'I kissed my BF without permission, he flipped, how can I calm him down?' UPDATED 2X

"I [29f] kissed my BF without permission, he [33m] flipped, how can I calm him down?"

I'm sorry if this seems disorganized. I'm quite distraught. I have been with my boyfriend whom I will call *Ted, for 5 months. We have slept together once which was a month ago. It has been very slow and I've been mostly happy with it. Ted told me he hasn't been active in about 2-3 years. He said he does go on dates but he hasn't had enough luck.

Before I talk about last night, I need to give you some history. When we were first intimate, Ted made a huge deal about asking for consent. He asked "can I kiss you? can I touch you here? Is this okay?" it was really great until later on. It seemed like we hit a point and he became really rough which included some slapping and other things that were a bit intimidating.

At the end he said "I'm such a nice guy, how did you feel about the consent? It seems like you enjoy rough things." It seemed weird to me at the time but I shrugged it off. One day Ted came over and said that he wants to take things slow. We were laying together and he said "I would love to touch your beautiful body, but right now I won't."

He said it's important that we develop a "deep, deep bond of trust." I wasn't allowed to get that close to him before he said he had to go. He promised next weekend we would be intimate and he'd come over for longer.

So last night we went for lunch. He came up for a bit and announced he had to leave. I asked him to please stay and that I had really missed him the last month. He agreed to sit down and of course, we kissed. I asked him if he felt okay and he said I did. Things escalated before he sharply yelled for me to stop and put my clothes on.

Then he said that I was being disrespectful and not listening. He said that "maybe you're sleeping with other men, you can't do that with me. Just think about the future when we can be intimate together."

I started crying because it was so so frustrating. He would kiss me for a bit, stop, yell, and then start again. I didn't understand. Suddenly he stood to go and I begged him to stay, begged him for more than just an hour together and he refused. He became so angry and I tried to hug / kiss him and he yelled even more. Finally he texted that I am very disrespectful and non-consensual.

I have been bawling. I asked him to try and talk and apologize and he has refused. How can I have a talk with him? He has said I'm very mean and disrespectful and that "there's no more talking."

TL;DR boyfriend angry about a kiss / kissed him without permission.

The internet kept it very real in the comments.

angelcat00

Ted told me he hasn't been active in about 2-3 years. He said he does go on dates but he hasn't had enough luck.

Luck has nothing to do with it. Ted sounds exhausting and made of red flags and you're the first person who has actually bought into his bullshit.

Consent is amazing, but it sounds like he's using it as a tool for mind-games and control, which is not okay.

~

winchester4life9865

The only talk you need to be having is to break up and block. He sounds unhinged. And you may have dodged a huge bullet.

waitingfordeathhbu wrote:

It sounds like something more sinister might be going on, like some PUA shit, manipulating her to be desperate for his approval/forgiveness so he holds all the power. Edit: PUA = Pickup Artist. A community of men trading tips on how to use tactics, lies, and psychological tricks to manipulate women into sleeping with/dating them.

This is also where the concept of “negging” originated. Or he could just be your garden variety red piller/narcissist/emotional ab*ser.

Impressive_Award_306 wrote:

I mean … you don’t necessarily have to have a talk with him about breaking up, you can just not contact him anymore and live your life happily ever after. You do realize he’s performing advanced ninja level ab*se on you, right?

TalmanesRex wrote:

Seriously! I think he controls all the consent, consent is for him to decide. Also, he set up a withhold pattern for her to then BEG HIM to give her any attention while he can push-pull to his heart's content messing with her mind. He is not concerned about consent he is concerned about control. What in the F did I just read?

Four months later, OP shared an update.

Well I hope you're ready for a boring update.

Before I get into things:

Yes, this story is real.

Please refrain from saying "I would never do that."

The person I referenced worked in a profession most people would trust and had done a lot of social work for marginalized communities. So yes, I trusted them to be generally sane and it was stupid.

Anyway. I've always preferred to "talk things through" and the person in question blocked me. The weekend before he had JUST stated (ad nauseum) how important it was that we maintained a strong, strong friendship that would last. So yes. It was very confusing. He created a poetic reel using clips from my home and referenced "a woman he's still searching for."

The poor thing. He has the masses just sobbing. I didn't consent to my living room being used for his crybaby poetry but #yolo. Whatever gets clout, baby. So between that and running into him in person, I've just ignored him. On a positive note, I have been single since and things are going alright. I took a hard look at my life and cut a lot of toxic folks out of my life.

My community has flourished and so has my career!

So yeah. Things are okay?

TL;DR: Life is good.

Meanwhile, around the same time, a post was made on another subreddit that commenters believe is from OP's ex (given the content).

Hey internet, this has become an issue with my friends. Half are saying I'm being insensitive and half are saying I'm fine. Here's the issue:

• I'm a popular writer online. I recently created a video with some writing. The video has clips from the last year of my life, just random stuff really. There's probably 30 clips.

• I wrote a story (not real) about a past lover. I wrote about the passing of time, their body, that I was think of how well our bodies connected. You get the idea.

Here's the problem. I used 3 clips from my ex's apartment with the story. She went out of her way to message me on a different platform and said the clips should be taken down. (I've blocked her on a different platform).

