Dear Candise:

You are welcome.

“He also said something about having a constant need for affection”- I suggested to you earlier that a culture that encourages men to use women for sex, pressuring and dishonestly manipulating women to have sex, ignoring her “no”, is a culture that “produces rude and cruel rapists out of boys”.

You know how in cartoons, the evil creature, or the bad guy always looks bad and always sounds bad? In real life a bad guy doesn’t always look and sound bad. In this context we are discussing, the rapist sometimes looks and sounds like a nice guy, and sometimes genuinely so, because the boy is still in the rapist: the rapist will rape you (proceed to have sex with you even though you said “no”), but once in a while you will see the boy in him. He will express some affection for you, or you will see that he needs affection, not just sex. But outside of those boyish moments, he is a rapist.

Some people think of rapists as men who use physical weapons or their physical body strength to hold a woman down or threaten her life, but for many rapists it is not necessary for them to use physical weapons and body strength when they can accomplish the same result (sex) using psychological weapons (lies, false promises, guilt-tripping and confusing the intended victim, repeated pressure). With a bit more time, they get what they want without appearing violent or bad.

You quoted something he told you: “I have feelings for you..” I don’t care to continue to read the quote because it started with a lie. When someone lies, no point in listening/ reading further.

“On the day of our ‘date’ I also told him that I’ll let him know when I’m ready to have sex (I didn’t know what else to say to get it to stop) and that was his excuse as to why he kept asking for sex”-

– you were under pressure from this rapist. You were also lonely and in need of attention and affection, so you were.. kind of negotiating with the rapist. He then did what rapists do and used whatever you say against you so to have sex with you.

“Maybe I should just stay away from men”- stay away from men who talk to you about sex before the first date (“this guy tend to talk about sex a lot..”). In addition, when a man shows interest in you, make it very clear to the man that for the first month of dating, you will not talk about sex or have any kind of physical contact with him. One month is not a long time,  but it will give you the opportunity you need to check the man’s intentions. If after you tell the man about this one month requirement, he agrees, but chooses to talk about sex- then end contact with him. If he tries to touch you- end contact with you. If he doesn’t ask you to go on dates/ get together during the first month (figuring he will fast forward to the second month)- end contact with him.

But if the man respects your requirement, spends time with you while not mentioning sex at all and not touching you at all- this may be the beginning of a love relationship. Instead of talking about sex and trying to have sex with you, he will be getting to know you as a person (your thoughts, hopes, dreams, feelings) , and you will get to know him as a person.

anita