In a recent post on r/AITAH (the ‘Am I the A**hole? subreddit), redditor u/PruneJealous3813 recounted confronting his girlfriend after she shared a “traumatic” story about an incident before they met. In response, he told her that she had been the perpetrator of sexual harassment, not the victim, and turned to Reddit to ask if he was TA.
“AITAH for telling my girlfriend she was the perpetrator, not the victim, in her ‘trauma’?” u/PruneJealous3813, whose account has been suspended, asked the r/AITAH subreddit. “My [25m] girlfriend [24f] and I have been dating for about a year. I’ll call her Casey here. We have lived together for two months.
“A few hours ago, Casey approached me saying that she wanted to talk about something ‘serious.’ At first, I didn’t know what to expect, but she wanted to share something traumatic that had happened to her before we met, and she asked if I would be willing to listen. I of course said yes, I would, if she’d be willing to share.”
He went on, “Casey hesitated for a second, like she wasn’t sure about telling me, but then gave me the full story. What happened was when she was a university student, she had a crush on a pizza guy. He worked at a small shop near her apartment, and he would often deliver to her. She wanted to ask him out, but she wasn’t sure how, so she consulted her friends.”
“Her friend group talked over it, and then one brought up the suggestion of answering the door in lingerie. The others jumped onto the idea quickly, and while Casey had doubts, they quickly convinced her to try it. They apparently even went shopping for the lingerie together.”
“Casey put on makeup, did her hair, and ordered a pizza. When the guy came, she did exactly as her friends suggested: she opened the door in skimpy lingerie. The pizza guy initially didn’t address it, but Casey, ‘desperate,’ pushed the topic. She asked him, ‘What do you think about my outfit?’”
Rather than letting it go when he didn’t react to her revealing clothing, she pushed the delivery driver, forcing him to acknowledge what she was doing.
“He responded, ‘Dude, please don’t do that,’ and then left. At this point in the story, Casey was near tears, and she told me how embarrassed and sick she felt.”
“I almost expected more from the story, but she was finished. I then said, ‘Uh … you do realize that you weren’t the victim, but the perpetrator, right?’ She literally recoiled at this comment. She elaborated by blaming everybody else: her friends for ‘tricking’ her, society in general, and even the pizza guy that she sexually harassed.”
u/PruneJealous3813 explained to his girlfriend that if the roles had been reversed, what she had done to the pizza delivery guy who was just doing his job would clearly be considered sexual harassment. Her reaction to this statement was telling, as the conversation devolved into an argument that ended with Casey saying, “I came to you to feel better and now I feel WORSE!”
“I don’t even know. I feel so disgusted with her right now. Was I the a**hole for my comments when she felt vulnerable?” he asked folks on Reddit.
People in the comments quickly told OP he was NTA and people need to learn to recognize that men can be the victims of sexual harassment, as well.
While society often overlooks the harassment of men, rather than by men, recent studies show that up to 43% of men report experiencing some form of sexual harassment or sexual assault, highlighting the importance of addressing this topic without bias.
“People need to remember that there’s a difference between trauma and embarrassment,” u/one-small-plant said.
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