This comment right here needs to be higher up. ESPECIALLY if alcohol is involved and ESPECIALLY if we're talking about survivors of SA.

This is really the only thing OP needs to see.

Informed affirmative consent, and there’s no reason it can’t be sexy or dirty talk.

“I want to make out with you” is way more sexy than going in for a kiss and getting rebuffed because you misread the cues

Even if she’s verbally allowed someone to touch before, ask again.

Yes. No "I assumed." Ever.

or you will be like u/ultramagat and the altar boy

I’ve ended up making out and playing with the tits of a lot of my female friends when we’re drunk sharing a bed. Some of them we have sex, a couple others - like this girl - the boundary is between the legs even when they’re naked in bed. The thing is once you find the boundary is and if it gets to “no” then that’s just it, the answer is no. You do not try again. Saying this from both sides of the coin, I’ve always respected no when they aren’t comfortable going further, and all my female friends have always respected when I said no when we we were fooling around a bit but I didn’t want to go all the way to fucking. It’s okay to find the boundary if there is one, but once you do you better respect it.

I think in a lot of close male/female friendships the reaction would’ve been “it’s all good just keep the hands above the waist” but A) you tried twice after being told no and B) she had been previously sexually assaulted and you knew this beforehand

Maybe she’ll be okay with you in time, maybe she won’t but that’s her call. In the meantime learn from this and don’t be shitty- no means no.

Well he was inebriated which throws any form of consent out the window

Not only that but literally made HER comfort HIM immediately after by bawling about some random ass shit.

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C'mon now you are just being too harsh. They like each other and he clearly regrets what he did and they've discussed the event...she understands that he tried to make a move but stopped when she said no. It's not like he is a rapist or something....take a chill pill😆 They will both get over this!

I am perfectly aware that being drunk is not a justification, just mentioned it so that the full picture would come across. Obviously I myself am responsible for my mistakes, and that includes this horrible event, I know that.

As I already said in a response to another comment I refrained from telling her how I perceived the situation because she made clear that she does not want an apology and I don't want her to feel like she is urged to understand someone who hurt her. She doesn't want to talk to me, which does mean I can not tell her how I feel but it's only natural that she wants to be left alone so I respect that.

As for my depression, I was having it under control pretty well, this one experience just makes me feel worse than I have felt in years in so many ways, maybe worse than I have ever felt. I don't intend to harm myself but the intrusive thoughts are definitely there and I am trying my best to fight them off. In part because I don't want her to feel like her perfectly reasonable reaction to my fuck up makes her responsible for what would happen to me if I did so something to myself.

We were not making out, we were just laying in bed and I think snuggling although I honestly don't remember it that well. I am entirely unsure why she said that it would be ok for me to touch her breasts, we were pretty close to each other and at least emotionally pretty intimate with each other, to the point where it would maybe even look like something was going on between us if other people were to read our chats and/or listen to our phone calls. That has been to varying degrees over the months however and she did show romantic interest in other people a few times, during which we were way less intimate with each other. So it's somewhat unclear how exactly she felt about me but as far as I know she just thought of me as a close friend, maybe an inbetween of that and a romantic interest but that is not something I know for sure. She had also told me beforehand that when I was to visit her I could use her lap or her breasts as pillow if I wanted to so it might be that she just didn't mind with people she is close to being intimate with her to that exact point and that she wouldn't have thought anything of it. My guess would probably be that it was a mixture of genuine comfortableness with that in particular and also panic response/coping at the same time but again, this is just pure assumption.

The getting drunk immediately when nobody else was is definitely a self control issue. His actions after, while not excused, are almost certainly a result of the alcohol which removes inhibitions and lowered self control even further.

You hit it on the head with that one. He clearly knows he has a problem, idk why he felt the need to out himself like this. Stay off the internet and go get some help.

