Sunday, November 1, 2009

Girl Gone Bad

A friend is a friend until she rapes you. Then it's just awkward.

How does a woman rape a man, and can you even call it rape? I believe the answer is yes, though I also believe that a man getting raped by a woman simply cannot be as traumatic as any variation of a woman getting raped by a man. Then again, I have only this experience to go by.

I went to the CalArts Halloween party on Friday night. My friend Jeff is a grad student there. Full of the weirdest art students in the nation, CalArts is known for their annual Halloween party, full of ornate costumes and dance floors pounding with experimental trance music. Sounds like fun, no?

My friend Sally who just moved into town had heard about these parties and invited herself along. She was a good friend, and offered to drive, so I thought nothing of it. The more the merrier.

I went with the easy, last-minute choice to dress as a pun, and concocted "Wasted Time." All that means is that I would wear a t-shirt with a large clock drawn on it and get wasted.

And wasted I got. So wasted, in fact, that I experienced my first black out and ended up in a pool of my own vomit on my friend Jeff's bed. "That can be dangerous," my sister said today when I recounted the story. Yes, yes it was, but not for reasons of asphyxiation or alcohol poisoning or any of the normal threats.

I awoke at three in the morning to my friend Jeff's new lover punching me in the chest. Maybe she was punishing me for puking on where she thought she would be sleeping, or maybe she just wanted to take advantage of a helpless, passed out dude. Either way, it wasn't fun. I groggily asked her to stop and she got one last sock in before retiring to the floor with Jeff who was himself too drunk to worry about his sullied bed.

My friend Sally had to drop her sleeping bag on the floor next to Jeff and his horrible sex buddy. Before long, through my dazed state, I heard sex sounds coming from Jeff's area. I tried to fall back asleep, turning toward the less vomitous region of the bed.

If waking up, incapacitated from my drunken, blacked out state to a girl I'd never seen before punching me wasn't enough, what happened next really stamped the night as the biggest mistake with alcohol I've ever made.

My friend Sally, who, admittedly, had been the number three in a threesome I had with one of my girlfriends in college, decided that this was an apt moment to get laid by me. Whether she was inspired by Jeff and company, or just thought it was okay since we had done it before, I don't know, but I never wanted to have sex with Sally that night, especially not in a half-conscious state.

I remember her crawling up into the bed, directly into the vomit. I remember wondering what the hell she was doing. I remember waking up again to her hand fondling my penis, making it hard. Then she started moving her leg across my body to mount me.

I was awake enough by this point to know what she was doing. I had to make a quick decision. I had two choices. Either I would say "stop," risking her embarrassment and rejection and possibly the end of our friendship, or say "put on a condom," letting her do it and hope it gets slotted under the category of silly moments in our sexual history.

I quickly told her to put on a condom just before she slipped me naked inside of her. I had one in my backpack. She complied, thankfully.

After two minutes I got soft. She stopped, crawled back onto the floor. It was weird.

The next morning, Jeff assisted me in tossing his sheets and duvet into a plastic bag for me to take to an unlucky dry cleaning service. The ride home from CalArts in Sally's car was torturous: silence sprinkled with forced chatter about the radio and the automatic windows.

I haven't spoken to Sally since Saturday morning. I don't know when I will. Knowing her, she probably won't confront me about it, so eventually it's going to be me calling her and preemptively forgiving her, without saying those words exactly. Any semblance of normalcy in our friendship will be difficult to achieve in the near future.

Should the word "rape" be reserved for something other than what happened Friday night? I don't know. But I do know that I was violated, and that what happened was not my choice.

18 comments:

Expat Barbie said...

this is a powerful post.

and i think you're very brave for coming forward and writing about it.

Unknown said...

oh, and i love your opening line...

Gorilla Bananas said...

It sounds more like "socially awkward sex" than rape. She didn't threaten you, you didn't resist.

Laszlo Brown said...

Thanks for the honesty, Gorilla. More opinions on the subject are welcome. I'm trying to figure out for myself how to categorize it.

Mike said...

Umm, if your penis gets hard, it might not be rape in that situation. Just saying.

Brian Miller said...

intriguing...there are fine lines wrapped tightly around that definition...can it not be rape because of your natural body function...i dunno. because you did not fight back...though that argument would not work if it was an inebriated woman...i dunno. intriguing post though.

Anonymous said...

That doesn't sound like rape to me.

You liked it. Another notch.

