[dropcap]T[/dropcap]eenage years tend to be turbulent ones. This has been true for me, anyway; though, to be completely honest, I have little to compare them to for reference. The past six months were especially dramatic for me, which resulted in my own “sexual renaissance,” during which time the last pieces of the puzzle that is the mysterious ways of women fell into ironically neat place.
For several years now, my father has diligently educated me in what he perceived to be the workings of the female mind, and the best strategies for Gaming it, and avoiding getting screwed by it. I listened, taking what he said always with a grain of salt, tentatively practiced, and considered the results. For some time I sat on the fence, with traditional interpretations of women on one side, and the newer, apparently radical ideas on the other, undecided.
[box type=”note” icon=”none”]It’s hard to wake up, to relinquish the world as you want it to be, and to see it as it really is. The turning point, which quite abruptly knocked me off the fence, was the night I was “raped.”[/box]
As I said before, the last six months prior to this event had been unpleasant. I went through a nasty break up with my girlfriend of ten months (a long time for high school), was promptly rejected by my dream girl (for whom I dumped my then-girlfriend), totaled my vehicle in an accident that should have killed me, consequently lost my license, and then failed to make the cut for a national athletic competition I had been striving for all year. The spring of my junior year was, in other words, a complete catastrophe.
I was an emotional wreck. I had, however, learned valuable lessons about self-worth, responsibility, and life perspective. I decided to continue this trend of emotional growth by laying low for the summer – no stupid stunts, no people-pleasing, and, most importantly, no fooling around with girls. I was deeply hurt, and I appreciated that true convalescence needed time and a great deal of focused energy.
Over summer vacation I had much time to reflect, forgive, and heal. The process was working slowly, but steadily, and by late August things were looking good. I had avoided vice for months; my abstemious lifestyle blocked any new dramas from entering my small, isolated world, and I felt almost ready to reemerge and rebuild.
One of the most essential parts to this process was avoiding particular friends, friends who would inevitably tempt me back towards destructive behaviors. My chief concern was a girl whom I’ll call Katie. I had watched her change drastically lately from a sheltered, innocent, Christian girl into a wild, hedonistic libertine; says something about repressed sexuality, huh?
Katie was older than I, but had started to push the limits after I did, and I could tell that she was starting to adopt the same destructive behavior I had once exhibited. She was cute, rebellious, and easy prey, but I just didn’t have the stomach for it. Interestingly enough, she had been my best friend’s girlfriend, my girlfriend’s best friend, and an object of great, unrequited desire of another close friend, so I had unconsciously dubbed her “off-limits.” That didn’t stop her. She had passively pursued me for months, and the only reason I hadn’t prepared my defenses was because I didn’t want to believe it.
I was still in denial when I finally – foolishly – agreed to see Katie before she left for college in L.A.. She picked me up at around 8:00, promptly handed over the reins by asking of me a plan, and we drove off. Then she showed me the vodka. Ah, spirits, my great weakness. Katie had it in a massive, purple Nalgene bottle. It was too dark for me to read the measurements, but it was obviously a shit-ton of vodka. I crumbled, and agreed to drink with her. We stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for coffee to mix it with (poor judgment is a slippery slope), and proceeded to trespass to find a secluded spot to get hammered, undisturbed.
Because I was bigger than she, and renowned for a high alcohol tolerance, she insisted that I take the lion’s share of the vodka, and I foolishly complied. Before long I was taking enormous mouth-full-sized gulps from the Nalgene. And not long after that I was too pissed to walk straight. We lay down together, with my arm around her, to contemplate the stars, while the vodka circulating my veins battled with the remnants of my inhibitions. Funnily enough, we were interrupted by another group of teens who had come to the very same spot to mess around, and Katie suggested that we take a walk. A red flag shot up in my head.
Predictably, not long after the others were out of sight, we were rolling around on the grass, topless. I was just going along for the ride. I wasn’t even aroused, and she could tell. The last vestiges of reservation rallied in my frontal lobes, and I told her that I wouldn’t have sex with her, and not long after that she drove me home.
It’s impossible to conceal how drunk you are to your parents when you are literally staggering, and I was instantly discovered and grounded, the conditions of which included being forbidden to see Katie. She was off to college, anyway. The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover, regretful that I had shattered my spotless summer of abstinence with one night of poor decisions.
So what’s the significance of this rather dull (dull as far as drunken hook-ups go) misadventure? Have I drawn you in and mislead you with an inaccurate title? The funny thing is I didn’t: According to Massachusetts law, one prerequisite for rape is unwanted penetration of any orifice by any object. This would include, for example, Katie sticking her tongue in my mouth, which she did.
I came to a horrible realization. I thought to myself, what if the roles were reversed! What if I had picked Katie up at her house, and then liquored her up so I could stick my tongue in her mouth, only to have her regret her decisions the next day? All she would have to do is cry rape, call the police, and my life would be ruined; forget the misery I had known in the last six months; my suffering would be dwarfed by that of a wrongly convicted rapist.
What’s worse, as a man, not only do I accept responsibility for my actions, and would never even consider accusing Katie under such circumstances, but even if I did report it, the police would undoubtedly laugh in my face, and proceed to arrest me for underage drinking and trespassing. I shuddered. The issue of false rape accusations is very real to me now, after having been “raped” myself…
[box icon=”none”]Note: In no way am I satirizing or belittling the very serious issue of rape. It’s a terrible, vicious crime, and my heart goes out to all victims of both sexes. False accusations, however, are also terrible and vicious, and the issue needs to be addressed, as they are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in modern Western societies.[/box]
