I believe you. And you needed to be supported. Being in that environment brain washed you into believing you were responsible. I think this is what women mean when they talk about a rape culture. As a man, I understand the approach of this older man, but I would have never moved over on the couch. As you said, you never gave him any cause to indicate mutual attraction. What the older man may have provided your ex, may have made your ex feel obligated. I have been to these party houses and been taken to dinner by one of these older men en masse, surfed with, and thought the whole thing was a cumulative attempt at some kind of eventual compromise of my true feelings, whether he was gay or wanted me to peddle drugs, because we got some from him, or whatever. As Ofshe said, it is in these external environments that people are persuaded to adapt to mores that run against what is customary. But, of course, in a patriarchy, which is our overall society, men have more power over women, which creates an atmosphere of suffocation and required submission. “Sociologists tend to see patriarchy as a social product and not as an outcome of innate differences between the sexes and they focus attention on the way that gender roles in a society affect power differentials between men and women,” (Wikipedia). I left the group due to my single mother getting a “Big Brother,” who my co-”Little Brother” said was assaulting us because he watched us shower. But, because he was a very old former pediatrician, and my dead father had been a doctor, I never felt encroached upon. I did feel that from my “Little Brother.” I think we live in a culture of take-what-you-can. In the work place we have a “minimum wage.” You do exactly what you are told. You dispense with your feelings. I feel sorry for women, because many men see them only as sex objects, everything seems to be measured in terms of sex. This may be one of the only needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy that seems to be underserved or distorted. It’s only been recently that I have been able to see someone I like in terms of how she makes me feel, which is electrified, and how much I like being with her, because she is accomplished. Her conversations, at least to me, are highly informative. But, I also have this hot babe in the back of my mind, who is much younger, but who also electrifies me but in a “slightly” different way, which means it’s basically absent of any idea of her beliefs, attitudes, or values, not to mention again that she is much younger and what that implies. I am not the type of man, who takes what he wants. I wait a lifetime for something to happen. This, I think, is because I saw my mother raise two children alone and end up penniless and a hoarder with Alzheimer’s. My regard for women is to put them on pedestals. I love them and marvel at their vocal abilities to hide their sadness and adversity. A lot of men don’t hang around other men. We don’t know which men are making these decisions to hurt women. We understand the desire for sex, but we don’t condone taking it against someone’s will. That should never have happened to you. That man was a rapist and your husband was emasculated. Again, I do not doubt anything you say. I apologize for your pain.