Secretia (it doesn't make you a bad guy)

Surge said...

Uh, well,
Rape;
'Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent. Rape is generally considered a serious sex crime, as well as a civil assault.'

People don't generally say "Yes, we can have sex now" right before they have sex. Or attempt to. If you'd had sex with her before, with your consent she probably thought it was okay.
There are other times when somebody will let somebody take advantage of them for one reason or another (awkwardness, unsureness, low-self esteem, passiveness ect) and it isn't considered rape because you did not straight out say no.

Either way, it's a sad situation. I've been in it, and it went on for about a month, and due to age, I think they would call it rape.
It's gross.

Stacey J. Warner said...

hmmmmm, interesting. it sounds like one big sobering mess...yikes. Maybe she won't bring it up. I mean if a guy doesn't stay hard, well that is a sure sign that what you are doing isn't working...

as for rape, not sure...if you had so no, then maybe but you made the choice to say condom instead...glad you did by the way.

you don't want a baby with sally.

much love

Expat Barbie said...

a few of you seem to be missing a sensitivity chip on this issue -- remember, laszlo had one hell of a weekend.

ok, i'd like to address a few of these comments:


Otin - The penis is a marvelous appendage, and literally has a 'head of it's own.' even a quadrapelegic (where the nerves from brain to phallus are severed) can maintain an erection and perform sexually. Trust me on that one. SO, it goes without saying then, that Laszlo's hard-on does not mean that he consented. Biology will out.

Surge - the poor guy was totally wasted. if a GIRL were in his situation, and a friend fucked her when she was BARELY conscious, wouldn't that be construed as rape?

I think our society is uncomfortable with the idea that a WOMAN can rape a MAN. But rape need not be a violent penetrative act, and clearly, Laszlo was beyond drunk (plenty of evidence to that fact) and not in a position to fully consent.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

I think like with male on female rape it all comes down to consent. We call sex with a person below a certain age statitory 'rape' even if consent is given. If he didn't consent then it is forced sex and that is rape. What an unsexy horrible moment. I admire your honesty and courage to bring up this subject.

Surge said...

Crazy baby mama, I never said it wasn't rape and I never said it is. Cearly I don't even know.

It just sounds to me like she thought it was okay because she didn't keep going... she stopped.. I think that in that sort of situation you can talk to the person before taking further actions unless they act very rudely about it. Or thats just the way I am, which is probably bad, because even in MY situation I don't want to take action for fear that I'm wrong and it wasn't rape.

It is bad, and it is a bad situation, and it's very very bad for both people.
It's terrible, but I'm not uncomfortable with the fact that mean can be raped by women as well. I just didn't know that it doesnt have to be a violent, penetrative act.. people can be taken advantage of and made to feel disgusting in sexual situations that they allow, and I guess I would just assume the other person thinks it is okay because they actually thought the OTHER person thought it was all right, too.. even though they didn't know how they secretely felt.

Midtown Girl said...

Whoa.

There is some deep stuff here.

Did she actually force you, or you just felt bad saying no and went ahead...either way you sound deeply affected by it. So sorry you had to go through this!!

steveroni said...

Yeah, there is some deep stuff going on here, but not TOO deep, mind you. Just deep enough.

What got ME to comment here...we have YOU, a guy who is just plain "wasted", who also has a good hard in progress, with two hands wrapped around it--and yet you have the presence of mind to ask for a condom (even if it is for a wrong motive)! THAT is manliness, in my book!

Mike said...

Crazy Baby Mama- In his own words, he said that he had a choice. Having sex with someone because you don't want to hurt their feelings and your friendship is not a rape in my opinion. If you have the presence of mind to make the conscious choice of saying, "Grab a condom", which you just happen to be carrying, or rolling over and saying get away from me, and you make the first choice, then it has to be deemed willing. The only way that I could see this as rape would be if she had some sort of weapon that would not allow him to make that choice! The argument that he was too wasted does not fly, because if you are too wasted to know that someone is on top of you, then you are not going to have the realization that you had a choice and the memory of the event so vivid afterwards that you can write about it!

Mike said...

I am sorry if this affected him badly, but I was just looking at the facts of the situation.

Expat Barbie said...

otin, the fact remains that your argument about the workings of the penis was STILL specious.

Laszlo Brown said...

Thanks for everyone's responses. More discussion continues on Surge's thoughtful and interesting blog entry
here
.