I think making an advance in this situation is completely reasonable. Kissing someone. Leaning in.
Sticking your hand on someone’s genitals is not an advance.
That’s what men do when they don’t respect someone and they think they can get away with pushing the line.
It’s also what they do when they know they won’t get sex, but think they might get something they can tell their friends about.
That’s the difference.
Similarly, guys don’t haul off and start yelling at women who say no to being felt up in a public place because they’re confused about where the lines are.
Guys do that because they know where the lines are and they know they just crossed them.
I really wasn’t that drunk. It’s a longer story, but I was on Birthright and hadn’t eaten all day because of stomach issues and probably an undiagnosed chronic illness. I’d only actually drunk like one beer. I was just out of it from lack of sleep because that’s how the trip is structured.
I could have done a better job taking care of myself, true. But it’s complicated. We’re pressured by the structure of the trip to be surrounded by each other, to hook up, to see each other as sexual and maybe even as sex objects, to feel obligated to marry and pass on our Jewish genetics. I was sitting in a hotel hallway. I’d spent the last 2 years at an all Women’s college. I assumed so many things not in evidence. But that’s what made me easy prey. Not what made it my fault.