So much guilt/can't go on

I understand what your saying and I agree. I've stopped talking to her and bugging her about it because it isn't fair on her. It's just that every time she said she forgave me or she said that she wasn't uncomfortable at the time etc I feel like my brain just wasn't sinking this in and I was choosing to not believe her and I feel like I'm a horrible person and I hate it because I don't want to be a horrible person and it's the worst feeling ever. I don't want to hurt anyone.

This is all starting to get an OCD feel to it.

Mind you, this isn't a diagnosis. But you wouldn't happen to check things a hundred times or something, would you?

that every time she said she forgave me or she said that she wasn't uncomfortable at the time etc I feel like my brain just wasn't sinking this in

I can do that with plugs and swiches and space heaters and upstairs faucets. I can see it's off/unplugged, I can touch it, feel it, see it, but a part of my brain is detached and doesn't accept what my senses tell me- I feel as if I have to somehow crawl in the thing or merge my atoms with it or something, otherwise I don't really KNOW. In other words, my brain doesn't sink it in. Or just at least watch it continuously, because the second I turn away, I don't know it's unplugged.

And what do I do? I ######6 walk away. And you have to walk away from this. Most guys would be ecstatic at being let off the hook so easily. You are far from unusual in being a jerk as a teenager. Get over it, sweet pea. We all do $#%^. We have to get over it.

I can relate to what your saying about the ocd thing, but with different types of things. I'm just going to try therapy asap and see if it helps me at all with moving on from this, even though I feel like I don't deserve to move on because I'm almost certain that I've committed a horrible crime and I should just be punished, ugh, I dunno. Thankyou for all of your advice though, I really appreciate all of it.

-- Mon Jun 06, 2016 3:14 pm --

I just want to know if what I did makes me a rapist. I think it was definitely sexual assault and harassment. Does anyone know if I can and should go to jail for this and how much time I could possibly be looking at? If I tell my therapist about this, won't it be mandatory for her to report me to the police. Does anyone have any idea? I can't just ignore this. I need to know.

-- Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:37 pm --

Please, someone. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Look, personally speaking, I think what you did was wrong (indeed, it is similar to what I myself did). Not evil. Not worthy of death. But wrong. Maybe you'd even feel better in the long-run if you were sentenced and punished. But the most important thing is how your friend feels about what you did and what she wants from you. She feels okay. She does not believe she was abused. She wants you to move on.

I've just (rather self-destructively) spent the last two days reading about the Stanford rape case and you clearly aren't in the same category as that guy. What you did was bad, but it was not monstrous. Personally I think it might make sense to say you acted in an abusive way, but you are not a rapist - and I suspect law enforcement and most people would agree.

Furthermore, you were still a kid and I don't believe adults should be forever burdened by their behaviour as a child. Try to draw a line in the sand at '18' separating 'adult you' and 'child you'. On a real, physical level you are a different person. The brain keeps grows and developing until one's mid-20s. If your brain is different then 'you' are also different.

The best thing you can do right now is to listen to your friend and respect her wishes not to take the matter so seriously and accept that she is fine. If you want to feel like you are redeeming yourself/ earning a place in society, then educating others about good consent, calling out rape jokes, and maybe volunteering at a shelter would be a great start.

The fact of the matter is, there is still a scary amount of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy when it comes to the topic of sexual offending. People like to believe that abusers are monsters comprising 0.1% of the population and that all that we need to do to change society is to identify and kill such people. But then look at studies like this:

http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/30/1077801216651339.full.pdf

We found that 54.3 percent of the intercollegiate and recreational athletes and 37.9 percent of non-athletes had engaged in sexually coercive behaviors – almost all of which met the legal definition of rape.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12806533

We investigated women's and men's reports of experiencing and using tactics of post-refusal sexual persistence, defined as persistent attempts to have sexual contact with someone who has already refused [...] More men (40%) than women (26%) reported having used such tactics; this difference was significant for the sexual arousal, emotional manipulation and lies, and intoxication categories.

Does that mean that pressuring someone into sexual activity is okay? No. Absolutely not. It is always wrong. Consent might be engaged, mutual, continuous and enthusiastic (with both partners over the age of consent, unless they are very close in age).

