Scarleteen

i’ve been with my boyfriend for about a year now and i know him, i know him on such a deep and emotional level and i truly don’t think he’s capable of rape… until i explained the story to my best friend.

So my boyfriend and I were at a party, i was drinking A LOT, him - not so much, maybe a glass of wine at the beginning of the night. The alcohol always starts to hit me when i’m coming back in the car, i’m not sure why, it just takes longer to get into my system i guess. i don’t even remember changing out of my clothes and getting into bed. all i remember is waking up and my boyfriend was inside of my without any protection. I remember coming back to my senses and asking him ‘what the fuck… are you wearing protection” he wasn’t and he quickly put a condom on and finished as soon as he did.

i went to sleep not thinking much of it because i was still quite drunk at this point. but when i woke up in the morning i asked him several times if he finished inside of me and he said no, i asked him how did we even begin to have sex? i didn’t remember? he said that i had climbed on top of him and then we started having sex.

the thing is, everytime we have sex i always say please wear a condom, because one time we didn’t and i got a really nasty UTI and i didn’t want to go through that again.

At the time i didn’t even think of rape? i didn’t think he was capable of such a thing. But i don’t ever remember saying yes, i don’t remember climbing on top of him? but what if i did say yes and it was consensual sex and i’m overthinking this? i feel really disgusted but i don’t want to overreact and break up with him. is it weird that i still love him? i want to end things because he is the person i trust the most and i feel like he broke that trust that night.

he’s been acting completely normal with me but i’ve been really cold and ignoring his texts , i feel like a bitch.

one thing he told me in the morning was “it seems like the alcohol always hits you in the uber back home” so was he aware that i was drunk? and did he use me?

did i get raped? i’m not sure this is confusing for me and i don’t know what to do:(

Hi Klozer,

When we think about consent and sex, one of the main things involved is that a person has to be aware enough of what's going on to consent to sex in the first place. That's way someone who's sleeping, or who's under the influence to a degree that they're coming in and out of consciousness, cannot consent to sex.So, from what you're describing, your boyfriend chose to sexually assault you, and I'm so sorry that's something he decided to do.

A big part of your question hinges on whether or not he knew what he was doing wasn't okay, or whether he knew you were drunk. From your description, it sounds like he absolutely knew you were drunk, and made the choice to do something sexual to you while you were asleep/unconscious. That's not something someone does accidentally, and I find it very unlikely that he doesn't know that having sex with someone who's asleep isn't okay. That, combined with the fact that during this he also chose not to use a condom, which he knows is a must from you, suggests to me that he knew this wasn't okay but did it anyway (then lied to you about how it got started in the first place).

I think, too, that some part of you might already know that what he did wasn't okay, because you're feeling cold and not wanting to interact with him, which makes complete sense.

I've written some pretty heavy stuff above, so I'm going to pause here. Reading that, how do you feel?