Sexual Assault at School Dance?

[Insightful27]

For some background I'm 17M and I went to a school dance with a girl I was talking to (18F). We have hung out a handful of times, and liked each other. One of those times she made out with me and straddled me. Anyway we go to the dance and everyone is dancing, grinding etc.. I try to dance with her, hold her hips and pull her into me.  Moving with the music, just like some of her friends and the people around us were doing. About 3-4 times she pulls away from me to dance with her friends (they tend to be very clingy with each other) and after she leaves them I try and dance with her again. I get tired of this and leave to find my other friends, then later, her group of friends come up to me saying I sexually assaulted her and she's crying about it. Never touched anything other than her hips, didn't even kiss her. For the past like 12 hours I've felt so ashamed and embarrassed. She never said no, moved my hands away or anything like that. She was actually moving with me. What should've I done different? Am I just being socially negligent? How could this possibly qualify as sexual assault? I'm scared about this ruining my reputation and I'm not sure how I will ever be able to escalate with girls again. Literally any opinions or advice on how to move on is helpful.   

Edited January 31, 2022 by Insightful27

[Yarco]

1. Teenagers are awkward at communicating and consent is complicated.

2. At a school dance with someone you've previously made out with and dry-humped, I think it's reasonable to start dancing with them without explicitly asking for consent, given the situation and environment.

If only her friends told you and not her directly, I would try to ask to talk to her directly and get her opinion on what happened. Offer to let her bring a friend and meet in a public place if she's legit uncomfortable and scared around you now. If you can't talk in person then I'd text her apologizing if there was a misunderstanding, mention all the past context and why you thought it was okay. DO NOT SAY ANYTHING THAT REMOTELY LOOKS LIKE ADMITTING FAULT. Assume she could go to the police with anything you text her as evidence, as well as showing all of her friends. 

In an ideal world I would tell her that she needs to advocate better for herself and learn to say no, but that will probably just make her very defensive and feel like you're blaming the victim.

I don't think you had bad intentions or did anything wrong. I guess you have to do the cringeworthy "may I have this dance m'lady" thing every time going forward and be extra careful any time you touch a woman.

Don't beat yourself up about it too much. Try to just distract yourself from feeling guilty for a while until it passes.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Yarco

[Florian]

To me it sounds like she was either very insecure about becoming sexual. Thats why she backed out 4 times. And when you left, she felt rejected and since she was in a very vulnerable position she felt the need to protect herself by telling her friends you sexually assaulted her. Maybe she has experienced actual sexual assault before. However that is another thing. Or she just didnt know if she liked you in a way where she wanted to become sexual and was just being ruthless and doing it out of revenge/self protection after being "rejected". Anyway everything you did was fine. Thats all I can judge from reading what you wrote above.

[Lyubov]

Doesn't sound like you sexually assaulted her at all according to you post. It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong or acted way out of line from what I read. 

[Insightful27]

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

I'd text her apologizing if there was a misunderstanding

Yeah I texted her and asked her if we could talk and she said that "she wasn't in a talking mindset" so I just told her I understood and she could take her time. 

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

I guess you have to do the cringeworthy "may I have this dance m'lady"

Could she seriously make a case to police? Unconsentually dancing at a school dance?

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

I guess you have to do the cringeworthy "may I have this dance m'lady"

I actually asked her if she wanted to dance and she said yes... Guess we have different ideas about what that meant.

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

Don't beat yourself up about it too much. Try to just distract yourself from feeling guilty for a while until it passes.

Its been tough. I'm just worried that she's going to make it a big deal and spread the story around to all of our mutual friends to try and garner sympathy. I seriously feel bad for making her feel uncomfortable, but from what I'm gathering I wasn't that far off base.

[Insightful27]

4 hours ago, Florian said:

Maybe she has experienced actual sexual assault before

She had told me that she had, which is why I was taking it very slow and wasn't really making any first moves. Maybe the past trauma changed how she saw the situation?  

