TL;DR because rant: How do I get over the fear of offending a woman by escalating sexually?

First of all, I'm quite inexperienced with women. Had one LDR gf as a teen but pre-university I was never in a situation in which I met girls who were interested in me (or even girls who I could've been interested in) because of how I grew up (imagine growing up in the bible belt as a free thinker/alternative guy).

I've been reading a lot of seduction materials but I haven't really found myself/my issues in most of them. I initially thought I was too nice but I didn't find myself in "No More Mr. Nice Guy" at all. A few minutes ago I did:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/maybe-its-just-me/201308/why-men-find-it-so-hard-understand-what-women-want

All my life I've been around women who, even though some became my friends, could've never been interested in me sexually or romantically. Now that I'm in university this has changed but I guess my teens have been kind of traumatic in that way so I absolutely have the problem that the author of the article describes:

The problem for the considerate man, however, is how to express “overwhelming” desire within the constraints he holds himself to and he feels a woman is entitled to; in other words, he doesn't know how to be both the beast and the gentleman she wants and deserves.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were dating and trying to achieve the appropriate balance between thoughtful consideration and spontaneous desire, I would consider the costs of failing to show sufficient respect—specifically, the risk of offending or hurting a woman—to be much higher than the costs of showing insufficient desire and passion—mainly, risking making a woman unhappy and endangering the success of the relationship. The way I think about things, I would consider the first risk much more serious than the second, and I would err on the side of respect and consideration

For me this is so bad that I can never manage to do anything with a girl that couldn't be interpreted as friendship. When I started reading PU-stuff I started approaching with the express intent of getting rejected (as practice and motivation to improve myself). But my failure happened in a way that I didn't expect at all: I didn't manage to get rejected:

Sure, I had some approach anxiety early on but I overcame that. But now, every time I approach, the girl doesn't even realize I'm hitting on her. She seems like she's super into me (I'm an interesting person to talk to, I guess), I ask her if she wants to hang out some time, she agrees (cheerfully even) but she won't reject me. Except she has no intention of anything besides friendship. I've gone out three times with the same girl in the past before I realized that she wasn't into me at all.

I just don't get Kino and all the other "tricks" for escalating. In my world touching someone without explicit consent is absolutely ridiculous. I especially noticed that when I had a pretty promiscuous girl basically throw herself at me recently and I still had to ask for permission every fucking step of the way. "Can I kiss you?", "Can I take that off?", ... . I actually like going really slow (casual sex isn't really appealing to me, honestly, I am looking for a deeper bond) but the girls don't see it as going slow, they just put me right into the friendzone.

Anyone having similar issues? I really don't know how to get over it, as I can never read what is "acceptable" to do in a situation.