Dear Binky:

You shared that your high school sweetheart and boyfriend of more than 3 years asked you for a break while in high school, so that he could “focus on school” and the relationship resume following a month-long break. Next. you asked him for a break at the beginning of college, so that you could be “making new friends and settling in“. The relationship resumed. He told you that during this latter break, he thought that you were “leaving him forever“, and therefore, “he got drunk every night, ended up sleeping with a friend a few times to ease the pain“.

Even though the two of you were on a break, and no talk regarding exclusivity preceded the break, you felt cheated and expressed it to him. He then “tried very hard to make it up to (you)“. The two of you had “a few fun dates in person“. In one of those fun dates, “he coerced (you) into giving him oral sex at a time (you) didn’t want to“.  The next date, you were drunk and you “pestered him for sex that night because the day before, he coerced (you)“. He rejected your advances, and later explained that you sexually assaulted him the night you were drunk by pestering him to have sex with you, which “gave him nightmares“, and therefore, “now he needs more time before he can have sex with (you)“.

You remember that during the night of the alleged sexual assault, you were “being sloppy and dancing around, and asking him many times if he could have sex” with you, and this is congruent with what he told you, that the claimed sexual assault consists of you repeatedly “asking for sex and said mean things about his hair“.

You wrote: “(I feel) wronged and falsely accused… feeling like I got cheated on… I feel like I am being slighted, because I didn’t hold a grudge against him for ‘threats and sexual coercion,’ but he immediately jumped to accuse me of ‘sexual assault’… A part of me feels like if he says it’s assault, then I should treat it like I did commit assault, even though it doesn’t feel like assault to me” –

My comments: 1) Wikipedia, on sexual assault: “Generally, sexual assault is defined as unwanted sexual contact. The National Center for Victims of Crime states:  Sexual assault takes many forms including attacks such as rape or attempted rape, as well as any unwanted sexual contact or threats. Usually, a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person’s body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person’s consent.”.

From what I read (and I am not a lawyer), if on the night you were drunk, there was no sexual physical touching between the two of you after you started pestering him, then there was no sexual assault. How could it be a sexual assault when there was no sex involved?

In the context of the workplace, “requests for sexual favors” (nolo. com/ legal encyclopedia) constitute sexual harassment in the workplace. Notice: (1) sexual harassment, not sexual assault, (2) the context is different from the one you described

On the other hand, the night or date before the claimed sexual assault, he coerced you. You wrote: “he coerced me into giving him oral sex at a time I didn’t want to“, and you “didn’t hold a grudge against him for ‘threats and sexual coercion”.

To coerce means “to persuade an unwilling person to do something by using force or threats” (online definition). Seems to me- and again, I am not a lawyer- that if he indeed used threats and sexual coercion against you, then he sexually assaulted you, particularly if his coercion was successful, resulting in a physical sexual activity taking place.

It may be worthwhile for you to pay for a visit to a lawyer in the location (city/state, country) where the latest occurrences took place, and find out for sure if there is any chance at all that your behavior that night could have constituted sexual assault, and if his behavior the night or date before constituted sexual assault.

2) If he indeed coerced you to have sex the date before, it may be that fearing legal consequences for sexually assaulting you, so he falsely accused you of sexually assaulting him the date after, so to put you on the defense, instead of the offense.

3) Following him telling you that he hooked up with his female friend during the college break in the relationship with you, you felt cheated, but he didn’t really cheat on you because there was no relationship, and no talk regarding not having sex with others during the break. If because you felt cheated, you repeatedly and falsely accused him of cheating on you, if you harassed him over it for a long time- it is possible that such harassment caused him to feel much anger and resentment, which may have been behind his rejection of your sexual advances that night, and the reason “he seems like he wants to be left alone right now“.

4) You shared that the reason why you pestered him for sex was that he sexually coerced you the night/ date before. Do you mean that you were angry at him for sexually coercing you the date before, and you wanted to do to him what he did to you, as an act of revenge?

anita

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