[Bando]

@Insightful27 That sucks man I feel for you. First off you won't get in any trouble for dancing and no police will get involved. She either had a really negative experience in her life that reenacted itself when you made your advances or maybe she was already dealing with some emotional issues. 

You should try to think through what you did, are you framing yourself as the good guy in this scenario? Did you miss any obvious signs of unease? I remember when I was in highschool I once misinterpreted a sign of interest from a chick and was way too forward, in my mind I had done nothing wrong but looking back there were clear signs of disinterest, confusing times in high school lol 

Don't become jaded towards women after this incident btw I can see how an event like this can lead you down the redpill spiral you just happened to escalate on the wrong chick. Don't assume every girl is going to act like this, 9/10 if you make a move like this and the chick positively responds good things will come out of girls also want to have fun.

 

[Average Investor]

If she is making any claims like that, then I would drop all contact with her and move on. Assuming what you said is accurate, then she is likely quite traumatized by her past experience. To even make that kind of claim towards you from doing something innocent should be a massive red flag. Imagine if you end up having sex with this girl, then she claims you raped her. 

You are close as it is to being done with high school. So a rumor isn't going to be the end of the world if that is what it comes to. I would doubt much would come of it as there is likely a good amount of witnesses around for a dance like that anyway. 

Something to note as well. It makes someone look more guilty the more they defend themselves. Even if they didn't do anything wrong. Especially, for claims like that.  

Edited January 31, 2022 by Average Investor

[Insightful27]

2 hours ago, Bando said:

Did you miss any obvious signs of unease?

I really don't think I did. She didn't say "no" or "stop" or "I'm uncomfortable". She didn't try to move my hands or push me away. When she pulled away to dance with her friends I let her go and only tried to dance again after she moved away from them. I guess I should've noted that she didn't seem that into dancing or that she was dancing more with her friends than me but I chalked that up to her being shy. There weren't any clear indicators that I should stop otherwise I obviously would have. I don't know how she can possibly claim SA and tell my friends that.

[Raze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZCzuy0jF1M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5ze1DtkEQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHOmS1B-em0

Based on what you said, no you did not. Unfortunately teenagers can overreact and spread rumors, regardless of what happens just try to keep cool and keep in mind it doesn’t matter in the long run.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Raze

[Ulax]

4 hours ago, Insightful27 said:

Its been tough. I'm just worried that she's going to make it a big deal and spread the story around to all of our mutual friends to try and garner sympathy. I seriously feel bad for making her feel uncomfortable, but from what I'm gathering I wasn't that far off base.

Fuck man. That's a tough situation. One thing I'd say is that it is not your responsibility to manage her emotions. It is her responsibility. Even if she feels uncomfortable, that is on her to deal with.

Your responsibility is simply not to escalate where you can reasonably ascertain that she doesn't want you to. Which doesn't sound like that was the case.

I think Yarco's advice is pretty much spot on.

[aurum]

@Insightful27

I agree what everyone has been saying. It doesn’t sound like from your story you have any reason to feel guilty, nor do I believe the police will actually get involved. It sounds to me like a miscommunication.

It’s important as men that we learn how to read both implicit and explicit consent. But it’s also possible after an experience like this to become paranoid. You’re young and forming opinions about how the world works. So pay attention to the conclusions you might be drawing from this.

[hamedsf]

she's on her period, understand her. #mensturation_problems

[LordFall]

On 1/30/2022 at 7:45 PM, Average Investor said:

If she is making any claims like that, then I would drop all contact with her and move on. Assuming what you said is accurate, then she is likely quite traumatized by her past experience. To even make that kind of claim towards you from doing something innocent should be a massive red flag. Imagine if you end up having sex with this girl, then she claims you raped her. 

