Date Rape at Burning Man

[VeganChoirGirl]

Can we just let this diiiiieeeee please?? I thought it was finally gone for good.

[Mojori]

My first thought was "drama llama" but.

I dont know about this.

oh and yes, i read the whole thing.

You know the guy for 10 years, you know he has the hots for you..........


Sounds kinda shady to me.

You also think he's hot, and decide maybe you're kinda into him, then you both get shitfaced and lie down together (and then the next night you go back and lie down next to him).

Date rape is date rape, getting shitfaced and waking up full of regret and confusion isn't.

The confusion, fear and other awful emotions you felt then, and have carried for three years are just horrible.

Hopefully, you've been getting counseling to deal with all of that, and perhaps confront the role you played in - I won't call it date rape, as I'm not convinced based on the evidence at hand - what happened.

And you don't get shitfaced and crawl into the back of trucks with men anymore. That you suspect have been "in love with" you for some time.

Or, at some point when you woke up several times beforehand, you should have left the truck.

You shouldn't have to think or believe anything, you should have sat down and talked to him straight away, the morning after. Especially if you'd known him for ten years, and considered him a friend. And, if you weren't comfortable confronting him one-on-one, you could have asked a Ranger or someone in Sanctuary to help mediate.

You might also want to get involved in volunteering with BED this year, and help spread the word about avoiding just these sorts of scenarios.

Just this weekend my friend was fucked up, and wandered off with a boy. I followed shortly there-after and found her with a different boy - now topless, and I asked (with my megaphone), "Are you being raped?"

She wasn't, it gave them both pause to take a step back and think about what they were doing. I have zero tolerance for even the potential of misunderstandings when it comes to sexual relations.

Anyways. Again, it's unfortunate and sad this happened, and I hope blogging about it helps you heal, but I also hope that in your journey to heal you find truth.

www.bureauoferoticdiscourse.org/

A very well-balanced take on a red button issue C.f.M. (except maybe for the megaphone story.) Much appreciated.

It seems to me that human sexual relations and human violence are often too complex and biologically driven to be readily solved by any one ideology and its world view. I guess common sense and the counsel of one's own conscience are the best ways to understand and solve these things. Your post demonstrates ample amounts of both.

[bluesbob]

I logged in more that once to post a reply here, but decided not to because I am a male. I agree with everything that CFM said, but if I said it, it would have been misconstrued.

A date rape is something very different. I think this was more having sex with an old friend and then having regrets about it.

Having sex and then regretting it is one thing, not remembering having sex and then those ensuing emotions are another - but not necessarily "date rape."

Old friend, new friend, boyfriend or wife, if it isn't consensual, it's unfortunate. And, when it isn't consensual because we have rendered ourselves unable to give consent - or we have rendered ourselves unable to realize we are not getting consent, it is even more so regrettable.

Saying NO...or unable to say NO...those are both rape.

And by the way, I took BM reported sexual assaults from three years, and compared them to reported sexual assaults from five U.S. cities with a comparable population. It's not entirely scientific, since BM is one week and there's a lot of excess there, but I found you are 8X more likely to get assaulted at BM.