My first boyfriend took advantage of me and I want an apology

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      Twenty-one-year-old female here. When we were both 14, my first boyfriend took advantage of me. I wanted to explore my sexuality a little, but things went further than I wanted. One day, we were kissing with him on top of me. We were both fully clothed, and he started rubbing up against me. I didn’t realize he was dry-humping me until after he had to leave to clean himself up. He never asked for my permission. Once I understood what had happened, I felt violated. He’d also groped my boobs on another occasion without asking. He broke up with me a couple months later. I haven’t spoken to him in seven years.

      For the most part, this hasn’t scarred me too much. I’m comfortable with my sexuality. However, it’s very painful for me to think about what happened. I also avoid having sex with someone on top of me, because it reminds me of what happened and I start panicking. I want some closure so I can move on with my life. I don’t want to report him to the police because it’s not necessary—it happened so long ago. As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t rape. But I do feel like I was exploited, and it was not consensual.

      I want to contact him and ask him to apologize because I feel a sincere apology would help me get over this. The problem is that he lives on the other side of the country, and I have no way of contacting him besides looking him up on Facebook. I don’t think FB is the right place to talk about this, but it’s not possible to talk in person. How can I get in touch with him in a way that’s appropriate without having to see him?

      > Would’ve Said No

      Let’s game this out.

      While it’s possible your ex-boyfriend did this on purpose—he knew you wouldn’t agree to it; he went ahead and did it anyway; you feel violated because you were violated—it’s also possible that this was an accident. I’m not excusing his behaviour, particularly the nonconsensual boob-groping, but as a former 14-year-old boy myself, WSN, I feel obligated to toss this out there: very few boys have achieved complete mastery over their dicks by age 14. Sometimes those things go off when we do not want them to. And accidentally blowing a load in your pants during a hot-and-heavy make-out session is an experience that most boys find deeply humiliating.

      You were there, WSN, and I was not; you dated this dude, and I did not. If your boyfriend was a generally decent guy, and if there’s a chance this was an accident, contacting him—even via Facebook—will probably get you the apology you want.

      But if it wasn’t an accident—if he was a selfish, manipulative piece of shit who took advantage of your naiveté—you’re unlikely to get the apology you want. Because if your ex-boyfriend was a selfish, manipulative piece of shit at age 14, odds are good that he remains a selfish, manipulative piece of shit at 21. If he’s an asshole, WSN, and you speak to him about this—on Facebook or face to face—you’re unlikely to get the apology you want. Ask yourself how you’ll feel if he responds to your request for an apology with GIFs of people laughing their asses off. If the answer is “infinitely worse”, don’t contact him.

      P.S. Two more tips to avoid feeling worse: don’t go to the police with this, WSN, and stay out of the comments.


      I am a straight, 45-year-old, monogamous male. I am married for the second time, to a wonderful 42-year-old woman. The few times I shared fantasies with my first wife, she used them as weapons in the many battles we fought over the years. She also betrayed my trust by sharing these fantasies with others. Fast-forward to wife number two. She is fabulous. We can talk about anything. She is respectful of my trust issues and has helped me immensely in getting over much of it. When she says, “I’ll think about it,” she really does. I never feel dismissed. And the sex has been amazing. We have explored things I only dreamed about. Anal sex, public sex, sex toys, and video cameras are all part of our routine now. She asks me for things and I try them. I ask her for things and she tries them.

      So what is the problem? I can’t bring myself to ask her for two things that are more than bucket-list issues to me. I am a closet cross-dresser. I want to make love to her in stockings and a teddy. I made this request to my ex, and it resulted in humiliation. She even shared it with my son out of spite. And I want us to try water sports. When this came up during marriage counselling with my first wife, the counsellor blew up at me and accused me of degrading my marriage.

      So how do I screw up the courage to ask wife number two, the good guy in bed who always listens and never judges, to let me dress up in women’s underwear and make love to her and then have her pee on me? Just writing about it is making my stomach twist, but when I look into her eyes and feel the trust, I almost blurt it out. I won’t die if these wishes go unfulfilled, but I would die if my second wife stopped respecting me.

      > Pretty Under Normal Things

      You love your new wife, she loves you, you’re both GGG: it all sounds so good, so functional, especially compared to your nightmarish first marriage. Congrats. But you held your two biggest kinks back from the new woman in your life, PUNT, and now you’re sweating the reveal because the stakes are so high. This is precisely why I urge people to lay those kink cards on the table early. The longer you wait, the more emotionally invested you become in the relationship, and the higher the stakes. Because what if your kinks aren’t just things your second wife isn’t interested in exploring, PUNT, but attraction killers?

