Scarleteen

i hate that im even thinking about this. i dont know why its bothering me so much. i keep telling myself its really not that important and im over reacting and it wasnt that bad. but its. still. bothering me. i dated this girl for about 5 months, she broke up with me for unrelated stuff about 2 months ago. she was really great and i really do believe she is a good person. the issue was the sex. i am not a very sexual person and i have a ridiculously complicated relationsip with sex and my own sexuality. we are both trans, so i kinda thought she'd at least understand that a little bit because of dysphoria,,, but no. more than half of the times that we had sex, it wasnt exactly my choice.
typically, this what it would look like: she just would start doing something out of nowhere like kissing my neck, touching my legs in sexually suggestive ways, or (most commonly) just start touching my, uh, area. id repeatedly say things like "stop", "no", "im not kidding", "seriously please stop", and "[safeword]". which she never ever once took seriously. she would just. keep going. and okay. so, im anemic and very weak and very short. she is healthier, much taller than me, and much stronger. despite this knowledge, id often try to push her off of me or move her hands. and that would result in her pinning me down or restricting my body in some way. it kinda sucked. so usually i would just give up on trying to stop it and just let her have what she wants.
i figured, since i let her do it eventually, it wasnt a problem. plus, she was my girlfriend and it was fair that she wanted sex. and im the Boyfriend so im supposed to like it. i mean physically, it felt good, theres no denying that. but emotionally, it was exhausting. i never really brought it up to her. or anyone else, until very recently. throughout our whole relationship, i sort of idealized her. she was a pretty girl that wanted to be with me. it was mindblowing. and i think that resulted in me never truly recognizing the problem and convincing myself it was my fault anyway and i was being unreasonable.
im still not sure about all of it. and i hate calling it "sexual abuse" because it wasnt that bad, but im not sure how else to define it. this whole thing just sucks and its so confusing and dysphoria inducing. i dont know what im supposed to do at this point. am i supposed to do anything?

thank u for taking the time to read this

:^)

I'm so sorry this happened alligatoralley!

You have every reason to feel pain around it...

Absolutely it can happen that our bodies can show the signs of arousal and stimulation even when the overall situation is something we're strongly against, and are deeply unhappy with and a painful experience on an emotional and psychological level after the fact.

When you said it "wasn't that bad" I'm wondering what this means to you?

I think it is perfectly ok to describe something as sexual assault even if you just didn't find the incident as impactful as you might expect. I would say every part of what you describe would qualify this as assault, abusive and coercive. However that doesn't mean you have to feel a certain way about it.

You don't have to do anything either. But, it can be helpful to explore the difficult feelings and talk them through.

We'd be more than happy to talk about it with you!

Would you like to talk more about this, or aspects of it?

so i've kind of been avoiding this subject for a little bit, otherwise i would have gotten back to this post sooner. i've taken some time and have ended up just really angry about the situation. i texted the ex about it and she responded with "fair enough." and "i have no excuses." so i guess thats good if she realized what she did.
when i say it wasnt that bad i mean like. others have had worse happen. and she was someone i did love. i figured i owed it to her in a way? a lot of the weight of the situation really didnt hit me until after we broke up.
i feel shitty about it right now because it feels like that kind of shit just keeps finding me. but im working through it and i'll be okay. :^)

That's okay, we're here for you to talk about this at your own pace.

It's totally understandable that you're angry! You absolutely never owe anyone sex, for any reason, the end. Your ex pushed past your boundaries, repeatedly, even when you expressed them in multiple ways, and that is not only morally wrong it is also sexual assault, as you've said.

You mentioned other people having worse happen. It's totally possible to see that others have had deeply traumatic experiences without that making what you've been through any smaller. Like, if I have a broken arm and you have two broken arms, it doesn't make my arm any less broken - does that make sense?

Of course, there is no one way to feel after experiences like this, and if you are feeling mostly okay or neutral that's fine too - we're here to listen either way. You say though that "this shit just keeps finding" you, which sounds like you're having some feelings. Do you want to share? How did you feel after texting your ex?