You are close as it is to being done with high school. So a rumor isn't going to be the end of the world if that is what it comes to. I would doubt much would come of it as there is likely a good amount of witnesses around for a dance like that anyway. 

Something to note as well. It makes someone look more guilty the more they defend themselves. Even if they didn't do anything wrong. Especially, for claims like that.  

This is the move. Sounds like you did nothing wrong but perhaps missed some signals of discomfort. Do not get traumatized from escalating on women but learn to be very fucking aware when doing it, especially in a social circle like this. 

I think the new move in this day and age is to literally ask for consent. You can do it dominantly and frame it as a command "I want you to grind on me.", but I would indeed be careful with being uncalibrated and in general it's a way better mindset to game the girl into escalating on you. 

After now having been doing game for around 7 years I've met multiple men that were involved/accused of sexual assault. I've even had the privilege of seeing guys escalate in person in front of me and try to defuse/push past the girls' resistance, so I know what it looks like from both sides. 

Look, it's useless to blame yourself and I'm sure your intentions were good. People have different pasts and perspectives though, and you have to be very careful with that.

You're actually blessed to be on this forum and you're now able to learn both the masculine game side and the more feminine intuition/being in tune with yours and others' feelings. Combine these things and you will be a part of the new age of lovers. 

Keep in mind that human sexuality is LITERALLY still taboo to this day and we're just starting to talk about and figure out these days. Strange hookup situations have been a thing forever. Especially if any alcohol and/or social pressures are involved, those are literally dynamites that are hard enough for grown and mature adults to handle, let alone teenagers. 

You'll be fine, don't get jaded, don't blame yourself and her and just keep this in mind as a valuable experience. Look into enthusiastic consent stuff and you'll be fine. 

[Leo Gura]

If it is as you describe it, it's nonsense and you did nothing wrong.

Own it and don't worry about it. Don't feel ashamed for physically escalating on a receptive girl.

Girls don't like taking responsibility for sex, so they will offload it onto guys as much as possible, sometimes to the point of absurdity. The solution is to just own that you got a dick and if a girl is around you she should expect to get nailed. If she doesn't like it she is free to leave. Your sexual intent should be obvious and if she doesn't like it she's free to blow you out.

So just own your sexuality and masculinity and don't let girls play dumb with you too much. Hold your frame.

If anything, work on sharpening your sexual intent even more and physically escalate more but with keen calibration to her receptivity. Get good at feeling when a girl is receptive to touch or not. If she is, escalate heavy and own it. If she is resistant, smoothly back off and try again a bit later. If she keeps being resistant, leave her for another girl, don't play her games.

You did good in that you did what you wanted and didn't try to be meek or shy. Don't let this silly incident spook you.

[mememe]

@Insightful27 if you think it’s appropriate to sexually escalate on a school dance with anyone you just hung out with several times it’s probably that you can’t at all read situations.

might be she was interested to get involved romantically, maybe just polite  you know the difference don’t you 

i’d most certainly cringe as well in your situation.

sorry no absolution - better you learn it now than later.

your reputation will take some time - maybe not with girls in that school anymore, though.

all in all, if you want to get more clarity you have to talk to her directly (phone is ok, too, maybe in your case best option).

sounds like you guys are around 13+. or maybe you are a teacher?

Edited February 1, 2022 by mememe

[Thought Art]

@mememe Don't scare him he is fine.

[mememe]

26 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@mememe Don't scare him he is fine.

i don’t try to scare him i try to make him think. notorious shoulder patting won’t help him in that situation.

i see nothing but circlejerking in these stories, always victimizing males who „escalate“ mainly themselves.

why do you think young guys think it’s appropriate to do that? what happened to consciousness work in this perfect anonymity?

Edited February 1, 2022 by mememe

[Thought Art]

@mememe Appropriate to do what?

 

[mememe]

8 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@mememe Appropriate to do what?

 

aren’t you calling yourself thought art? maybe you are artistic enough to find an answer to that question yourself.