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I know that when we talked she didn't make me out to be a sexual assaulter, but I'm not so sure how to feel about that. It's possible she could just be saying those things to protect her own emotions, or to protect my feelings, even if only subconsciously.
And I'm aware that the language around this sucks, like sexual assault is a loaded term that could include many things, but only implies the most serious offenses. And I'm aware that I was a young person, lacking plenty of life experience and maturity.
That being said, I think its very clear that my approach to sex in our relationship in high school was very problematic. I wish there were more gradation to describe what I'm going for, because there seems to be a large gulf between problematic, coercive, harmful, etc and assault
The situation we were in (only really being able to have sex at my parents house, and a lack of free time between my parents being home and us being off from school) was rough, and adding onto that was the fact that it felt like such a big deal to my parents, the threat of being
caught felt rough, as well as completely embarrassing. I feel like the embarrassing piece of it was the real challenge for her more than anything else. We were sexual for a while (grinding, heavy petting, etc) and were able to sneak that in often when hanging out.
I feel like this stuff was pretty fine, it was very non-committal and could be abandoned if we heard someone coming, and was just a fun flirty thing to do. However, after this became a bit of a habit, we became more reckless, and got caught a few times.
Now this is where things get a little iffy. Was the reason we became more reckless due to me pushing? I'm not sure, but I imagine the answer is yes. I know that's maybe not like a massive deal in the grand scheme, but that still sucks and I would never want to do that again.
It's not cool or fun, really selfish and shitty. And its not so much about like that the actual actions themselves were non-consensual, because I think we both wanted to do them but lacked the appropriate space. The more fucked up part was subjecting her to feeling like she was
watched and that sex was something to be paranoid during yknow. Idk if I'm explaining that properly but yeah thats pretty gross. It didn't help that my mom constantly checked in as like her moral duty!!! to protect her innocence!!! and purity!!! and would basically tell that to
her face, like "what you're doing is wrong and would make your mom ashamed" and blah blah blah trash bullshit, and then just like "boys will be boys" @ me like wtf. But yeah I def was not nearly as woke on feminist shit like that before, I just thought it was like super bazaar
double standard, but I can see patterns like that now that I didn't then. To me, it was just sort of a roll my eyes yea my parents are shitheads that are flaming you for no reason thats cringe, I don't think I really was able to empathize with her (or at all during that time lol)
And while thats like kinda shitty partner behavior but ultimately not terrible on its own, I think that lack of understanding how much it weighed on her made it easier for me to push her into uncomfortable positions. (I know im taking too many econ classes when im thinking about
internalizing the externality of her feelings lol). But yeah I think for the most part the sexual behavior would have been completely consensual (another weird word in these convos, too many varying concepts shoved into the word) if not for the atmosphere we were in.
Analyzing problematic aspects of the relationship is really tricky when it comes to sex stuff, especially when the shitty behavior is tangential and intertwined with sex, but maybe not the act itself.
Like thinking through this I think I'm convinced that I coerced or pressured her into having sex in an environment that she was not comfortable with, despite us both desiring that sex in better contexts. The tricky part is that we both wanted it, but there were only rare