I was asked to give more information about the situation with Kevin. I don’t know how to do that without telling a story, so here I go.

In August of 2004 I realized that my relationship with Tom was over and I broke up with him. I met a man named James at a sex party and we talked online for a few weeks before having a date (or any kind of sex for that matter). Our first date was the first weekend in October and he brought me down to Red White and Blue Beach in Santa Cruz–a nude beach. It was basically a regional Burning Man event. I met a lot of people that night and started doing a lot of drugs. Ecstasy was my favorite. I did it every 4-6 weeks for about nine months.

Not long after I started dating James I met Kevin. I don’t remember where exactly for sure. I suspect it was at a mutual friend’s house who hosted a lot of hot tub parties. We always danced around boundaries. We warmed up to one another slowly and built a friendship. I was very lonely and I didn’t have many places to go. Most of the people I knew either didn’t invite me over to their houses or I didn’t feel like they would accept my invitations. So I spent time with the people who invited me.

Kevin often offered me massages. He also listened to me talk about various questionable things and tried to sound supportive. It was always tricky because he would simultaneously tell me me that he respected me and he was glad that I spoke up about my boundaries but he would “oops forget” over and over. I brought it up more times than I can count. He would sometimes say he “understood” and sometimes express confusion over what I was talking about. He is quite good at making people feel crazy. Even though his hand was just inside my vagina he would deny it adamantly and express concern for why I was over reacting to a massage.

Eventually I started dating someone else and faded away from the Burner community. I wanted to stop doing a lot of drugs and I wanted to stop feeling like I had to defend my body with force. I stopped coming to events at all after a female friend of mine lead a class on “boundaries” meant to help the women who were sexually assaulted at beach events pulled me up in front of the room and mocked me for “how good I am” at defending myself. She said that not everyone needs to be a bitch like me. I didn’t see a good reason to come back.

I stopped going to those events because my experience of heavily nudity focused events (and Burning Man stuff seems to be) involves a lot of men who feel like me saying no is doing something rude and mean. I can’t live with that. I am one of those stupid girls who is easy to peer pressure. When people pressure me I cave. I shut my mouth and close my eyes and put my head down and accept what is going to happen. My experience of resisting pressure isn’t good. Either I’m publicly mocked for being a bitch (usually by women) or I am raped.

I stay home.