so his sharing this information meant (at least to him) “I am very sexually attracted to you and cannot treat you ‘normally’ until I have masturbated.” This is truly appalling behavior, though I can understand why someone who is socially obtuse about these things might not realize the extent of its harm/its appalling nature.
I feel pretty scared to say this.
I think some people might read this not in the context of this case, but in general, that you can never talk to your consenting friends about sex. That isn’t the case. Many people do, and it’s usually fine.
What made this bad was a repeated pattern of upsetting people, not thinking about the fact that she was alone in his house, in a foreign country and that they didn’t understand one another’s boundaries well. And perhaps that he had a lot of soft power in general, though I find that harder to parse.
But to those reading who aren’t in those situations who have friends with whom they sometimes talk about sex, that’s fine. If you feel uncertain—just ask if someone is comfortable talking about it in a way they can say no to.
I feel pretty scared to say this.
I think some people might read this not in the context of this case, but in general, that you can never talk to your consenting friends about sex. That isn’t the case. Many people do, and it’s usually fine.
What made this bad was a repeated pattern of upsetting people, not thinking about the fact that she was alone in his house, in a foreign country and that they didn’t understand one another’s boundaries well. And perhaps that he had a lot of soft power in general, though I find that harder to parse.
But to those reading who aren’t in those situations who have friends with whom they sometimes talk about sex, that’s fine. If you feel uncertain—just ask if someone is comfortable talking about it in a way they can say no to.