I sexually assaulted someone, drowning in guilt

I am a 17 year old female and recently I was at a party and...something happened that I'm horribly ashamed of.

I was slightly drunk in a room with this guy that I had just met (I don't even know who he was, we're practically strangers to each other). I was drunk-ish, but the guy I was with was sober. Anyways, without asking his permission or giving him any warning, I jumped on top of his lap and tried to kiss him on the lips. He kept turning his head away from me and saying no during it so I never actually kissed his lips, but I did manage to kiss his cheeks. When he didn't reciprocate, I told him to kiss me to which he said no again and I eventually got off of him.

After that, he was horribly uncomfortable. He looked very nervous being around me and kept twiddling his thumbs, and I immediately felt awful. Through my drubken state, I started to apologize profusely and tell him how sorry I was and how wrong what I did was. I asked him if he felt uncomfortable and wanted me to leave (to which he said no even though I could tell he was lying). I asked if he wanted me to get him anything or do anything for him to make him feel better, but he just said no.

Eventually I left, and when I saw him again later, I asked him to honestly tell me if he was uncomfortable before and he said that he was, but that he's no longer uncomfortable. I again apologized for my actions and told him how sorry I was and how unacceptable everything I did was.

I feel awful for what I did because I know it's sexual harassment and that I had made someone uncomfortable through my actions. I don't know this guy and I never will see him again, but I'm scared my actions will haunt him forever and that he will be scarred for life. I don't know how I should feel about this situation - all I know is that what I did was despicable and that I may have ruined someone's life in some way. What is the best course of action for myself now and, from a more objective standpoint, how should I feel towards everything that happened?

Your thoughts and emotions are your own so it's inappropriate for people to tell you how to think or feel. What you did was wrong but not at the level of wrongness you say it is. You would not have ruined this guy's life by flirting with him when he was uncomfortable with it. This guy went to a party knowing that people would be drinking so he would be expecting that kind of thing to happen. Also if he went into a room alone with a female then he should have anticipated something sexual could happen.

Thanks for your response. I should mention, though, that we weren't alone in the room; it was me, him, and two other girls (they had no part in anything, they were just sitting there on their phones). I was the only one drunk in the room. I don't know if any of that adds anything to the story, but I thought I should mention it.

It was crummy and thoughtless, but that's the extent of it. Not monstrous. Not evil. While it is comforting to think about matters around sexual offending in black & white terms, the only thing that is black & white is consent itself (i.e. whether one has it or not) - degrees of offence 100% exist, as with any sin or crime or regrettable action and yours is at the far end of the spectrum. You are not a rapist. The vast majority of people (including myself, who did something worse, for the record) would/ do not believe you should live out the rest of your life beating yourself up over this or self-identifying as a sex offender. If it helps you are, at 17, still technically a child. Could you draw a line in the sand at 18 and see it as the start of your new adult self? Brains keep maturing to one's mid-20s so you certainly ain't done changing yet! As such, this isn't something that should define you.

But it is something to learn from. It is a cold comfort, but take some heart from the fact that the guy you made uncomfortable clearly **isn't** traumatised and you did not take things as far as they might have gone. I know that you will now always be sure that any partner is enthusiastically consenting and clearly mutually participating in what's going on. I'm glad you're learning the lesson now because you're young and clearly self-reflective and compassion and can be a real tool for change in this world!

So, let people know about the important of enthused consent and of taking this stuff seriously! But also, it is fundamental (as helpfulalone has said) that you do not invalidate or disregard what the guy is saying he thinks and feels - even though I think you are doing it out of a sincere desire to be morally serious and accountable and it seems like the "good" thing to do i.e. to treat all sexual offending as the Worst. Possible. Crime. and all offenders as utterly irredeemable and all crimes as utterly life-ending.

But, the fact is, life does go on - lumps and all. It doesn't matter whether this *should* be the case or not - but, in this specific instance, the victim involved is okay. That's important! I think you helped a lot with that by directly addressing what you'd done and asking him if you made him feel uncomfortable.