Are the majority of people sexual offenders? No ~ meaning it is not normal behaviour.

But as you can see **it is horribly common** ... which is to say, sexual offenders aren't the one-in-a-million demons society likes to believe.

And the reasons so many people in society want to believe this. 1.) It is comforting to think that your likelihood of being abused is super low and that if you just identify and then stay away from the tiny 0.1% you will be okay. 2.) It means you don't have to examine your own past behaviour from when you were young and consider whether your partner was actually kind of nervous when you first had sex; or whether you grabbing your friend's boobs as a joke was actually sexual assault; or whether you didn't guilt trip your partner into doing stuff by complaining when they weren't in the mood etc. (all hypothetical but common enough examples).

'Cause a lot of the men online who call for rapists to be raped in prison or say how they'd go out and personally kill all sex offenders if they could get away with it may well have done one of the above. Quite probably as a kid/ teenager. Because kids and teenagers are often selfish and because most of us in the West receive zero sex education and learn through watching porn and teen comedies.

What does all this mean?

Well, it isn't an excuse. It doesn't let you off the hook per se. But it does mean you are **not** the monstrous outsider that you fear yourself to be. It also means it is your moral and social responsible to stay alive and contribute to society now that you "get it". As it is my responsibility too.

Because there are a lot of calculated, repeat predators out there who will never feel any remorse. There are also far, far more guys who lack the self-awareness to consider themselves abusers, having committed abuse. The amount of decent, enlightened people who have never abused and never will is not big enough. The world needs self-reflective people.

Cause there is a massive sea change going on. Our parents' generation and the generation before them simply didn't have this big discussion around consent that is happening right now. Here in Britain it was still legal for a man to rape his wife until 1991! People in their 40s and 50s and 60s talk as though this is a sudden generation of debauched, amoral predators. No. American has had a slave rapist (Thomas Jefferson) and a date rapist (Grover Cleveland) as president. Think about the amount of rock n' roll icons from the 70s (David Bowie; Iggy Pop; Jimmy Page; Bill Wyman etc. etc.) who abused children.

What you did was very small compared to that stuff. You didn't rape anyone. You coerced a peer as a child. It was crappy, but it is forgivable. You have been forgiven by the girl in question.

So you can and must go on. I believe you can do it. Re-read what others on here have said. Note we are all moderators - we wouldn't lie to you or not take what you are saying seriously. Take deep breaths and know that your life is not over. You are a human being who can change and accomplish wonderful things. You have the victim's permission to do so. She says she is not harmed. Listen to that.

You might find this article useful. Please try to take it on board:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/be-accountable-when-abusive/

P.S. I repeat - you are not a rapist. You aren't going to find many people who take this stuff as seriously as I do (due to my own remorse). This is kind of me at my hardest and most serious tbh because you said you felt that the others were being too easy on you.

Please discuss this with a therapist and accept the fact that you may well have OCD. I very much doubt you will be reported, although I know more about British law in this area than American. I hope some of this reply helps.

Thank you for your detailed, thoughtful reply. I read through it all when you first posted it but have only just been able to reply. You have made me feel somewhat better, thank you for that. I'm going to try and take on board everything you've said. I agree with what you said about contributing something good to society as I feel like if I am to have a place in this world then I have to do something to redeem myself. I've already started by donating my birthday money to a charity. I'm also going to be starting therapy soon.

This all sounds great! So glad my post helped and good job with the donation and therapy!! ^^

Make sure to re-read all we have posted here and really internalise it.

Sprock, do you think I should confess to my sister (my nephews mum) about what I did when I was 13/14?

Thanks again.

I think it depends on how much distress it would cause her tbh.

Ugh. I don't know. I'm not really last close to her as it is. She lives quite far away and I only see her every two weeks or so when she visits. I think that it's better to be honest and I feel that I'm being selfish by not telling her. My mum feels that some things are better left in the past and that it won't solve anything by me telling her.

Honestly I think you need to ask yourself whether you'd be telling her for your sake or her's.