What If I Was Only Raped a Little?

Is penetration without consent still rape if it stops when you ask?

For years I wondered how I should classify the encounter I had one night when I was a senior in high school. I’d gone to visit a friend who was already in college. We’d gone out, attended a party, drunk alcohol. At the party, I met a guy whose company I enjoyed. We went off together to sit on lounge chairs on the roof of the building where the party was taking place. We kissed. I let him touch my body, let his fingers caress my vagina. And then I fell asleep — passed out, more like it — with my clothes still on, though my panties had come off.

I had been asleep for a while when I woke up to find the guy on top of me, inside of me.

“I don’t want to have sex,” I told him groggily.

“I thought you wanted to,” he said.

I was asleep. What about my sleeping body had made him believe I’d given my consent?

But he stopped when I asked him to. He pulled out. I got up, went back downstairs and walked back to my friend’s dorm. I never saw him again.

Years ago, the fact a woman had worn a skirt a few inches too short was enough to be interpreted as consent for sex.

Sure, you can blame the victim. I was the one who had left the party with the guy. I was the one who was underage, drinking — drinking too much. So much I passed out. That alone might have been enough to show I’d consented to the sex we had even if I hadn’t given him an explicit “yes.”

Years ago, the fact a woman had worn a skirt a few inches too short was enough to be interpreted as consent for sex. No, she hadn’t explicitly told a man she wanted to be grabbed off the street, held down against her will and penetrated with his penis — but her too-short dress was the unspoken evidence of her consent.

My case was more complicated. The guy hadn’t grabbed me off the street. I’d liked him kissing me, touching my intimate parts. But then I’d passed out. And then he’d decided to take my unconscious body as the evidence that I wanted to have sex with him.

But he’d pulled out when I woke up and asked him to. So it wasn’t really rape, was it? If not, what could I call it: a partial rape?

Yes, I’d enjoyed kissing and even being fondled by him. But sex? No, I hadn’t wanted to have actual sex.

For a long time I wondered. I wondered how I should classify the encounter? It took place in the era when I was still counting my sexual partners on one hand. That was back when the number of men I’d had sex with still meant something important to me. I was still trying to keep the numbers down. If I had sex with too many men, that meant I was bad: “easy,” a slut.

And because the number of sexual partners I’d had in my life was still low enough that I was still counting, I didn’t want to have sex with just anyone. I hadn’t wanted to have sex with that guy. That wasn’t the plan when I’d gone off with him, alone. Yes, I’d gone off somewhere with him — a young man I didn’t know — but I’d just wanted to talk more. Yes, I’d enjoyed kissing and even being fondled by him. But sex? No, I hadn’t wanted to have actual sex.

So, of course, it disturbed me when I woke up with him on top of me. It disturbed me that he had penetrated me without my consent. For a long time I wondered if I should add him to the number of men I’d had sex with. But we hadn’t really had sex, had we? He’d been inside of me, so maybe it should count. But because it hadn’t lasted very long, maybe it shouldn’t. He hadn’t climaxed inside of me, so maybe it wasn’t really sex. When I’d told him to stop, he had. He wasn’t inside of me for very long either, but still, he had been inside of me. So what should I call it?

When you’re dealing with an act so personal and intimate as sex, and you’re dealing with two people who hardly know each other, then, yes, all that business with consent is pretty important.

That wasn’t the only time that something like that happened to me. It happened another time, the summer after I graduated high school. I met another guy at a college party while I was visiting that same friend at the university she attended, and yet again I went off to be alone with him. When we all went back as a group to my friend’s apartment, I went with him alone to her bedroom. Our clothes came off. We kissed. He fondled me, but no oral sex occurred. I wasn’t ready to go all the way with him. I wasn’t ready to have penetrative sex. And yet somehow his penis had found its way inside of me even though I had stated explicitly that I didn’t want to have sex.

But we were in a bed together, naked. So did that serve as my consent?

Again, when I asked this guy to stop, he assented. No, he didn’t pull out immediately. There was further negotiation.

“But it feels so good. Come on, let me stay inside you.”

No.

The questions came back. How should I classify what happened? Should I add him to the roster of men I’d had sex with? Or was it something else? Was it rape? Or was it a partial rape?

There are people who say that all this business with consent makes sex boring. What ever happened with just getting caught up in the experience? What happened to spontaneity? What happened to unbridled passion?

Well, when you’re dealing with an act so personal and intimate as sex, and you’re dealing with two people who hardly know each other, then, yes, all that business with consent is pretty important.

I also fretted about writing this piece. That I am even asking these questions embarrasses me.

For years, I felt ashamed about these experiences. They embarrassed me. They were my fault. I shouldn’t have gone somewhere alone with young men I’d just met.

Still I had, because this is what young people do. They go to parties. They get drunk. They get horny and go off to be alone somewhere. Boys want to go farther than girls do. Girls say stop. Boys listen or they don’t. Maybe they just go ahead and do whatever they want anyway, even if the girl is passed out.

I also fretted about writing this piece. That I am even asking these questions embarrasses me. It seems so petty. Just let it go. You were naked with these guys. They put their penises inside of you. When you asked them not to, they stopped. So just forget about it. Who cares now anyway? Should I still be asking these questions? Why am I sharing so much? How am I going to feel when my sons read about this? Don’t I care that they’re going to feel embarrassed, too? They’re going to feel embarrassed about what their mother has done in her life. They’ll feel embarrassed about what I’ve let men do to me. They’ll feel embarrassed about what men have done to me without my consent. They’ll feel embarrassed about other people finding out about it. They’ll feel embarrassed when their friends read about these things too — other entitled, privileged young men.

Clearly asking for consent is not something that all parents explain in explicit terms to their sons. If they did, why is there so much rape?

Then it dawned on me. Maybe this is exactly why I should write about this, and those are exactly the boys who should read it.

Because clearly asking for consent is not something that all parents explain in explicit terms to their sons. If they did, why is there so much rape? Why is there so much date rape? Why do boys, when encountering a drunk, passed-out girl, translate that as her consent to be penetrated?

Sex was certainly not discussed in my family. I didn’t get the information I needed growing up. I learned about sex through mistakes. I’m not saying that a kid from a family were sex is openly discussed won’t make mistakes, too. Mistakes are bound to happen. We’re human, after all, aren’t we?

But I also have a sneaking suspicion that if parents discussed sex more openly — and especially if the parents of boys discussed asking for explicit consent from a girl before penetrating her — then maybe less penetrations without consent would occur.

For this reason, having my sons read about what happened to their mother is important. Maybe now they’ll have more empathy for the women they’ll meet in their future lives. They’ll understand how the way they treat young women does have a lasting effect on them. They’ll see women as more than just strangers who can be penetrated without consent when they’re drunk and passed out. They’ll see these young women as not unlike their mother once was, girls whose consent should always be asked for, never just taken for granted.

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