      My advice: instead of having an open and honest here-are-two-things-I-wanna-do conversation, PUNT, go with an indirect here-are-two-things-some-people-do conversation. Find a way to broach the topics of cross-dressing and piss play without having to admit that they turn you on, e.g., go see a drag show (drag isn’t cross-dressing, of course, but it will allow you to broach the men-in-dresses subject generally) and find a porn film with one brief, not-too-hardcore piss scene in it and watch it together. Pay attention to her response. If she reacts in a neutral or positive way to men in dresses and/or piss play, lay those last two kink cards on the table. If she reacts negatively, you might just die with those wishes unfulfilled.

      Pro tip: nervous kinksters can screw up indirect here-are-two-things-some-people-do conversations by telegraphing disgust. Someone who’s into rubber says, “Isn’t it weird how some people get off on wearing rubber clothes and gas masks?” The non-kinky partner picks up on the word weird and responds with, “Yeah, that rubber stuff is fucked up.” If you set a negative tone, your wife is likely to pick up on that. So keep your reactions—at the drag club, during the porn—as neutral as possible.

      This week on the Savage Lovecast, Dan chats with the amazing Mistress Matisse about where kink comes from, fantasy BDSM versus nonconsensual abuse, and how to meet a kinky mate. Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) at www.straight.com.  My newest book—American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics —has been called one of the best books of May by Amazon.com, and Publishers Weekly says it’s one of the best books of the summer. And it comes out this week. Look for American Savage in bookstores now!

      Comments

      9 Comments

      Waxon Waxoff

      May 22, 2013 at 8:43am

      Dan, I have to say I'm really surprised at your response to the 21 year old looking for closure over an incident with her high school boyfriend 7 years before. Has someone had you tied up all week, forced to watch Steel Magnolias over and over? That's the only thing I can think of that might explain why you are letting this girl off so easily. Unless there are major details of her original letter to you missing from this column, from what I can gather, she and her boyfriend were engaged in a consensual make-out session and he came in his pants. Did he make a big deal out of it or ask her to lick him clean or try to repeat himself immediately afterwards? Nope--he left and cleaned up. My guess is he was probably pretty embarrassed about it, which you do at least make room for initially. My problem with your response is that you are enabling her to continue fostering some ludicrous thoughts about what she might do by telling her she feels victimized because she WAS victimized. How on earth was she victimized? Did he force himself on top of her? Did he ignore physical signs that she was uncomfortable (she writes that it was only after she realized he came that she was upset)? Did she tell him to stop or tell him afterwards that she was upset about what had happened?

      I'm not trying to make light of how she feels but it sounds to me that she might actually be dealing with buried trauma from another experience in her past and is blaming the incident with her teenage boyfriend for her current discomfort with sex rather than dealing with the actual cause, and that's something she should definitely talk to a counselor about.

      If she does call him, she'd better pray he's an incredibly kind person because I suspect she's likely to find that he's either embarrassed about the incident, totally forgotten about it, or shocked and pissed off that 7 years later, she's popping up out of the blue like a bat-shit crazy person making all kinds of dangerous accusations about what was actually some awkward consensual teenage fumbling. If it's the latter, I hope she doesn't plan to attend any high school reunions any time soon because you can bet this guy will be talking to old pals and saying, "remember so and so, the one I went out with in 9th grade? You'll never believe the crazy call I got from her last week."

      kbad

      May 22, 2013 at 9:48am

      Really ?
      So let me get this straight, 14, heavy petting ,raging hormones, and what did you expect would happen?.
      I wonder if some of the story has been left out, otherwise it sounds like very typical teenage behavior.
      Your boyfriend was not the first nor will he be the last 14 YO to spoil his shorts. Maybe find the joy in the moment and not take it for anything more than two young teenagers finding themselves. Best of luck to you WSN

      lol

      May 22, 2013 at 9:57am

      He did tell her to stay outta the comments. for good reason!~

      Stunned

      May 22, 2013 at 12:07pm

      It's letters like that first one that make me thank my lucky stars I'm not a teenage boy.

      ghebert001

      May 22, 2013 at 7:04pm

      This is wrong on so many levels...no he does not owe anyone an apology. What happened to him was simply the body's response to physical stimulation. She wouldn't apologize to her boyfriend every time she gets wet from kissing him or something and didn't ask his permission would she? To think you're owed an apology or entitled to be asked your permission for something that is nothing more than teenage fun...I hope she is seeing a good psychiatrist, this one needs help.

      Ben

      May 22, 2013 at 7:35pm

      That first response is straight up hateful and crazy. He's a piece of shit because he messed himself at 14? Christ, that's unreal.

      anna

      May 24, 2013 at 3:46pm

      If this is the worst that happened to you, then lucky you!

      pass the sour grapes, please. mmmm, yummy.

      May 24, 2013 at 5:28pm

      You guys know that this column is syndicated in thousands of newspapers (well, hundreds, probably, with newspapers dying and all of that) right? RIGHT? That means Savage doesn't have time to check in on all the comments on every website that publishes his column.

      My hunch is that the people posting here think it's a Georgia Straight exclusive. I could be wrong.

      Xam

      Jan 12, 2015 at 6:19pm

      Wow. Women's studies have really fucked this persons brain up.

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