When I was younger, I went to a party with a male friend who had made multiple advances towards me that I had clearly rejected. At the party, he brought me drinks and I got extremely drunk. I remember kissing him and not resisting, but things are blurry after that. I remember being unable to walk due to intoxication and being carried out to the car, then sobering up in his bed the next morning. I told him afterward that I didn't want any physical relationship. I blamed myself for being drunk and making "dumb decisions," but my husband recently told me this was date rape and that my friend took advantage of me. I had never thought of it that way before. Is he right?

Thank you for sharing such a difficult and personal story. It makes a lot of sense that you walked away from that morning feeling embarrassed, even though what happened was completely not your fault. When someone has too much to drink, it can be very confusing to piece together what happened the night before, and it's natural for self-blame to take over. It sounds like you'd already made it clear to him many times that you weren't interested in anything intimate, and that matters deeply in understanding what happened.

What you're describing is a situation where you were too intoxicated to consent. When someone is unable to walk due to intoxication, they cannot give meaningful consent to sexual activity. The law recognizes this, and so does our understanding of healthy sexual interactions. Consent requires the ability to make a clear, informed decision, and that capacity simply isn't present at that level of intoxication. Even if you remember moments of kissing or not resisting, that doesn't equal consent when you're that impaired. Being heavily intoxicated means you weren't in a position to freely decide what you wanted or didn't want.

Your husband is identifying something important. Your friend knew you weren't interested in anything sexual. It sounds like you had told him this directly and repeatedly. He also saw how intoxicated you were, to the point where you couldn't walk on your own. Choosing to engage sexually with someone in that state, especially someone who had already clearly communicated they weren't interested, is taking advantage. You deserve to define your own experience, but many would see this as a significant boundary violation where your earlier refusal was ignored and your impaired state was taken advantage of.

It's incredibly common for survivors to blame themselves, especially when alcohol is involved. Our society often puts the responsibility on people who've been harmed rather than on the person who chose to act. But being drunk doesn't make you responsible for someone else's decision to have sex with you when you couldn't consent. You didn't make a "dumb decision." Someone made a choice about your body when you weren't capable of making that decision for yourself. Feeling embarrassed or blaming yourself is a common response, but it doesn't mean you're at fault. He had a responsibility to respect your clearly stated boundaries, especially when you were unable to speak for yourself due to intoxication.

The feelings you had afterward (e.g. the embarrassment, the self-blame, the need to set boundaries with him) are all normal responses to a violating experience. It's also completely normal to only later see it from another perspective, as your husband did, and start questioning the fairness of what happened. Sometimes it takes time and distance, or another person's perspective, to recognize what happened for what it was. There's no timeline for when you "should" have understood this, and however you're feeling about it now is valid. You have every right to feel unsettled or angry about this.

If it helps, talking through these feelings with someone supportive, whether a counselor, a trusted friend, or a confidential helpline, can provide clarity and the compassionate understanding you deserve. You aren't alone, and what occurred does not change your integrity or your worth. It was never your fault that someone else chose to disregard your boundaries when you couldn't protect them yourself. Thank you so much for reaching out to us and take gentle care of yourself.