, Dan.

Mr Savage's best form this month.

@3 - yeah, but it's a reprint!

Mr Thrust - So I've used up my quota of straightforward compliments for the period.

If its two teenage girls, they'll die of old age before anyone gets up enough courage to ASK.

'Consent' is a great concept, a big step up from obligation, forced 'marriage' etc. But if GOY isn't ready to ASK, can she really be ready to consent?

@6: Asking doesn't just take courage, it takes respect for the other person, which GOY's ex-not-girlfriend didn't show at all. If this were a boy, it would be a clear-cut case of rape. GOY's ex-not-girlfriend shouldn't get a pass for her actions. Overexcited, messed up by a difficult family life, not excuses. GOY does need to call this girl out so she knows what she did was wrong, and doesn't repeat her mistake.

Perfect advice.

Great advice, when the girl hears why she doesn't like her it will be a wakeup call and will prevent her from doing it again in the future. I once went far with a guy when we were 18 and him telling me that he wasn't ready and I steamrolled him made me take a good look at myself. I always thought guys wanted it 24/7 so this early experience taught me a great deal about people and consent.

#7
I didn't mean to condone the pushy 'friend.' But GOY's description wasn't clear enough to make it clear that she was assaultive. Obviously, she needs to know she scared off or intruded upon GOY in a manner she shouldn't try again.

"...but I went along with it because she never gave me a chance to slow things down or say no."

While I guess it could vary based on which part is read with more weight (the "I went along with it" part or the "never gave me a chance" part), this sounds at the very least to be wildly unacceptable.

BiDanFan,

You make many informed and helpful comments on this forum, but this wasn't one of them:

"If this were a boy, it would be a clear-cut case of rape."

No. Rape is a crime that is defined by statutes. I am willing to bet you that (except age-based statutory rape) not one state in the country defines "I went along with it because she never gave me a chance to slow things down or say no" to be rape. "Going along" - no matter what is going on secretly in your mind - constitutes consent. And, even if it didn't, rape statutes (other than statutory rape) tend not to be primarily defined in terms of consent, they are typically defined as sex through physical force, threat of harm, with a person too intoxicated or mentally disable to consent, etc. Outside of those definitions (and "statutory rape"), there is no rape. Stated consent is not generally required.

I don't see how it is helpful to inexperienced teens to give them false information about what is and what is not rape.

Now, if you want to say that anyone having sex with an inexperienced person really should ask them what they're comfortable with, that sounds like a good idea.

If you meant that the other girl should be condemned as a rapist because she had sex with a person of similar age who was below the age of consent, you might be technically correct, but I cannot respect that point of view. Teens have been fucking each other as long as there have been teens, a law that criminalizes that is just stupid.

Thank you, dcp123, for your comment. Although I also find that the whole discussion of "rape culture" has gone too far into a direction which is sexist towards men, I also find that people are throwing around the word "rape" with too much ease. FFS, a misunderstanding between whatever-you-want-to-call-this-relationship-friends (and what we see here is clearly a lack of communication between two insecure teenagers, not more) is in no way comparable to 5 guys almost killing a girl in a gang rape.
Being able to read another person's mind is a skill which needs to develop, sure. Misunderstandings will occur. That's human life.

The writer of this letter was raped. I don't know why we aren't addressing this issue. If a bio male didn't give the writer a chance to say no, it would be labeled rape. The writer should tell the girl that she doesn't want to pursue a relationship with a rapist.

@13 People who want to define rape in the way you have a huge part of the problem. While I'm not going to go as far as saying this writer was raped, I won't go as far to say that she wasn't either. This is a hairy topic and it behooves all of us err on the side of not taking sexual advantage of each other. One can be raped without it being a 5 guy murderous gang assault. Your polarizing isn't helping, it's harming.

@14 and @15, no, this girl absolutely was not raped. In order to be raped, the rapist has to know the person s/he is having sex with does not want to have sex. This girl never said a word. As somebody who actually has been raped--as in tied up, screaming no raped--I find the recent perception that rape has occurred if somebody doesn't explicitly say yes or if somebody is unsure about having sex but does anyway to be disgusting and disturbing. Rape is FORCED sex. It's not drunk sex (unless someone has passed out), it's not ambivalent sex, it's not I-really-didn't-feel-like-doing-it-but-just-went-along-with-it-because-I-felt-dumb-saying-no sex. I'm all for the rape culture argument, but we're seriously leaning--correction, pushing--on the side of ridiculous.