Assuming that the story is 100% true(never the case), I feel like the first time very well could have been a misunderstanding but it does seem sketch because he was drunk. That being said, according to the story, she really wanted to see him, invited him over to stay the night, had beds pushed together, etc. This was a romantic night where neither party communicated what was and wasn't appropriate. Two young people not planning things out well or communicating well is a bit rough to start calling him a sexual predator. The second time after she put explicit boundaries, he's hit assault and the situation got very rapey. Chick is very well in the right mindset to ghost him. That being said, dude needs to not drink and get counseling. He clearly has some serious issues and needs to get to a point where he loves himself before he starts trying to love someone else. I'm very sorry for the girl, but the first part is on her as well for not communicating her boundaries. Both parties are wrong for not communicating. It sounds like both parties have a need for counseling and self-love. Dude needs to completely stop drinking. Learn from it, thank God that it wasn't worse. Leave the girl alone and stop sexually assaulting people. No means no, even 5 minutes and some cuddles later.

Is that a genuine question about what goes on inside my head or is it a rhetorical question pointing out how wrong this was? Because if it's the former, I can answer that if you're really curious. If it's the latter, point taken, I have nothing to argue about. And no, this is not a common thing I do to anyone.

Probably the best comment from from this post worth reading...period. All the downvoters and people choosing to insult the guy should definitely read this.

I read that as, provide a full written confession of your crime so that she can choose to prosecute you if she wants. But that’s just me.

Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I will be reevaluating my relationship with alcohol. I've had trouble with alcohol in the past but I never hurt someone before because of it. When I was 15, I got myself drunk to the point of collapse on the regular and one time I woke up in the hospital after drinking myself into a near death state. I have since severely reduced the amounts of alcohol that I take in but as it seems that was not enough. Since I now know that I might become a liability to those around me, I'm going to consider staying away from alcohol altogether from now on.

The letter might actually be a good idea, I hadn't thought about that. That way I could offer her a formal and complete apology without putting her into a situation where she has to read it if she doesn't want to deal with the topic.

I don't want to make it sound like it was because of the alcohol, that is not what I am trying to do here. I only bring it up to portray the situation more accurately. I do absolutely intend to take the consequences and to take full responsibility and to better myself so that this doesn't happen again.

I am aware that I am 100% at fault. I have actually thought about turning myself in but knowing her she might actually not want that because it could draw attention to what happened and I am unsure if she would want people around her to know about this. I would immediately confess if she pressed charges. I might actually suggest to her that she press charges. However, being devasted about this is not something I choose, nor is it something I need the to have the right for. I did something horrible and it is natural for me to feel horrible about it, the guilt eats me up and I am not searching for a way to get rid of it nor for an excuse to let myself sink into it, all I want is to figure out what the best way to move forward is, not for my own sake but so that this never happens again and so that maybe, if there is even the tiniest thing I can do for her to help her heal, that I can do that. As it stands now, the only thing I can do is to stay away and I am going to do that.

I don't intend to hide behind the alcohol, I am completely aware that this is my own fault and I don't want to run from the accountability. The only reason I mentioned the alcohol was to get the events across as accurately as possible. I don't have a drinking problem so I don't really think an AA meeting would do much but staying away from alcohol all together is definitely something that I am contemplating right now. As is therapy.

Ouh boy. It's a pretty long story but: There was this other girl, also a close friend of mine, who had been in love with me for over a year by that point. She never outright told me until this year but I always knew because she was not especially subtle about it and constantly gave off hints that she has feelings for me. Eventually, I also developed feelings for her but because I was scared of commitment and because I knew how vulnerable she was and I was scared that I could hurt her I never confronted her about it and just...ran from it. She then shortly got together with her ex, which made me regret the whole thing. That's when Becky and I met. I ended up latching myself onto Becky for emotional support and I thought I was starting to like her, although looking back at it now, it's very likely I was just talking myself into it to distract myself and I tried to transfer my already existing, pretty strong feelings for that other girl onto Becky. She felt completely overwhelmed by it and rejected me, telling me that no matter what, she could never see me as a romantic prospect (though she told me that was not true this year, so it probably was just a coping response) and that she really likes me as a friend and does not know how to act around me now as she does not want to hurt me. The other girl and her boyfriend then broke up almost immediately again, I do not know why but I know that she had been conflicted about having feelings for me (a guy she thought would never give her a chance) and wanting to go back to her ex from the start so the possibility of me being the reason for their break up does exist I guess. Anyhow, she tried spending time with me again but I kept telling myself that I had moved on to Becky and because I came to regret giving up so quickly on that girl I got really fixated on not giving up on Becky so fast. We both did some bad things, we were constantly arguing when with our friends and although I do have to admit that I should have been more mature about it back then, her constant remarks about our fractured friendship, eg talking about movies or memes with our friends and then saying to me "You know, I would really like to show you but oh, we are keeping our distance from each other" made more angry at her, so we kept exchanging remarks like these back and forth. Eventually, I made a bet with my friends that she would develop feelings for another guy in that group (which did end up happening) and when she found out about it, she singled me out about it and broke off our friendship. She and him got together and he broke up with her a couple months later because he felt bored by her not being toxic enough (sounds like a joke but that's literally what happened). Hadn't heard from her since, until the end of last year when it just so happened that we started to slowly get in contact again through our mutual friends, but since then the contact between her and them slowly faded away so I was the last one of our friend group to be in contact with her. There's more to it but this is basically the gist of it.

