I don't think I was raped?

[IAmScared]

ok,so I was with this guy. he wanted oral sex. i didn't and i made a face of disgust and fear cause i was scared of blowjob. then he said "come on kiss it (his penis),look how he is watching you".i remember feeling awful and he knew it.but then i (very unhappily) put his penis in my mouth because I wanted to satisfy him.I think that wasn't rape,but I wanna check with you?

[IAmScared]

also,I wanna add that I wanted blowjob later (not that first time!) and that I asked him to tape us.

[Heather]

You are describing something that is considered a sexual abuse — sexual coercion — by most legal and health institutions and those of us who work in these fields. You are not describing consensual sexual activity.

Asking for sexual activity from someone later also doesn’t somehow undo any kind of sexual abuse from them previously.

What can we do for you with this from here?

[IAmScared]

I can't stop feeling sorry for myself for what happened to me. He'd call me a child when we were naked. (He somehow,i don't know how,knew that I was much behind my peers mentally). He gave me a bit of discomfort when he was asking me would I kiss children. He offered to go to the toilet with me. I gave him my first kiss. At first I told him I'm waiting for someone special and that he isn't that special one but then I changed my mind. He stole every First from me .First date,first hugging,first kiss,first sex.

[Heather]

I don't hear you expressing "feeling sorry for yourself." I hear you expressing grief and other normal, common feelings people feel when they have been abused, and certainly once they start to really realize the reality or breadth of their abuse.

Are all of these things things you have told the therapist who told you these things were only harassment? If so, I would strongly suggest you reconsider sticking with that therapist, because they sound poorly educated about abuse. And if they are blowing these things off instead of offering you therapeutic care to start processing and healing from them, they're not doing their job.

If you have not told them all of these details, and you do generally find them to be a good therapist for you, I'd like to suggest you give them the bigger picture so they can a) accurately talk about what these things are, instead of calling them harassment, and b) give you quality help and care.

[IAmScared]

no! that's other thing. my shrink told me it's only harassment when my grandpa touched my boobs without asking. not about this.the thing is I'm not sure if I said "no" to my rapist above (NOT my grandpa).

[IAmScared]

also,I have a friend Snježana who had sex with a guy and she wasn't mentally capable to have sex with anyone cause she felt that her need to satisfy her boyfriend was more important then her not wanting sex,and the guy knew it. And he was just smiling while she did sex with him with disgust and fear (like me).Was she also raped or not?

[Jacob]

Hi IAmScared,

It sounds like your friend's experience was that her boyfriend was able to get her to have sex with him even though she didn't want to which by definition is coercion abuse.

That said... Have you considered finding a different therapist as Heather suggested?

[IAmScared]

Why would I want to find a different therapist?

[Jacob]

From what you were saying it sounds like your therapist was denying that the things you are describing constituted abuse?

Having someone be on your side is an important part of the support they are meant to be providing.

[IAmScared]

I remember things slightly differently now. Basically, the guy suggested oral sex. I wanted to satisfy him and for him to not leave me.But. I never said yes.And my face showed great discomfort and it was clear that I didn't want it but I barely did it because he wanted me to.Was it still a rape?

[Sam W]

Hi IAmScared,

Yes, what you're describing still falls under the definition of sexual coercion (which is a form of sexual abuse). From what you've told us, it sounds pretty clear that he knew you didn't want to do this but continued to pressure you until you did it.

I want to circle back to what Heather mentioned a few posts up this thread: how much of this have you shared with your therapist, and what kind of support have they offered you as a result? These kinds of incidents can leave you dealing with all sorts of unpleasant fallout, and you deserve to receive mental healthcare that acknowledges that.

[IAmScared]

I told my therapist but we haven't really talked about it

I am severely mentally ill,like A LOT,so I think I am happy that I was raped and before I was raped I wanted to be taken advatage of,BUT when I was raped I HATED it,it was horrible,I did think crazy thoughts but I hated it when he raped me,it was one of the worst things that happened to me.....

I didn't want him to rape me before that,I was only happy after I realized it was rape.....

but I wanted him to take advantage of me,but I did NOT give consent to oral sex. Does this still count as rape or sexual abuse?

[IAmScared]

again,I wasn't on medications and I'm very psychotic,but I still didn't give consent

[Sam W]

It sounds like thinking about this situation more is bringing up a lot of difficult, tangled feelings for you. That's incredibly common when someone experiences trauma. If it helps you sort them out at all, please know that unless you were to tell us "I consented" what you describe will continue to fall under the definition of sexual abuse.