Also, while I would never want to see this being talked about ~ in response to ~ an article or comment on the rape or abuse of women... a lot of people (including some feminists) say that men hardly ever, ever get abused or made to feel uncomfortable and that women never do such things. And I think that's really unhelpful 1.) Because it silences men who have experienced these things. 2.) It means that if a girl or a woman violates a guy's boundaries that can avoiding defining it as wrong or sexually abusive because it just doesn't fit the accepted narrative.

So - honestly speaking - I have a real chunk of respect for you for standing up and saying what you did was wrong. Especially for apologizing and owning your actions. What you did was selfish/ jerky, but admitting that is admirable. And what did was -only- selfish/ jerky... it wasn't deeply terrible or evil or anything like that. It wouldn't even make a news story.

It was a small wrong worth reflecting on. And it seems like you're already doing a great job doing so!

Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it! I am currently trying to process my thoughts and feelings and to figure out a way to live comfortably with myself. While rationally I know what I did wasn't the worst thing in the world, it was still bad enough to leave me with a lot of guilt and self-hatred, so I am trying to work through that.

I know you believe that I didn't traumatize this guy, but because I'll never see him again, I can only go by what I perceived - which was that he seemed very uncomfortable and, as a good judge of people, I feel like he was lying when he said he was okay. I just wish I could know for a fact that he's okay and not suffering or something.

Despite that, there's not much I can do about the situation other than make sure it NEVER happens again and that I find some way to move on without forgetting what happened. I have certainly learned a lesson here nonetheless, and I hope that it will be a lesson in self-improvement.

Well, someone finding something very uncomfortable, even violating, won't necessarily leave them traumatised for ever. From a personal experience, when I used to wear a kilt I had several instances of strangers quite aggressively trying to lift it up in public - one time a guy at a bar who succeeded, another time a small group of middle aged women in the queue at a supermarket.

At the time I was deeply uncomfortable and anxious and annoyed, but they certainly do not play on my mind daily or cause me nightmares. Not in the slightest.

I think the most important thing you can do is - you are right - ensure that you **never** do anything like that again. Everyone truly deserves a second chance! But it isn't the only thing you can do. As said, you can do a lot to educate others, ensuring that they know what sexual assault looks like and - indeed - that can can also be victims. You can ensure that if anyone ever makes a rape joke you take them up on it. You can stress the importance of good consent. You can volunteer. In a thousand small ways you can make a difference!

I don't see it as being as bad of a thing as sprock says it is. Technically it was wrong to do, but not worth drowning in guilt over. It doesn't make much difference that there were two other girls in the room. There is no way he could ever be traumatized over what happened.

Ah ~ I'm probably giving the impression of taking it too seriously! I definitely think being careful around boundaries is super important, but harassment may well be closer to the mark than assault and what Hithere did was a very long way from rape indeed. Where we definitely agree is on the fact that the guy is not traumatised. It's certainly something to learn from, but not something to be burdened by.

Hey all, thanks again for all the replies.

I've talked to a close friend about all this and how I'm feeling (she's the only who I've talked to about this), and she basically reiterated everything you guys have said said regarding the situation. She also believes that what I did was wrong, but that I've clearly learned from my mistake and that it's important and healthy for me to forgive myself and move on. (She also brought up an interesting point about how the boy I was with is also probably trying to forget the situation, and that I should, too.) She said she knows I'm a good person, and that I had a lapse of judgment and did something bad, but the amount of remorse and guilt I feel for it shows that I'm a good human being.

And I'm sorry to revive this thread and all, but I just can't believe it for myself? Maybe it is all the awareness about sexual abuse/rape in recent years, but I can't seem to forgive myself or to stop thinking about it. I've always considered myself someone who is very aware/concerned about topics regarding consent, but then I go and do something like this?

I keep thinking about all the celebrities/YouTubers I know who have been revealed to be sexual abusers/rapists (or even just committed acts of sexual assault/harassment), and how disgusted I and the rest of the world are by their actions...But aren't I exactly the same? Assault is assault, no matter how I look at, so shouldn't I be looked at with the same amount of disgust and contempt as these other people are? How are my actions any different from other sexual assaulters that are (rightfully) hated by the entire world? What constitutes a "true" sexual assaulter, someone who is actually a disgusting, immoral person, from a person who did what I did? Aren't we technically one and the same?

