a. you are not "throwing the word rape around." you said no, he continued, he waited until you were crying to pull out? that is wrong of him.

b. do not feel ashamed of the fact that you are very upset. you are not overreacting. your body is YOUR body, as cliche as it sounds, and there is NO ONE who has the right to make you feel violated or to act as if you don't know what's best for your body. you deserve fun, consensual sex, not a situation in which you feel pressured to participate in acts you don't feel comfortable with. i am so sorry that someone did this to you.

as for what to do now, it's really up to you. the most important thing right now is to take care of yourself. you need to find someone to support you and help you deal with this. are there any older people that you feel comfortable talking to? also, this decision is entirely up to you, but you could go to the police to press charges against him.

i know that you must be in a really difficult place right now; i'm so sorry that you feel alone. please remember that none of this is your fault and i hope you do what's best for you.

Please don't hesitate to call this experience whatever you feel it was. If you said no, and someone continued and ignored your word then you have every right to feel upset and violated.
I am so sorry this has happened, and I hope you can find someone with whom to talk thru your feelings. You have to do whatever helps you recover from this- pressing charges, seeing a doctor or not- whatever you decide will be right.
This is not your fault at all, and no one deserves to be violated no matter what the situation.

i don't think you're overreacting at all. rape is being forced to have sex, and that's what he did to you. that being said, you're a survivor now and don't let feelings of what should've happened, could've happened make you feel bad. you're not responsible for his actions, and you're not alone in being violated be someone your trusted. there's no way you could've "known better." heal yourself by talking to someone you trust. and if there's no one within the family/friend circle, you can talk to a councilor or RAINN.

i know from personal experience that sometimes your own body can feel dirty even when you know that it wasn't your fault, but i thought of it this way - i'm not going to let the criminal have any more power over my feelings and my body than he had for a few past moments. we're more powerful than that, right?

This was not your fault.

Whatever word you feel is appropriate to describe what happened to you, use it and don't feel guilty. I don't want to try to define it for you because only you can do that, but please know that when you said no, you told him you were not consenting. He has no excuse for continuing.

As for undermining survivors' experiences, I am a survivor and in no way feel undermined by your experience being called rape, and you will find that other survivors feel the same way. When this happened to me, I was lucky enough to have my best friend to talk to. I didn't tell my mom for several months for the same reason you said you don't want to talk to yours, but when I did she was so understanding and has given me so much support.

All of your reactions are totally understandable and justified given what he did. Let yourself feel whatever you're feeling - you're not overreacting. What happened to you was traumatic, and the body and mind deal with trauma however they can. I think it's really important that you talk to someone about this. There is an online hotline on RAINN if you feel more comfortable online, or there must be crisis hotlines in your area.

I'm so sorry that he did that to you. None of it was your fault. You did not deserve this. I hope you do whatever is best for you, and I hope the people in your life support you 100%.

How is this not rape? Did he not ignore your words? Did he not omit gaining consent for this sexual act?

This is rape regardless of his excuses.

You are not overreacting and you know it. You wouldn't be feeling so violated and hurt, reaching out for help on the internet of all places if you were.

Like others have said, "rape" isn't just sex between penis in vagina. If you didn't want it, regardless of what "it" was, you are a victim of rape... and in this case, statutory rape.

I hope you never see this man again and press charges if necessary. Please remove him from your life, because he will do this again, and you don't need that.

Internet hugs and I wish the best for you.

You know, I *might* have bought the "I thought you were playing" defense if he'd immediately stopped when you told him to. But when you not only said no before he did it, but then said "Get off me" after he'd already penetrated you, and he still didn't immediately cease and back off you, (Seriously, what the fuck kind of guy waits until his partner is effing crying before pulling out???) it went from "I thought you were playing" to "I thought I could force you to do it, but you actually stood up for yourself, so now I'm trying to cover my ass." And him "offering" normal sex as you walked out is just sick.

I'm glad you got the hell out. Don't think you're overreacting. That's what rape-apologists would like to you think, of course. Rape is a term that covers ALL non-consensual acts. Not just the situation where a total stranger kidnaps a woman, beats her senseless, and violently penetrates her. It also covers the situation where a man decides he wants sex when his wife isn't in the mood and coerces her to give in. It certainly covers what happened to you.

Please, find someone who can support you in real life. Internet support can only go so far. You sound like you're in college, or at least there's one nearby if this guy's a grad student - most colleges have crisis counseling and are trained to handle rape cases. And I echo what's been said - don't get near this guy again. See a counselor and if you want, there you can discuss your options for pressing charges if you want to.

I wish you health and healing. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Many, many internet hugs. Keep us posted on how you're doing, please.

You definitely aren't overreacting and if you want to call it rape you'd definitely be in the right. Consenting to sex at the beginning doesn't mean you can't deny consent for things later.

Definitely dump the asshole and consider seeking out a friend or a friendly therapist. You don't have to go through this alone.

No means no- period.

I don't know what state you live in, but, in many states a 23 year old with a 17 year old is statutory rape.

1.800.656.HOPE

The caller's phone number is not retained, so the call is anonymous and confidential unless the caller chooses to share personally-identifying information.

from:
http://www.rainn.org/get-help/national-sexual-assault-hotline

By any definition, legal or otherwise, that was a sexual assault.

If you need someone to talk to there are allot of organizations that can help, one of the umbrella organizations in Alaska is Stand Together Against Rape (S.T.A.R.) and they provide counseling and support.

