Who Decides if it’s Rape?

Touchy subject, probably triggering.

I was raped last September. (Or if I’m going to phrase it actively, a rapist raped me.) Sort of.

Mine is one of those gray-area cases that are tragically common, yet don’t get much attention in the culture at large. I’m using my own personal experience to frame the issue.

I think the perpetrator thinks I gave consent. I did say "I can’t," but I never explicitly said "NO." I never physically resisted. The perpetrator was even going to walk away at one point and leave me, but I eventually did say ok, let’s just do it, for fear of the "cocktease" rumors that I thought would abound among our mutual circle of friends. I realize now that that "reasoning" is extremely fucked. We were both very, very drunk.

I feel like I was raped. It’s been almost a year and I’m still afraid of most heterosexual men. I still get flashbacks and cry every now and then, though I have been able to enjoy consensual sex.

I think the perpetrator thinks it was just a stupid thing we did.

So who decides?

I’m leery to use the R-word when talking about… IT, not because I don’t feel like it was rape but because I think the people I’m talking to don’t think it is. I started seeing a therapist after the incident and she never used the word either, after I told her the details. I get the vibe that people think I’m being a drama queen. I think the perpetrator may be right in that it was just a stupid thing we did one night, and it just hit me extra hard because it was my first time and whatever, and with my feminist background I’m just touchy about the subject of violence against women in general. How can it be rape if the "rapist" read my actions as giving consent?

A professor and a mentor of mine says that its not the intentions that matter, it’s the outcome. For example, if someone tells a racist joke and someone else is offended, just because the joker wasn’t intentionally being racist doesn’t mean the offended party’s feelings aren’t valid. So by that logic, if I think I was raped then I was.

But I did give consent, sort of. I’m afraid I’m almost cheapening the R-word to use it for my stupid drunken mistake, and I’m somehow making it less effective for the people who were "really" raped.

So. In a rape or sexual assault case, does the perpetrator’s intent matter? Are potential perpetrators supposed to hear the trepidation in our voices as we finally relent, and be smart enough to stop when we are too afraid to? Is there another term we can use to describe an unwanted sexual experience for which consent was eventually, reluctantly, sorta given?

Or have I internalized all the victim-blaming language I’ve been hearing my whole life and being horribly irrational?