Recently, I met up with an old friend at a coffee shop. While we sat down and chatted, she began to describe a certain situation about a man she had been seeing for over a year. Their relationship had always been stable and she truly did believe that he cared for her and liked her. She was head over heels, madly in love with someone who totally misguided her. Despite all of her feelings, sex was always something she wanted to save for marriage. It was a personal thing. However, he manipulated his way into taking her virginity. Which led me to wonder: can manipulation to achieve sex be a gateway to rape?
With all of this catching up, I began to think about my own relationships. I was seeing a man and despite how I felt more emotion and love for him than any other man I’ve dated, I decided not to have sex with him. As close as we were, I knew that sex was something that he had always wanted and he made that completely clear to me. Regardless, he didn’t mind waiting. However, there were times when he tried to have sex even though he knew that I wanted to wait.
I will be honest when I say that during those times where he has pleasured me in hopes for more, I wanted to give in, but I respected myself enough not to. However, I’ve thought about his intentions and now am beginning to wonder whether or not it’s okay to try and make someone change their mind despite your own knowledge about their predispositions to sex? Maybe it will end up becoming conceptual, but isn’t that sort of like rape? You know they really don’t want to do it, and so you’re making them feel like they want to only for the moment. In some cases, that will leave them in a sea of regret and hopelessness. I know that my friend feels helpless because she gave up something that she had promised herself she would always save for a man who truly loved her. Thinking about my last relationship, I know that I would’ve felt guilty if I had slept with my him because it was never my intention to do so and, during the time spent with him, it never felt right.
Sometimes having sex with your significant other will convince you that what you two have is love. But should you have to fall for their words in order to receive their admiration? It’s important to be intimate with your partner on your own terms, not because their words can influence your decision.
Maybe this can’t be called rape. Maybe it’s being stupid and not standing up for yourself. But either way, this will never be right. It’s not fair for one party to have complete dominance over the other and it’s not fair to be misguided into having sex. 
