fault

On why rape isn't her fault, no matter how you want to spin it, buster.

James asks:

Hi Heather, I just found a question from 'samy-baby' concerning rape when performing a google search for something unrelated as it caught my eye. I'm afraid you appeared all too eager to label the bloke as unsafe and 'stay well away from him', given that the girl openly admitted within the first words of her sentence that she gets her boyfriend stupid-horny then says "no sex", that's just cruel, and I doubt many men would tolerate it. I've made it abundantly clear with my girlfriend that if she makes the effort to turn me into a horn-monster, she should finish through or I'm usually very pissed off; not to say that I'd go ahead and have sex with her anyway. All I'm saying is you failed to advise this girl that if she doesn't want to have sex, then she shouldn't get her boyfriend horny.

My best friend raped me last year, and I'm just starting to deal with it.

Mortality asks:

Last summer ('06) I was pressured to sex by my former best friend. I kinda blocked it out and it's come back with full force now. I had a flash back when having sex with my boyfriend about a week ago and that was horrible! Any idea how I can cope with that?
And how do I cope with the feelings of guilt and shame. I really feel like the whole thing was partially my fault.. What happened was that we hadn't seen each other for a year cos he'd moved and when I came to visit we made out. He wanted to go further and I didn't. When I refused to go down on him he spiked me drink and made me do it when I was drunk. Unprotected. (Had STI screening since then, which was all clear...) I just feel like I could've somehow done something. Like keep an eye on my drink or say no more forcefully or just plain fight him off. I don't really know how to deal with this... I hope you can help..

Also, I was talking to a male friend the other day and he thought that men should have an option to legally not be fathers in case of a pregnancy. Like not be obliged to pay for child care and not be a part of the kids life whatsoever. I thought that this was ridiculous, but couldn't come up with any sound reasons why I though so.. It was just a general feeling. If this discussion comes up again what can I say?