A local man took to Reddit to ask what to do after a situation with a female friend left him uncomfortable, choosing to remain anonymous and leaving out most of the details of the encounter.
“A few months back I was in a chalet with a group of friends and one female friend seemed to be particularly drunk. At one point she was touching me at various places that I was not comfortable with (chest and groin area),” wrote ActuaryInformal4674 on r/askSingapore.
He added that a part of him believes that his friend had not acted on purpose and was unaware of what she was doing due to her drunken state. However, he added that another part of him thinks she could be using her drunkenness as an excuse.
“But either way even if it was intentional, I don’t think there’s much you can do as a guy? Go the police? They might be laughing me out of the police post. Confide in my friends about it? They might just be teasing me about it. Though there might be a possibility that I am just overreacting even though I’m still affected by the incident,” the netizen wrote.
The responses to his post were very sympathetic.
One Reddit user called the encounter a sexual assault and urged him to report it to the police. Another Reddit user said, “Sexual assault is sexual assault my friend. You are not overreacting.”
One counselled the netizen that he has two choices.
A Reddit user who said he had been “sexually assaulted by females before” gave the link to the Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC) at AWARE.
“Make a police report immediately. This comment section smh. Imagine if the roles were reversed. Ppl here would be slamming the guy. He would no doubt be reported. His life would be over. Why should it be any different just because she is a woman?
Just because you are a man, doesn’t mean you cannot be sexually assaulted. No means no. You have rights. They have been violated. It’s as simple as that. Don’t need tell your friends if you don’t want to,” another Redditor wrote.
Others assured him that he was not alone.
The netizen, however, wrote in a comment that he does not want to file a police report, but he ultimately wants “to stop being affected by it.”
/TISG