And then there's the part of me that's kind of scared by what I did...a part of me is concerned about one day doing something like that again. Rationally, I know I would never ever want to do that again, but if I did it once, who's to say I won't again? Should I even morally be allowed to be intimate with others ever again for their safety? Am I even worthy/deserving of romantic relationships - because who's to say the other person won't be harmed by my actions?

All I can really say is that I strongly relate to every last one of your sentiments and that good friends have told me precisely the same thing that your friend told you.

Personally speaking, the fact that you immediately apologised to the victim involved marks you out as different to the youtube abusers, many of whom have either denied the harm they caused or just outright appealed to their fans for sympathy.

Also, while abuse may be abuse, there are degrees of harm, as reflected by our criminal code. There is no possible way you would serve legal time for what you did. You are not a rapist. You did something stupid, but you haven't destroyed someone's life.

Furthermore, the sad fact is that a lot of people have done something similar when young and will never self-identify as abusers. Even just thinking about things that have have been done to me (as a white straight hella privileged guy!) I've had my kilt lifted up by strangers in the street; had my nipple squeezed by a guy making homophobic comments because I was wearing a pink t-shirt; had a bunch of blokes hold my head forcibly in place to make me inhale poppers; had my butt grabbed etc. And I'm entirely sure that all these people saw what they did as just a laugh, which they had forgotten about before the day was out.

If you look at Struckman-Johnson's scary but important study: 'Tactics of sexual coercion: when men and women won't take no for an answer' (2003) they found that 40% of men and 26% of women admitted to having previously made 'persistent attempts to have sexual contact with someone who has already refused'.

Now, the first important thing to take away from this is that the majority of men and women *haven't* committed sexual abuse... i.e. such behaviour isn't normal and even if it was it still wouldn't be acceptable.

But it is widespread. And I can't help but thinking that the insistence that sexual abuse is monstrously unforgivable and that abusers should be tortured to death etc. hides an anxiety on the part of the public that maybe they too have acted abusively in the past.

It takes a certain amount of strength to accept that you have acted abusively. I think this has marked a significant turning point in your life. I believe you will educate others about consent and how it is possible to believe something in 'theory' without having truly internalised it.

Furthermore, otherwise sensible, progressive bloggers, especially feminists, have a tendency to claim that women virtually never assault men, that such incidents are microscopically small. Studies like Stuckman-Johnson's suggest this is not the case. Definitely more men than women commit such acts, but the amount of women who have committed assault is not negligible.

I honestly think you can make a change. I believe that about myself and so I believe that about you. In many ways I think you are now less likely to sexually assault someone than many people who say that "all rapists should be killed" and never think they have the potential to abuse someone. That kind of cognitive dissonance is ugly and at least you are free of it.

As I said before, you are 17 (unless you have now turned 18). You were still a child when you committed this act and your brain is still maturing. You are definitely not "stuck" and I honestly think that the horror and shame you have felt about your actions will have rewired your brain to ensure you never do anything similar.

At the end of the day, what you did was wrong, but it wasn't monstrously bad. If it were a scene in a film people would shake their heads or feel annoyed, but they wouldn't be desperately averting their eyes or crying. You wouldn't be making any Top 100 'Most Shocking Films' lists. What you did was crappy. That's all. Worth learning from, but certainly not worth beating yourself up forever over.

Finally, I have spent a lot of the last 8 years believing I don't deserve romantic relationships and this has essentially led to me alienating anyone romantically interested in me by telling them this repeatedly and fixating on the past. It hasn't be useful and it hasn't been morally good. It's easier said than done, but once you have told a prospective partner about what you did, you can no longer tell them not to love you. They can make their own moral choice. You totally have the right to be forgiven, but not to tell other people that they aren't allowed to forgive you! Accepting love into your heart will always do more good than harm.