Wedding Woes

My GF is trying to force me into victimhood

Dear Prudence, 
I’m a bisexual woman, and I’ve been dating a really wonderful woman for the past two years. We’re discussing moving in together. Last week, while discussing old relationships, I admitted that for a few years in college, from 19 to 21, I had a “sugar daddy.” He was 18 years older than me and lived across the country, but he traveled for work, often visiting me one or two weekends a month. We took vacations once or twice a year and had a lot of fun in and out of bed, and I received some expensive gifts and a monthly “allowance.” I felt no pressure from him, he rescheduled trips if they interfered with something I wanted to do without him, and we parted on very good terms. It was an interesting period of my life that I have no desire to repeat but still remember fondly. My girlfriend’s reaction was one of shock and horror, however. She insists that I was taken advantage of (everything was very enthusiastically consensual), he was a predator and a pedophile, and I need to see a therapist because I’m not upset over my relationship with him. She’s brought this up multiple times a day since I told her, and I seriously regret ever mentioning it. I only revealed so many details because she pressed. What can I say to get her to drop this subject?

—Girlfriend Insists I Was Abused

Re: My GF is trying to force me into victimhood

  • 1. Buy your partner a copy of MADNESS, by Catherine Winters
    2. Wait for her to read it. 
    3. Say, "See? I could have ended up like that." 
    (4. Have partner leave a damn review, because I can't even get people to say they hated it.) 
    image
  • So weird!  It sounds like this was a wonderful relationship, for what it was, for the LW.  Her g/f needs to take a serious chill pill.

    And another good example of just because your SO presses for the gory details of your past sexual exploits, doesn't mean you need to indulge them.  Outside of the STD (and this time I don't mean Save the Dates) discussion, it's really just not any of their business.  Or maybe if they posed for Playboy/Playgirl and you have senatorial ambitions.

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • The age of majority (adulthood) is considered by most nations to be 18.  If LW was 19 when she entered into this relationship, why does GF think sugar daddy was a pedophile?  What's the age cutoff between pedophilia and just being interested in younger men/women?

    I find this to be wholly bizarre.  The crazy woman in me is wondering all sorts of things now.


    "And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me..."
    --Philip Pullman

  • I'm thinking the GF is trying to project her own feelings because she was molested as a child or maybe abused as a teen and hasn't come to terms with that yet.

    Otherwise, why care so much?






    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • lyndausvi said:
    I'm thinking the GF is trying to project her own feelings because she was molested as a child or maybe abused as a teen and hasn't come to terms with that yet.

    Otherwise, why care so much?

    AMEN!!!  This was my thought as well from therapist training for typical pattern manifestations!  Wholeheartedly agree with Prudie, but also that it may be time for the GF to go, a lifetime of someone trying to reframe positive experiences into something negative - <G> That'll end well! <sarcasm>
  • I had a similar experience, but from the GF's perspective:

    A friend of mine was spending a lot of time with a group of guys, one who clearly liked her.  He would take her to dinner, they would fool around/make out, date on and off.  At some point she decided to get back together with her on and off serious BF.  So she still hung out with the guy, it just became more platonic.

    After a night of drinking they both passed out on the couch, and she woke up to find him "having sex" with her.  She recounted the story to me, laughing, as though this was another great tale of drunken debauchery.  When I had a look of clear horror, she laughed and said it doesn't count as rape if it just "slips in."

    I didn't press it further, but it took a lot of strength not to tell her that's pretty much the definition of acquaintance rape.  At the end of the day it's not my job to inform someone their experience was actually rape, and that they're not acting like enough of a victim.
  • edited July 2016
    Spoonsey said:
    I had a similar experience, but from the GF's perspective:

    A friend of mine was spending a lot of time with a group of guys, one who clearly liked her.  He would take her to dinner, they would fool around/make out, date on and off.  At some point she decided to get back together with her on and off serious BF.  So she still hung out with the guy, it just became more platonic.

    After a night of drinking they both passed out on the couch, and she woke up to find him "having sex" with her.  She recounted the story to me, laughing, as though this was another great tale of drunken debauchery.  When I had a look of clear horror, she laughed and said it doesn't count as rape if it just "slips in."

