Is it possible for sex to not be fully consensual but not be assault? What was this?

45 points62 commentssubmitted by MiraweaveTransfeminist ⚧Ⓐ☭ to r/AskFeminists

Earlier this year my girlfriend and I broke up and I ended up casually dating or hooking up with a few different people in the month or two that followed.

In one particular case I met this guy who I initially sort of liked, we ended up going on a date and then going back to my place and having sex. I realized I wasn't into him pretty early on during the date - he was kind of loud and annoying and kept saying things I wasn't comfortable with and making bigoted jokes and such. I really didn't want to have sex with him, but ended up going along with it when we got back to my house because he came onto me and I wasn't sure how to say no. The sex was pretty uncomfortable and I kind of just pretended to be into it and then cut contact with him after he left.

So on one hand, it feels like it wasn't really consensual. I literally didn't want to have sex with him. On the other hand, I don't think I'd call it assault either, since I sort of just went along with it without really objecting. I feel like I can't really blame him for not picking up on the fact I wasn't into it since I'm generally pretty good at hiding those things and pretending everything is fine.

So yeah, what was that? Was it assault and I'm just trying to rationalize it, was it just sex that was really bad but consensual, or was it some kind of weird middle ground?