Cases of sexual assault are notoriously difficult to sort out, because there is often very little evidence that can be provided beyond the testimonies of those involved. However, in the case of Zoe/Paqoe, evidence is not so scarce in her statement because of the lack of receipts, but because almost every single piece of available evidence directly contradicts the person she describes and implies me to be in this statement.
It’s hard to know where to start, so I’m just going to go through some of the individual statements made. There are some truths here, but even these are posed in bad faith because they are truths that I have fully taken responsibility for and that we had sorted out privately more than a year ago. It seems as though these are used only as a tool to make Zoe’s false portrayal of my character more convincing. I don’t think this would have been brought up had we not been on bad terms currently.
“I didn’t realise anything that happened was wrong until I opened up about it months later.”
When I first read this tweet and saw this phrase, I legitimately did a double take. This can be proved wrong so easily that I began to wonder if Zoe actually remembered anything about the situation. A few days after that first night, we were walking around some streets (I forget where we were going, but that’s not particularly relevant), and she brought up the first night, specifically in the framing of “I was wondering whether or not it was sexual assault” - I was presumably the first person she told - not months, but days after it happened. That memory has since become one of the few that haunts me whenever I go down an anxiety spiral - I had already had some worried thoughts about the events of that night immediately after they happened, and I believe I was planning on asking her about it, but hearing it directly, from someone who I cared about beyond words and who I never wanted to cause any harm, was incredibly distressing.
At the time, my immediate reaction was to apologise repeatedly, express the horrible feeling I was having in any words I could manage, and try to show what my intentions had been and what my understanding of the situation was (which we will get into later). She then reassured me, saying that she didn’t regret it happening in the least, and that she didn’t think of me any differently because of it.
Because that memory continued to live with me, though (as it has to this day), I asked about it again a few days later, and again she reassured me, even saying that she was actually glad it happened. Now, in comparison to the tone of her tweet this sounds like a completely insane thing to say, but I brought it up again in dms, and so I have direct evidence of her sharing this exact sentiment, as well as being charitable towards how I interpreted the situation:
If the tone seems off in these messages, it’s because we had gone over this so many times due to me repeatedly asking her about it that her reassuring me that she was okay with what happened had become a very repetitive conversation. I continued to feel extremely bad about it, but this helped somewhat at the time.
I imagine the immediate response I’m going to get to this is that I made her feel bad or manipulated her in some other way into giving me the reassurance I wanted. This is not a strong argument if you have any idea what the two of us are like. Both me and her are extremely anxious people, and so we had a sort of agreement to be as honest with each other as we could to prevent us bottling things up or fearing how the other person perceived you. Here’s evidence of that where she was asking that I be honest about something sexually explicit (I’m pretty sure I was drunk here, but whatever):
In addition, in continuing to ask her to make sure that she truly felt how she said she did about that night, I gave her many opportunities to express the same feelings of hurt that she has expressed in the tweet. She was never anything but reassuring about it, and she volunteered this reassurance - I didn’t prise it out of her. Furthermore, I was absolutely not in any kind of position of power or dominance to make her do anything out of fear. We’ll talk about that more later.
“We had been flirty online prior to this, but we didn’t have any explicit plans to do anything sexual irl”
This part also left me puzzled for pretty much the same reasons as the previous: because it’s just objectively and provably wrong. It’s like she forgot that we had DMs. “Flirty online” is putting it extremely lightly considering how we actually interacted. In this conversation, for example, Zoe suggested outlining our sexual interests so that we could avoid awkwardness in sexual encounters when we met up (clearly meaning that we were both already sure that such sexual encounters would be happening):
Here’s evidence that we were obviously and clearly both interested in each other sexually before the meetup:
(To give some context for “plausing”: we were both massive pussies when it came to serious flirting due to some irrational fear that the other party would suddenly decide to hate them, so we would often say things that were true but with a tone that allowed for plausible deniability of that truth. For example: “i want to SEE YOUR PENIS AND SUCH…or so I’ve heard” means “i want to SEE YOUR PENIS” and the “or so i’ve heard” is just a way to ‘get out of’ that. ‘Plauseland’ just refers to the idea of us doing that kind of flirting.)