@16 - Thank you for your perspective Kel. I am often bewildered at how easy some people find it to label someone as an aggressor. I remember full well how often i felt lost and unsure of myself as a teenager in a sexual situation.... and it was common (being the man, or boy in those years) to be under peer pressure from friends and girlfriends alike to act like we know what we are doing. I fumbled my way through many make out sessions. Some went further than i thought they would...because the girl never stopped me (not to actual sex, but that isnt the point).... and i prefer to think she was as nervous as i was and as unwilling to expose herself by using actual words as i was... and yet, in today's world... it seems so many are quick to vilify the one making the moves and victimize the other one (in this context, gender aside)

I also find the language used by this LW to be a bit too ambiguous to make any judgments. "never gave me a chance to slow things down or say no".... This is part of maturing too... there are rarely clear cut opportunities in life to assert yourself... you must take them when you need them... If your friend is speeding thru traffic, don't just grip the arm rest and turn white while waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask them to slow down.... tell them to slow down the moment it scares you. Easier said than done.... and i think Dan is spot on when he makes a point to leave any self-loathing OUT of the equation if you fail to stand up for yourself the first time.

Saying you weren't given a chance to say no is bullshit unless you were tied and gagged. I'm sorry, but there is plenty of time between a kiss and being finger banged into oblivion to say no. She did not speak up for herself and that is where she messed up. Now, her non-girlfriend should have thought to talk to her first to get the go ahead, and that's where non-gf messed up. It's not just about teaching respect for others, it's about respect for self too. Things should only go as far as both parties are comfortable with, which means there needs to be a discussion. I'm a strait female, and when my boyfriend of 4 years and I want to try something new (really new, variations unless extreme don't need to be spoken about.) We learned this because I like a take charge (Dom lite) kind of guy. We were both new to the idea though and he was way more experienced than me. Since I knew I like to be held down, but didn't know much more than that at the time, I told him to suprise me. Well, he surprised me by putting his hands around my throat. He didn't even squeeze and it scared me so bad I started crying... Ever since then, we have had a consent discussion before trying new things. Even in long term relationships, there still needs to be consent, and discussion. We need to teach these kids to talk to eachother, and to ask for what they want and be clear on what they don't want.

some of you are filling in blanks not present in the actual letter based on your own experiences. Stop slinging around whether this was rape or not rape, the letter writer did not actually give enough information for that. You are merely projecting your own backstory.

@12, 13: Either you believe that if a husband forced his wife to have sex against her will it wasn't rape until the last few decades, or you're lying. Which is it?

After all, marital rape wasn't legally defined as rape until recently. Do you believe it wasn't rape before the law changed?

If I successfully lobbied Congress, tomorrow, to legally define rape as "nonconsensual sex with anyone who does not post under the name dcp123," and then raped you, you'd probably think you'd been raped.

Unless you disagree with my prediction, you're either a liar or an idiot.

Once again, Dan handles the letter with much more tact, sensitivity and wisdom than the commenters. Unless the person you are having relations with happens to be one of the X-Men the assumption must be that they cannot read minds. This was an unfortunate, fumbled early sexual encounter of the sort that we will always have so long as young people have sex with young people. Rounding that up to rape says more about the posters than the LW or her houseguest.

@20: Eudaemonic, you are putting up a strawman argument.
My point @13 (and I guess that of dcp123 too) is that people are trying to turn an ambiguous situation which was lacking communication (LW did not clearly indicate that she was not happy with how things went - or she maybe was only not happy with it some time after it happened!) into a situation where her Ex-GF either would perform a sexual act against her expressed will or would take advantage of the fact that she could not express her non-willingness (rape). Marital rape would be the latter situation, wife would either say no and held down or threatened or intoxicated. Marital rape is _not_ even "I will divorce if we do not have sex any more".

I'd be quite careful labeling this as rape. For the sake of the writer if no one else. You don't need that baggage to go with it when the writer doesn't call it rape herself. Like Dan said, we've all been there before and this is nothing new. It happens and there's lessons to learn especially at a young age. Having been quite sensitive person myself I've learned to step way back from the wrong people who clearly don't quite grasp my boundaries or don't value them for whatever reason. You can definitely empower yourself from this experience and be strong. AND do take this issue with your friend, she needs to know, regardless of what happens after you have said it.

@22: If a husband holds down his loudly-protesting wife and forces her to have sex, and this is happening before the latter part of the 20th century, then this isn't rape, right?

If "No. Rape is a crime that is defined by statutes" isn't bullshit, then that's the case.

I agree that miscommunications aren't rape, but the idea that it wouldn't be rape if I raped you, so long as I first bribed the state legislature to define it as not rape, is the most vile horseshit imaginable.