It's a fictional story, nothing to do with her.

So Reddit, AITA?

TL;DR: Created art with a shot of my ex.

Commenters had a lot to say.

Willing_Cartoonist16 wrote:

YTA and also potentially illegal, take it down fast.

OP's ex-bf responded:

There isn't that much that's identifiable except her view. (She has a view of the water). She is not in it. She is more upset about the romantic writing even though it's not about her.

Hulalappool wrote:

YTA. Take it down. Your ex had to go out of her way to message you on another platform because you blocked her on the platform where you parasitized/exploited for use on your vanity reel three separate video clips of your ex’s apartment.

All without her permission or even asking her first while also knowing you posted it to somewhere she would not be able to contact you through and though even though you posted this on an online site accessible to anyone.

You never considered or had any empathy for the fact of how she could be blindside by someone else contacting her like a mutual and going yo did you know about this? or people thinking the story is about your ex even though you claim it’s not.

If you’re a popular online writer you should have had neither a need nor any reason or justification for you to thread three video clips of your ex’s dwelling through your vanity reel unless you were revenge trolling her, your a huge AH, you wanted people to believe or assume the story was about her while also denying it was about her, etc.

There’s no neutral or innocent take on this and there’s no grey area. YTA. Unblock her on the platform so she can make sure you don’t try to pull this crap again on her, remove the content, re-edit if you’d like to to include video of your own dwelling or some clips you’ve got permission to use, and delete your previous posts. And apologize to her.

OP's ex-BF responded:

I appreciate your feedback. Just want to make some other points: She's not blocked on that platform. I have just blocked her phone number on messaging apps. We have never followed each other on this app so she just found it on her own. I did ask permission before I filmed.

Again, she's not identifiable really. She has a view of mountains and water and that's what the clips show. I guess I needed to vent and I'm coming off as an AH, I will change some of the clips.

Hulalappool responded:

There’s a difference between permission to take a video of your gf’s apt when you’re dating her to have that video for yourself to enjoy and permission to use three video clips of her apartment after you’ve broken up and you’ve blocked her on messaging apps, use those for your vanity reel, synch them up with a “fictional” story about an ex that is “definitely not even about her” and upload those.

You should never have done that without her permission and your repeated denials the story had anything to do with her (it probably didn’t) while exploiting and appropriating video of her apartment for use in that exact part of the video that discusses the body of a lover/ex/whatever is additionally offensive and violative.

What on earth do YOU have to vent about? Whether she found it on her own or a mutual told or family member recognized her apt and contacted her asking about that, none of that matters because you took away her agency and consent and your combining video clip of her apt without her consent accompanying text that is intimate (albeit as you claim factionalized) is so slimey and wrong.

The fact that you seem to not get why is truly baffling. It’s not enough to just take it down. You need to recognize why YTA and how what you did was not cool and you need to apologize to her rather than try to imply she’s the one causing drama by “going out of her way to contact you." You're shameless. Please work on yourself.

SeePerspectives wrote:

You know that you’re currently accessing the internet to post here, right? That means that you can quite easily use it to find relevant pictures of mountains and water that don’t make you look like a creepy weirdo that’s still obsessing over their ex to the point of committing internet harassment. Why would you choose to make yourself look like that?

Nobody has ever witnessed someone acting like a creepy weirdo and though anything other than “eww, what a creepy weirdo”.

They’re not gonna notice you, they’re not gonna notice your writing (even if it was a masterpiece, doesn’t matter) all anyone who sees that, and knows about your history with her, will notice is how creepy and weird it seems. Take them out, and in future consider the optics of what your choices convey.

TurtleTheMoon wrote:

YTA. You’re an AH for using images of people in your life for your art without their permission. Your friends shouldn’t be turned into the subjects of your creativity without first being asked permission. Especially given your popularity, people should have the right to decide whether or not they want to have their image publicly scrutinized alongside your creative message.

You’re even more of an AH for using images of your ex for your art without her permission. Everything from my first paragraph is doubly applicable to somebody who is no longer a part of your life, and not on friendly terms. You had her blocked on the social media platforms you used to communicate with her on, and that generally means things didn’t end well.

She had to find you on a different social media app just to talk to you about it. Your intimate history gone wrong makes this an even bigger asshole move. You’re an even bigger asshole still for using images of your ex for your art about a fictional ex without her permission. At this point your aholery elevates to full-blown creepdom.

You are using images of a real past lover from a real past relationship to illustrate a story about a fictional past lover and your fictional relationship. Seriously, how do you not see how creepy and over the line that is? The picture of a woman with whom you’ve been very intimate juxtaposed against a description of intimacies you never shared with her.

You must know that any mutual friends who have seen this are regarding this as a nonfictional work of fiction, right? You’ve just made life very uncomfortable for her, and maybe you’re actually this painfully naïve, but it’s hard for me to imagine you didn’t do this to her on purpose. Do you profit from your writing? If so, I hope she sues the hell out of you.

OP's ex responded:

I understand but it's NOT photos of her. It's a view from her bed / couch which has a unique view. She said she's upset because I wrote "lovers entertwined," and showed a shot of water.

Big yikes all around, it sounds like OP dodged a majorly creepy bullet.