Is there a grey area for consent?

[Somez]

This is my first post and I’d like to thank you for reading and any light you can shed would be most helpful. After some health issues I came to realise and understand that my first sexual experience might not have been fully consensual. I don’t want to say I was raped but I question just how much was actually consensual. I was dating this guy who knew I was a virgin and the reason behind me wanting to wait. We were fooling around and it got too intense so I told him I wasn’t ready and that we wouldn’t be having sex any time soon, which he accepted. Two days later when we were fooling around he succeeded. I never said no or told him to stop or anything at all. I just remember laying there and feeling very empty and having all my feelings for him dissipate. It was almost an out of body experience. The relationship didn’t work out for many reasons other than not being able to regain feelings. I regretted allowing him to treat me so poorly but I just accepted the decisions I made while I was with him including him being my first. Fast forward to the beginning of this year and I had a lot of health issues that made me be completely honest with myself. I finally saw everything that happened in a clearer way. I thought by brushing it off and fully taking responsibility of my actions I was doing right by me but now I feel that he groomed me and it felt almost like a mentally abusive relationship. I’m currently in a lot of physical pain and on a lot of pain medications but it’s this realisation that hurts me the most. I don’t know how to feel about what happened. I don’t hate him and don’t have any animosity towards him. I don’t think of him much at all just the actual act itself. Is silence considered consent? I feel like he took advantaged of my trust but I think to him I was fully consenting to the act. I blocked it from my memory and I tried to write another narrative that showed I had the control but I don’t think I ever did. It was something I told myself to sleep better at night. The hardest part for me is not understanding the situation. I’m not even sure if I consented because I didn’t know it was happening and how does one consent to something they’re not aware of?
I wish you are all doing well and staying safe during such hard times. Xoxo.

[Tay100]

Hi Somez

Welcome to the forums, we are happy to have you- we also know posting about such personal issues can be hard, so it's great that you have taken this step.

Firstly, I'm sorry you're feeling overwhelmed and confused by this experience- sex should be fun and consensual every time, without exceptions. To help you work through these feelings, I suggest reaching out to get some professional help, who can help you process everything that happened properly, and move on in a healthy way. This will help you have a healthy relationship/sex life moving forward if that's something you want. Getting help can be overwhelming though, so if you want help with 'getting help,' please let us know.

In the meantime, please be gentle with yourself, look after your health (you say you're in physical pain- what are some ways you manage this? I can share some tips of how I handle my pain, if you like). Check back with us if you like, too.

Sending kindness,

Tay100

[known]

Hi Somez,

First I want to say well done for speaking up and writing about this. I want to share with you that I had a similar experience. I relate to the out of body experience and blocking it from your memory. I too do not think much of him at all, but rather the act. I was very young at the time and wrote another narrative to deal with what happened, instead of talking about it.

I have been seeing a therapist for symptoms of anxiety and depression. My therapist has helped me to recognise this past experience as trauma, and my system is stuck in a looping pattern. Trauma is when our system gets overwhelmed due to an event. Something happens that overcomes us – it is too much, too fast, too soon - and there is not enough time to integrate the experience.

I think the worst part of this is that we are left questioning ourselves. That is where your power is taken. But it does not have to be that way forever. With therapy, you can start to understand the experience, which takes time, but I am finding that it is better than forever questioning myself. With a therapist they will help you to unpack the experience. I found it helpful to read up about trauma, learn how to identify triggers and care for myself, and integrate body work for hip, back and pelvic pain into my routine.

Be kind to yourself. xxx

[GimZim]

I don't want to say that I know how you feel but I think there's an overlap between what you've experienced and what I have (and I imagine a lot of other people too). I think we need to be moving towards the idea of "enthusiastic consent", where people are only having sex if they both very much want to, removing those grey areas. Coming to terms with a later rape after one of these "grey area" ones made me come to terms with how my first boyfriend treated me and how I felt about it at the time, how I didn't want to view him as a rapist or wanting to protect him because it was just a "mistake", etc. I cared more about protecting him from his own behaviour than he did about my physical or mental health and I cared more about him than protecting myself and that's very sad.

I think it's very common to try and rewrite the narrative when things like this happen, to minimise what happened because no one *wants* to have been raped. It's easier to protect ourselves (if only temporarily) by insisting it was just bad sex or we didn't communicate well enough or it was a misunderstanding, whatever.

I think your feelings are very normal, though obviously difficult to deal with. And I'd echo what's been said already, that talking to other people can help unpack these feelings and help us deal with them.

[Deckt]

Hi Somez,

I'm so sorry that you experienced this. To answer your question, no, in my opinion. There are no grey areas with consent. To concur with GimZim, consent should be enthusiastic. That is, the absence of a clear no is not a yes. Silence is not a yes. Caving to coercion or relentless nagging is not a yes. YES is a yes. And more to the point, it should be an enthusiastic yes, and a relatively sober one.

I would also agree that having a chat with a counsellor (anonymous, if you would feel most comfortable with that) might help to process these feelings, and hopefully minimise the impact of this horrible experience on your future life.

Hugs, Dt.