Since we'd call this rape if the LW's partner was male, we should call it rape. Or we should stop calling it rape when the "perpetrator" is male. Since we're not going to do the latter, we should do the former. Yes, it's obvious that the LW could have said no, chose not to, and chose to go along with it, and that no hint is given that her partner had any impression that she wasn't totally willing. But that wouldn't fly if the partner was male, so it shouldn't now either. Decency permits no gendered exemption to rape.

Oh, cool. I stirred up a shit-storm by telling people what the law says. Fun.

@15 Penny, No, I am not part of "the problem" simply because I told you how the law defines the crime of rape. That's a matter of law and, while I could have been more clear about it, that was my point in @13. However, I will also go further. Feel free to call me part of the problem for this: There is not one trace of a hint in that letter that this girl suffered from anything that any sane person would call rape (outside of paternalistic "statutory" rape laws. Read what she said:

"Things went a LOT further than I was ready for. I had just had my first kiss the month before and I didn't feel like our relationship was ready for sex, but I went along with it because she never gave me a chance to slow things down or say no."

"Things went a LOT further than I was ready for" is exactly the kind of thing inexperienced people say when something happened that they are not comfortable with. It is also exactly the sort of thing people don't say when someone has used force or threat to coerce them to have sex or ignored their requests to stop. This isn't something that people say after someone forces him- (or in this case her-) self on them.

Not convinced? Well let's look at her next sentence, which starts "I went along with it." What that means is that she went along with it. She did not resist it. She did not object to it. She did not protest. She was NOT raped.

But, then she says "she never gave me a chance to slow things down or say no" you protest. So the F what? As @18 points out, this "is bullshit unless you were tied and gagged." When people say this and don't claim to have been gagged or told at gunpoint that they will be killed if they speak is that it would have been socially awkward to object and that they were not asked nicely if they were comfortable with what was going on.

I'm sure real people regularly have unpleasant and not really desired sexual encounters because it would be awkward to say no. Hell, I have had at least one unpleasant and undesired sexual encounter because it would have been awkward to say no. But the law does not define that as rape in any state that I'm aware of. And it shouldn't. If you go along with something unpleasant to avoid a discussion that you find even more unpleasant, that's not rape. Nobody is required as a matter of criminal law to read their partner's mind and deduce that their going along with a sexual encounter reluctantly to avoid making a scene.

On the other hand, someone having sex with a partner they know to be inexperienced, really should do their best to make sure that their partner is OK with what's going on. From the LW's story, it doesn't sound like the other girl did. If she is much older and more experienced, that makes her an asshole. If she's not, that makes her an inexperienced kid who had bad sex with another teen and could have done better, which probably covers about half of the teens who have sex with other teens. In neither case is she close to beign a rapist (setting aside, as always, paternalistic and archaic "statutory" rape based on the age of consent).

Now that I've expressed an opinion about what the law should be, not just about what it is, please feel free to call me part of the problem. But, if you do so, please know that I will think that you're an idiot.

@24: I'm with you on the issue of gender bias/double standards. But I would choose the latter, not the former in this case.
@25: The world "Rape culture" is a shameless exaggeration at the expense of victims of real rape. This word is absolutely deceptive. It's used so broad that every misunderstanding can fall under it, yet it SCREAMS "one of the worst possible things you can do to a female" (it's rarely used when men experience sexism...), even when it is something minuscule.

@20 Eudaemonic,

Nice straw-man argument. Perhaps I could have been more clear in post @13, but my point there was that what the LW described is not rape as that crime is legally defined, not that nothing that is not defined as rape is a-OK with me. In fact, I did suggest that the other girl probably should have asked if the LW was comfortable with what was going on, but that it wasn't rape.

You may have guessed that I agree with the law not defining as rape a sexual encounter in which your partner goes along with (consents to) it to avoid making a scene. If so, you are correct. I think it would be a terrible idea for the law to penalize that as rape.

Now, where did I say that the former laws permitting forcible rape within the confines of marriage was a good idea? Nowhere. Did I say that all laws are always right? Nope. In fact, I mentioned that I think that "statutory" rape laws are stupid, at least as applied to people of similar ages.

So, to be clear, I think it is good that laws were changed to penalize marital rape. I also think that the abolition of slavery and granting of the right to vote to women were good ideas as well. None of that in any way contradicts my original point that what the LW described does not meet the legal definition of rape, nor the point I am explicitly arguing now that it shouldn't be considered to be rape.

So, are you proud of your straw-man argument?

Eudaemonic @24,

One more thing, outside of your men's rights-addled imagination, exactly who would consider it rape if a man had sex with a woman who wasn't into it but "went along" with it because she couldn't be bothered to say no and deal with the drama of a disappointed partner? Nobody with an IQ above room temperature should have a problem seeing that, regardless of the gender of the partner initiating the sex.