After talking someone you may want to talk to law enforcement. If you want to press charges and have them stick the sooner the better (and conviction rates are deplorable in the first place).

Stay strong.

Like most of the other commenters, I would definitely call your experience rape.

I suggest talking to someone about it, whether that person is your best friend, your mom, a counselor, or even someone on the RAINN online hotline.

You are certainly not over-reacting; what happened to you was terrible. I imagine it was very difficult for you to retell this, especially on the internet. You're very brave. Please remember that this is completely 100% NOT YOUR FAULT and that all of the feelings you're having right now are perfectly okay.

I will keep you in my thoughts, and I wish you the best.

As I read your story, I hurt for you. As a women we are programed to believe that once we agree to engage in sexual activity, we are then giving consent for the person to do what every they choose. In many states a man can not be charged with rape if he rapes his wife. the implied concent of the marriage means that he by law is allowed access to any part of my body. And yes what this men did was sexual assult. For your own health please seek out a proffessional in your community , and get help
sue

Thank you so much,
I sensed this community would be understanding of this.

I feel a bit better now, I talked to my ex boyfriend, we remained quite close and he helped me a lot. He makes jokes about everything and I'm the kind of person who thinks humour is always the best medicine (for me). It helped not to feel so helpless, I've never been the kind of person who cries and whines and don't feel comfortable in the role of the victim.

I wish I could talk to my mum and I really want to, but even if I went over the embarrassment, she's very dogmatic about certain things (my name's Virginia, you can guess...) and I'm afraid she'll get very angry and try to convince me to take some sort of legal action.

I don't even know if it's possible to do so in this case (the age of consent in the U.K. is 16, and in any case I wouldn't use that against him, since I consider myself perfectly able of giving consent) and the idea of telling the story face to face to a policeman scares me to death.
Also I'm not sure he deserves to go to jail or get deported (he's American), I think I'd feel guilty if that was to happen. It seems like a situation where if there are no consequences it's wrong, but jail seems really to much as well.

I wish I had the strength to confront him and explain to him that he hurt me and why what he did what he did was wrong, but for don't I can't bring myself to do that.

Thank you for your support again, really.

I echo all the other posters here when saying you are NOT overreacting. This sounds like a very traumatic experience and I completely understand why you are confused about what happened to you. You don't want to be accused of making a big deal out of nothing but you're not; the only people that would say something stupid like that is a rape apologist. You have every right to feel the way you feel.

Years ago I found myself in a very simliar situation. I was with this guy up in my room (I was throwing a party at the time and had tons of guests downstairs). We were fooling around and I started to give him a blow job. In the middle of it I decided to stop because I didn't want to leave my party unattended for too long. So I told the guy we should stop and go back downstairs. He didn't agree. Instead he forced me to finish by holding my head in place and then slamming it onto the bed with him on top of me so I couldn't move. When it was over I felt very confused and didn't know what to do. We went back down to the party and I pretended like nothing happened. I thought that it wasn't rape because I was the one that initiated the sex. And we had hooked up before and he had never done anything like that so I assumed it was somehow my fault. I had teased him by starting and then wanting to stop or something. I made tons of excuses for him.

The fact is that regardless if I gave my consent before, that did not mean I was not allowed to withdraw my consent at any time. I said no and he didn't listen. That's the bottom line. He raped me.

I'm so sorry this happened to you and I hope you find someone that you are able to talk to be it your friends or family or a counselor or whoever. It does not help to keep this all to yourself. Trust me.

I'm two years older than the man who assaulted you and when I was raped in the same fashion, I still didn't know that it was rape. Because of what someone did to me, I may never be able to associate anal sex with pleasure. All it does is trigger feelings of disgust, fear and self-loathing.

Like the man who hurt you, the man who hurt me also did not heed my refusal to participate and also did not stop until I had been crying for quite some time. He, also, offered to "have normal sex" with me, as if I'd want to touch him after what I did- as if penile-vaginal sex was some sort of consolation prize for me.

Yes, you were raped. I thank you for posting this here, because before reading this, I had the shameful idea that no one else had ever had this happen to them, and what happened to me was an overreaction to "a misunderstanding". What I now realize is that, as someone mentioned above, consent to one act does not imply consent for others, most especially if you say no.

Virginia, I'm so glad you're feeling a bit better and found someone to talk to about it.

You know what's best for you, but I hope you'll still talk to a professional about it, or find a way to really work through everything. When I got the support of my friends, I decided I didn't need to see a professional because I knew I had been sexually assaulted and others believed me. Now, a year and a half later, I realize that was a mistake and I'm finally seeing a therapist after my trauma symptoms have settled in and gotten worse.

I feel cynical but realistic saying that he likely wouldn't get convicted for this but who knows, if he knew you went to the police that could give him a scare and since what he did was wrong I think he deserves something. There is civil court right?

But you said you can't confront him. How about giving him a letter and then leaving and never talking to him again? It does sound like it would be hard to confront someone in person who had just done this to you but I feel he should somehow be given the message that what he did was wrong.

I can only echo the sentiments expressed above - you are definitely NOT overreacting, and this is NOT your fault. What this guy did was wrong, he carried on after you told him to stop, and he should NEVER have done that. I'm glad you've found someone to talk to, it always helps. If you're at university, there are always counselling services available, and there are hotlines as well. Best wishes!

Hi- I'm not the original poster, but I just wanted to say that this post and the experiences of the commentors inspired me to finally get real help. Thank you.