Dear Prudence: My Friend Admitted To Sexual Assault

[minoanmiss]

Heed the warning inherent in the title.

Bad friend? I had a shocking conversation with a longtime friend, and now I don’t know what to do.

When I was in university, around 10 years ago now, I went home with a friend who then did not listen to me when I said no. This was obviously traumatic, but it has been many years and I have largely processed it now.

I was speaking to another friend, “Alex,” and he asked me whatever happened with the first guy. Alex asked several questions after I alluded to it being a bad experience, and I finally explained. He said “Oh, I only did that once; never again.” When I said “Pardon?” he clarified that indeed… he meant that he was hooking up with a woman who then said no and he kept going.

I am, obviously, horrified. While he said he made amends with her and even was with her a few times after that, and has never done it again, I still am shocked. He was very upset by my reaction and also implied that I am overreacting due to my experience. Which is likely, but… it’s still pretty bad! He is also upset by the idea that this might end our friendship and seemed more upset by that than his initial action. I said that yes, it would take me time to process, and he asked me to keep him posted. It seems almost as though by telling me, someone who has experienced that, I would absolve him.

Prudie, I honestly don’t know if I can keep up the friendship. I don’t believe that this one action defines him or that he should be punished forever, and he does seem to feel bad and never did it again. But does that mean I personally have to be friends with him? If I end the friendship, will it make him more bitter toward women? Am I a terrible person if I don’t practice forgiveness? I can barely even look at him.

A: You are not overreacting and Alex should never have told you that you were. I’m sorry that he had the reaction he did and that it’s continuing to affect you negatively. Alex is putting a lot of responsibility for his feelings on you, which is wrong and suggests that he really hasn’t internalized what was wrong about his past behavior. You are right to sever this friendship and you can do it in whatever way feels safest for you.

Alex’s feelings are his responsibility, full stop. He can change and grow and feel bad and still none of that entitles him to your friendship. He’s not in a place right now to be a good friend to you and that’s what I’m most concerned about. Moreover, you aren’t responsible for keeping Alex from getting embittered toward women and nothing you do can “make” him take a swan dive into misogyny. He has work to do on himself; you don’t have to be present for it.

Comments

[sathari]

...I keep trying to come up with a response that's not incoherent screaming. It keeps not happening.

...um, at least the advice from the advice columnist was actually good for a change? Silver lining? (Also, poor LW feeling like they are a "terrible person if" they "don't practice forgiveness"! No, LW, you are a person who sets boundaries and has expectations for how you want the people you associate with to treat you and other people. No matter what the patriarchy/the religious reich/etc. want you to believe, that makes you a good person, not a bad one.)

[cynthia1960]

+1000

[jadelennox]

I am overreacting due to my experience

Yeah, no, that's not a thing. She's reacting having had an experience, and having had the same experience, I'd react the same way. If Alex understood that he'd raped a woman and felt appropriately appalled at himself -- and, crucially, had made some attempt at amends, if not with the woman, then at least with donations to a rape crisis center or something -- then maybe. I'd still expect LW to need time to process and maybe be totally done after processing, but maybe. But Alex seems to think he was maybe a dick, not a rapist, and that's a whole lot of nope.

[lethe1]

If Alex understood that he'd raped a woman and felt appropriately appalled at himself -- and, crucially, had made some attempt at amends, if not with the woman, then at least with donations to a rape crisis center or something -- then maybe.

This. But since he doesn't seem to think it was that big a deal and even implies that LW is overreacting, in spite of having been told of her experience (and moreover seems to assume she would have been totally fine with it if she hadn't had that experience), I don't think he will ever learn.

[shirou]

While he said he made amends with her and even was with her a few times after that

I want to know specifically what this means.

[laurajv]

This is interesting to me largely because it intersects with one of my long-term "huh, I wonder how to follow up on THAT" questions about sexual assault, WHICH IS that in "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists" (Lisak and Miller, 2002) about 1/3 of "undetected rapists" commit only one rape. I've always been curious about WHY. What happens that they stop, when the other 2/3 of undetected rapists continue? They didn't get caught, so it's not that. The same paper looked at interpersonal acts of violence committed by non-rapists, single-act rapists, and repeat rapists, and single-act people were more violent than non-rapists but WAY, WAY less violent than repeaters. WHY.

A big part of the reason that I'm curious is that I wonder if that segment of the rapist population is...educable? Ideally BEFORE they commit a rape and/or other acts of violence? Knowing why they stopped at one could indicate an effective intervention for the future. But as near as I can find out no one has ever figured this out (or tried to).

[melannen]

I don't have a similar study for this, but as DNA genealogy is solving more cold cases, we're seeing more and more unsolved "serial killings" by people who almost certainly only killed once and never again, even though they were never caught or even under suspicion, and that first murder has all the hallmarks of someone who has no motive beyond murder.

I have to think for both thrill killing and rape, the answer is often that they tried it once and realized they liked it better in fantasy than in RL.

[laurajv]

I have to hope, for the sake of all the future people, that there’s a better answer than that. :(

[cimorene]

It could be both! In fact, I think it's likely that they both account for some chunk of the population.

But with the rapists, particularly, I think there's definitely a decent segment of educable men who like... don't really understand before, and then feel bad about it afterwards. Most likely the not understanding is a complex mixture and includes a decent chunk of not wanting to understand, especially as research shows that they actually do understand No and other refusals and choose to ignore them. But the non-recidivism certainly IMO shows an ability to like... increase their understanding (/ability to empathize with women as real people?).

But at the same time, for people who were specifically aroused by the notion of violence, or murder, or rape - the thrill killing people - it's likely it didn't measure up. And psychologically, they approached the whole situation differently in the first place, not with any sort of confusion about consent.

(And on the other hand, there are probably lots of one-time murderers who weren't into the idea of murder and hence were not thrill-killers at all - murders for some specific motive.)

[cereta]

I'm flashing on a murder that happened locally that had all the hallmarks of a serial killing. We just happened to get lucky enough to catch him the first time.