Here’s me stating that I would be perfectly happy in an alternate universe where we weren’t planning on doing anything sexual, and that I wouldn’t try to do anything (even if I had the same feelings about her) if it hadn’t been made clear that that’s what she wanted, while she expresses her view on how she perceived the purpose (or at least one of the purposes) of us meeting up:
Here’s more of the conversation about the first night. We would talk on Snapchat pretty regularly, and she would occasionally - especially in the weeks right before the meetup - ask me for explicit pictures, which is what the “SHOW ME YOUR ASS” thing is referencing:
Here’s more proof of that - you can see I’m not comfortable with sending anything too explicit, but she would continue to ask in a way that I think betrays some certain enthusiasm (oeenor = dick):
Now, I would like to clarify one thing. In retrospect it is true that, on the day that I arrived, she did not show any specific signs of wanting anything sexual to happen. I should have noticed this, and this is where the guilt about it that I explained to her comes from, and I’m genuinely still just as sorry for that as I was the day we first talked about it - even in a fully fledged relationship, a partner can just not feel like doing that kind of thing on some days, and even though it’s often difficult for me to pick up on social cues, I should have seen it in her that day.
However, it is clearly completely unjustifiable to pose it like it was completely insane of me to think that sexual activities would occur at some point - which, in fact, they did, throughout the next two weeks or so, with me learning from the first night and being extra cautious to pick up on any signals that would betray a lack of desire to engage in that kind of thing. Additionally, as I said previously, I had misread the situation - there were no ill intentions whatsoever on my part, despite what she seems to be implying throughout her statement.
Regardless of how wrong I was, and how I’ve already acknowledged what I did wrong to her, I think it is extremely telling of the tone and nature of this statement that she has chosen to talk about this publicly now, despite the fact that it seemed practically objectively true that we had already resolved it in private so long ago.
“I was genuinely too naive and inexperienced to know he had done anything wrong…”
I’m not going to deny the truth of this claim beyond the latter part - as I’ve shown, she very obviously did think about what happened in detail and came to her own conclusions about it pretty much immediately after it happened, and then told me them - but I will dispute the picture this paints of our relationship. At the time I was also incredibly sexually inexperienced, probably only a small amount less than her. Before I went to America, I had done essentially nothing beyond kissing a girl when I was maybe 15, and while I did engage in some sexual activities with Blitzer/Lillie before I went on to meet Zoe, it was nothing that I believe gave me any significant ‘upper hand’ in that department. In fact, I’m sure I was more nervous than her in practically every sexual situation - I never wanted the focus of it to be on me, and essentially everything we did was focused on her, just because it made me so anxious.
I believe this lack of experience (along with the other factors that I have mentioned) caused me to do what I did on the first night - it’s a lot more difficult to know when someone is or isn’t interested if you have been in barely any situations where you can practise noticing that kind of thing, and it’s also why my attempt to make a move was so fucking cringe (“You’re really pretty, you know”?? Get a grip, me). As I say, I still take responsibility for not noticing, but the idea that I knew all along and was just taking advantage of her because of her lack of experience is clearly not true. The power imbalance that she is trying to portray simply did not exist.
There is also the relevant problem of me seemingly refusing to stop despite her repeatedly saying something that should have told me that she was uncomfortable. I should have stopped earlier, but the reason I didn’t was that I first interpreted it as mild nerves, rather than an expression of uncomfortability with me doing it in a categorical sense. We both knew that each other were very inexperienced sexually, and on its face “I don’t know what I’m doing” is very much an expression of that. I stopped as soon as I realised that it was making her actually uncomfortable, and I never initiated it again that night. We only began engaging sexually again on that trip because she made it clear she wanted to. All of this is stuff I already talked to her about when I was in America, because I wanted to make it clear that I had absolutely no intention to hurt her.
“...and I absolutely did not consent to him doing any of that.”
This is one of the more difficult parts to sort out, because it involves implied consent - the idea that consent can still be present even if there is no precise verbal or written confirmation. Most consent, at least in the experiences of those that I’ve talked to about it, is implied, because consent is awkward, and in some interactions - for example, a long-term boyfriend and girlfriend - often considered already present by those involved.
Now, I’ve shown a lot of evidence that would lead any reasonable person to expect that sexual activities would happen when we met up, and I think you can probably also gauge that me and Zoe were incredibly close with each other. I have no doubt in my mind that the only thing preventing us from dating was the fact that we lived so far apart, and to me it seems that she’s trying to downplay this factor dramatically (repetition of the word “friend” in the first paragraph, and a failure to mention how close we were at the time). This is why I tried to make a move on the first night - not because I was touch-starved or because I knew I could take advantage of her, but because everything in how we had interacted in the previous months had told me that that was what she wanted. She had never once expressed a specific desire to wait a few days, until our talks about that first night in the following days, weeks and months.
However, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that implied consent is just as good as clear, verbal consent, because it obviously isn’t. I should have asked her specifically if she wanted to do anything like that that night, just to make sure, and the thought of this mistake has also been a major source of guilt about the whole experience (and another thing that I already talked to her about last year). Nonetheless, I do believe that it was an honest mistake that others would have made based on my misreading the situation, and that my reasons for making the mistake were nowhere near as predatory as Zoe’s statement makes them out to be.
Once again, I think the way she chose to bring this up betrays that she is acting almost entirely in bad faith. The way she words her statement, implying that there were never any real signs that we would engage in sexual activity and that my action would always have been completely out of the blue, leaves no room for even implied consent, nor even for this to be anything but the action of someone incredibly predatory and sick in the head.
I would like to tell a quick story from the trip that, I think, shows how difficult consent can be when you’re in this kind of situation, even with someone who you are incredibly close with. It also shows a kind of hypocrisy in a way that it could absolutely be classed as sexual assault in the same way as Zoe is classing the events of the first night, perhaps even more easily. About a week or so into the meetup (so, well past the time that me and Zoe had begun fully engaging in sexual activities as we said we would, and I think even past the time that we had said “I love you” to each other), we went to Silver Dollar City - a theme park in Missouri - for a day trip. Very few people will know this, but public displays of affection (at least, when I’m sober) make me incredibly anxious, and every time an IRL sexual partner has attempted to engage in them, I’ve refused. However, when we were walking around between the rides, Zoe would frequently try to grab my hand and hold it, and when we were standing in lines she would try to kiss me often. Here’s proof of that:
I was giving every physical sign that I didn’t want to do this - I pulled away every time she tried to kiss me, and took my hand back every time she tried to hold it, even trying to hold it in a way she couldn’t grab. I think it was extremely obvious how uncomfortable I was, but despite this, she continued to try, and this was going on basically the entire time we were at the park. Eventually (despite my simultaneous anxiety-hated of the idea of sacrificing someone else’s happiness for my own in case it means they suddenly decide to hate me) I had to tell her to stop, but it seems like she took it as a joke, and carried on. It took her eventually asking something like “do you actually not want me to do this” and me answering affirmatively for her to stop - although I do recall having to say this repeatedly in order for the message to actually get across, and (unlike me in this situation) she did not seem to show any guilt about it during or afterwards. I also can’t find any evidence of her asking me repeatedly, weeks afterwards, if I was sure that I was okay with what happened. My answer to that would have been no. It was a violation of my boundaries that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, and it was one of the few times in that stage of our relationship when my perception of her dipped.
Direct comparison of this incident with the one Zoe is describing in terms of which is worse is not really my main focus, though. I’m saying this because, although we might have been at a different stage, I want to illustrate how making assumptions based on the perceived status of your relationship with someone, just as I did with her on that first night, is easily done and is not always a sign that someone is trying to take advantage of someone else or exerting their power. Mistakes happen, and the best you can do is make sure that the people you’re with are okay and are aware of your actual intentions.
Afterword
I wasn’t able to work on this response for a good chunk of today due to being out of the house, but I certainly thought about it the whole time. Maybe it’s just because I have all the evidence at hand, and because I lived that experience, but I just don’t understand why everyone is treating Zoe’s statement as definitive proof, why everyone is instantly against me before I’ve even had a chance to respond, and above all why Zoe did this in the first place. As I’ve said, It certainly comes across as bad faith because of all the information that is objectively and provably wrong, but I guess I don’t understand what was done to motivate her to act in such a way. We haven’t been on good terms in the least recently, but the amount of hatred I feel like I would have to have for someone to simply just lie about something so damning is so irreconcilable with our relations.
I think, in itself, bringing up something that was already talked about and sorted in private over a year ago is indicative of an incredibly dramatic decline in her view of me, because what can you even get out of doing this? This wasn’t something you were repressing for months on end, it wasn’t something that completely destroyed our relationship, and I brushed off my fear that you might one day talk about this publicly just to get back at me for wronging you in some way as mere paranoia. Are you happy now that people who cared about me think so ill of me? That I lost mod without a chance to explain myself? I just can’t think of any way this was beneficial to you other than because you got to briefly ruin my life. I hope it was worth it.