Thank you for being more understanding than I could ever ask for. I am so sorry that you had to go through what I put her through and I hope you're doing better. I am trying not to torture myself about it but it really fucked with the way I think of myself and I'm having a difficult time to find the right way to accept what happened, I want to accept it and move forward but I don't want to deal with it as "something that happened, gotta move on" either. Don't worry about your english, you're doing great and it's actually my second language too (or forth language, depending on how you count). And also thank you for understanding why I mentioned that I was drunk and that I am not trying to shove the blame off to the alcohol.

I wanted to apologize to her but she did not want to hear an apology. She said to leave her alone so I did. While she hasn't blocked me anywhere, I am pretty sure she trusts me to just not text her and she has deleted me from various social media platforms, probably so that she doesn't have to see my name anymore which is understandable. As suggested in another comment, I will in due time prepare a formal and in-depth apology where I plan to detail what exactly I am sorry for (so as to make clear that I understand all of the mistakes that led to this) and where I will reassure here that she only has to read it if she some day decides to and that the apology letter does not mean that she will have to hear from me again. Stopping drinking is definitely something I will attempt and I have been thinking about other ways to move forward and better myself.

You're right. He's not actually a rapist. He did however sexually assault his friend and if she chooses to report the crime and he's prosecuted I hope no one like you is on that jury because he DID sexually assault her and he should face consequences for that.

Thank you for encouraging me to do the right thing. Really, that means so much to me.

From what I understand though, sleeping next to her friends at sleepovers is something she sometimes does. That did not have to mean anything. I don't believe she made a mistake by trusting me to not cross any boundaries and it goes without saying that I did make a mistake in breaking that trust, regardless of what else happened. She never said anything clear about being interested in me and she has been romantically interested in other people in the meantime. Maybe things could have been different, who knows, but that's not what happened anyhow.

Thanks for the kindness. I know I have the capacity to be better, the thought that just eats me up more than anything else is the trauma I must have caused in her. I will never be able to forgive myself for that and I will never have the chance of changing what happened. But at the very least I know I can take steps so that this doesn't ever happen again.

21 is an adult and attempted rape isn't "a good person who fucked up". A good person who fucked up is getting too drunk and throwing up, not trying to forcibly assault someone else. At 21 you should know not to touch someone without consent.

Dude no, I would never even think about saying that she is overreacting and you should not ever say that to anyone who has gone through something like she did. What I did was wrong and acknowledging that is incredibly important.

Well aren’t you a bit overkill. Lets address a few things about this real quick. 1. OP literally is groveling about how terrible they feel because they made a very dumb mistake while intoxicated( they not only identified but accepted their failure) meaning in an inebriated state of mind he isn’t able to ask for consent 2. If Becky chose to report him she would be well within her rights to do so but it all go what OP is saying is true then this wasn’t a situation of malicious intent and is more deserving of giving Becky time and space to fully wrap her head around what she feels necessary. Rather than judging this dude who’s clearly in a fucked position, give him some recourses to get the help he needs before things potentially get worst.

I agree. She’s been assaulted before, and she told this to him in confidence, and trusted him. He then turns around and makes her worst nightmare come true: Sexual assault from a “friend.” That’s something a monster would do.

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