Since we want you to get the care that's best suited to meet your needs, my suggestion is that the next time you meet with your therapist you ask to talk about this incident and the feelings you have around it in greater detail (if they end up trying to downplay or dismiss what happened, then you definitely need to find a new therapist). That way, the two of you can begin to work on ways you can start to heal from this incident.

[IAmScared]

This is what my sexual therapist wrote in email (translated to english):

"It's not easy to answer that question. Many times people agree to sex,not because they want it,but to satisfy the other person,not to insult that person or because they love them.Is that then rape? If there was a consent - it's not a rape. If there wasn't,it's a rape."



(also,I'd like to know,what is the difference between rape and sexual abuse?)

[Heather]

I don't feel comfortable responding much to what your therapist has said in email. For one, I don't know what exactly they were responding to, but it's also very unusual for therapists to be having these kinds of conversations in email with a patient, period, so I worry there's some whole context here we don't have.

Suffice it to say, however, I am not at all comfortable with the oversimplified things they are saying and do not feel a couple sentences like that adequately address what is or isn't rape or consent.

That all said, given some of what you have posted, I also feel like we are not likely to be able to help you very well with some of this. This kind of semi-public medium, and the fact that you've made clear you have severe mental illness that influences how you think about and process all of this, something we're simply not qualified to work with, both suggest to me that what you really ideally need is a counselor or therapist who is both qualified to work with your kinds of mental illness AND who has current training and education in the area of sexual abuse and assault from the victim's advocacy side, which it very much does not sound like your sex therapist does.

Per your general question, sexual abuse is a larger umbrella term, and rape -- or sexual assault -- is one kind of sexual abuse. Just like theft is an umbrella term and mugging or home robbery would be kinds of theft.

[IAmScared]

Can I just ask one question?

[IAmScared]

can it still be sexual abuse if i wanted to be raped but WHEN the situation actually happened I didn't consent?

[Heather]

For someone to be raped, that means the other person needs to be doing sexual things without that person's consent (without asking that person for permission and that person saying yes in some clear way) or against their expressed will (doing something even when someone demonstrates they don't want that thing).

If that isn't what happened to you -- if you DID give express consent and if you WANTED the sexual activity going on -- then you wouldn't be describing rape. But that doesn't mesh with what you've said elsewhere in this post, where you make clear there was not express consent and that what was done was against your will.

If and when someone wants to be abused, that doesn't make any abuse done to them not abuse.

It is largely the actions of the person doing the abusing that determine abuse, not how anyone they are abusing feels about it. In the event that someone wants to be abused (which is something that can happen for some people, especially people for whom abuse has been normalized), that want doesn't make the abuse not-abuse.

I really do think that the suggestion I made about taking this to a qualified therapist is the right way to go. But as I ask for a close on this, I also want to say that everyone -- you included -- gets to classify the experiences of your life like this for yourself. I feel a little like you've been asking us to convince you something was an abuse when you are saying from the front you do not think it is one. I'm not super comfortable with that whole setup, because it effectively seems to ask us to get in an argument with you about your own thoughts and feelings about your own experiences.

If you don't think a thing that happened to you was an abuse, you do get to not think that, and I really don't feel like it's our place, or very beneficial or productive, to try and convince you otherwise like this. But I do think that if you have felt like -- and especially if you still feel like -- you want people to do you harm, it's vital that THAT is something you ask for help with that from a qualified person.

[IAmScared]

I didn't say yes and i didn't want tu put his penis in my mouth

[IAmScared]

ok,I read what you wrote.

[Heather]

I really feel the need to ask again for the limits I suggested with this.

As you can see if you go back to the top of this thread, the way I'll respond to what you just said now would be the same way I did when you effectively started by saying the same thing above. If you didn't give consent to something sexual someone else did to you or made you do -- made you do by force or coercion -- you are describing some kind of sexual abuse, not consensual sex.

It very much feels like we're going in circles here to me. You know how we have responded to this already and what we have to say. I'm not sure if what's going on is just that you are having a very hard time accepting that you were assaulted -- which is understandable, it's something a lot of people struggle with -- or something else, but I feel like we've done the best we can for you with this and unless the conversation radically changes, it's just got us all trapped in a loop.

[IAmScared]

I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.

What happened was this:
"Look how my penis is looking at you,kiss it" - that's all he said
and I did it to satisfy him and for him to not leave me BUT i didn't say yes and I didn't want it. He knew I didn't want it.I felt huge discomfort and he knew it.Then I put his penis in my mouth for half of a second.

[IAmScared]

is that situation above still a rape?