    I didn't press it further, but it took a lot of strength not to tell her that's pretty much the definition of acquaintance rape.  At the end of the day it's not my job to inform someone their experience was actually rape, and that they're not acting like enough of a victim.
    If I've understood both stories correctly though they are actually different situations. In one situation the woman is fully consenting to any and all sexual acts. In the other she does not consent and wakes to find him having sex with her. I agree it is not up to anyone else to inform someone else how to feel or how to label and experience, but these two things do not sound the same to me at all.
                 
  • Spoonsey said:
    I had a similar experience, but from the GF's perspective:

    A friend of mine was spending a lot of time with a group of guys, one who clearly liked her.  He would take her to dinner, they would fool around/make out, date on and off.  At some point she decided to get back together with her on and off serious BF.  So she still hung out with the guy, it just became more platonic.

    After a night of drinking they both passed out on the couch, and she woke up to find him "having sex" with her.  She recounted the story to me, laughing, as though this was another great tale of drunken debauchery.  When I had a look of clear horror, she laughed and said it doesn't count as rape if it just "slips in."

    I didn't press it further, but it took a lot of strength not to tell her that's pretty much the definition of acquaintance rape.  At the end of the day it's not my job to inform someone their experience was actually rape, and that they're not acting like enough of a victim.


    I hear what you're saying.  If she doesn't see herself as a victim (or at least not yet because of denial), than it doesn't serve any purpose to try and point out just how victimized she was because...OMG!!!!!

    Now I have to step on my soapbox for a moment.  What a sad world we live in that has such a strong rape culture, your friend just laughs and blows off that her "good and close" friend...while she was passed out drunk...undressed/partially undressed both her and himself with the very EXPLICIT purpose of putting his penis inside her.  That is not "oh haha, we were already fooling around, and it just slipped in" (which would be bullshit anyway, even if it was what happened). 

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • Spoonsey said:
    I had a similar experience, but from the GF's perspective:

    A friend of mine was spending a lot of time with a group of guys, one who clearly liked her.  He would take her to dinner, they would fool around/make out, date on and off.  At some point she decided to get back together with her on and off serious BF.  So she still hung out with the guy, it just became more platonic.

    After a night of drinking they both passed out on the couch, and she woke up to find him "having sex" with her.  She recounted the story to me, laughing, as though this was another great tale of drunken debauchery.  When I had a look of clear horror, she laughed and said it doesn't count as rape if it just "slips in."

    I didn't press it further, but it took a lot of strength not to tell her that's pretty much the definition of acquaintance rape.  At the end of the day it's not my job to inform someone their experience was actually rape, and that they're not acting like enough of a victim.
    If I've understood both stories correctly though they are actually different situations. In one situation the woman is fully consenting to any and all sexual acts. In the other she does not consent and wakes to find him having sex with her. I agree it is not up to anyone else to inform someone else how to feel or how to label and experience, but these two things do not sound the same to me at all.
    This. 

    These two scenarios are totally different in terms of consent; in one both adults chose to be in a relationship in which one person is receiving material gifts in exchange for company and/or sex. In the other one drunk adult has sex without consent with another drunk adult. These are no way the same thing. 
  • Spoonsey said:
    I had a similar experience, but from the GF's perspective:

    A friend of mine was spending a lot of time with a group of guys, one who clearly liked her.  He would take her to dinner, they would fool around/make out, date on and off.  At some point she decided to get back together with her on and off serious BF.  So she still hung out with the guy, it just became more platonic.

    After a night of drinking they both passed out on the couch, and she woke up to find him "having sex" with her.  She recounted the story to me, laughing, as though this was another great tale of drunken debauchery.  When I had a look of clear horror, she laughed and said it doesn't count as rape if it just "slips in."

    I didn't press it further, but it took a lot of strength not to tell her that's pretty much the definition of acquaintance rape.  At the end of the day it's not my job to inform someone their experience was actually rape, and that they're not acting like enough of a victim.
    Woah, that is a completely different situation.  Consent was not given in your friend's case.  Holy shit.  

    I also have a friend who had this happen.  However, she doesn't laugh it off.  She just thinks that it wasn't the guy's fault because she was really drunk, and he was too, so when she said no, it didn't count.  THAT is closer to your story than the LW's story. And it's the saddest example of how rape culture victim blames and permeates our society.  


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