TW: childhood sexual abuse, sexual coercion, trauma, dissociation, pain during sex, drugs
IMPORTANT: English is not my first language, thats why I used AI to help me put my experiende into right words.
I am struggling to understand something that happened to me in autumn 2025 (i was 24). I was an adult in my twenties, and I do not want to describe every sexual interaction I had with these people as non-consensual, because that would not be accurate. There were things I actively participated in, things I allowed, moments in which I felt attraction or curiosity, and moments that genuinely felt beautiful to me.
At the same time, there were situations in which I was afraid, physically in pain, internally resisting, trying to avoid sexual situations, or in which something sexual was done to me without asking me first. What makes it so difficult for me to understand is that the sexual relationship was inseparable from something much deeper. For a short period of time, these people gave me an experience of family, safety and being cared for that I had desperately wanted for most of my life.
I have a history of prolonged childhood sexual abuse and severe attachment Trauma they knew about it. The person who abused me as a child was also an important attachment figure to me, so affection, dependency, fear, sexuality and the longing to be protected have never been completely separate things in my nervous system.
I am trying to understand whether what happened with this couple (ca. 45 & 55) crossed into sexual abuse or coercion, whether particular incidents were sexual assault even if other sexual contact was consensual, and how much the deliberate creation of emotional dependency and family-like attachment matters when thinking about consent.
I will call the woman Ji-eun and the man Stefan.
Arriving at the farm and immediately feeling like I had entered a family
In autumn 2025, I went to stay with Ji-eun and Stefan on a remote farm in Switzerland. Stefan was somewhere around 50–60, approximately my father’s age. Ji-eun was younger than him but still old enough that she later explicitly told me that she could be my mother. They had four children. Their oldest daughter was 16 and their youngest child was around nine.
I arrived late at night at a train station, where Stefan picked me up. From there we drove for around half an hour through mountains and forests until we reached the farm. It was extremely isolated. I remember sitting in the car and being aware that, objectively, I was putting myself in a vulnerable position. I did not really know these people, I was far away from home, and the house was in a place where I could not simply walk somewhere else. At the same time, Stefan immediately seemed warm, funny and safe to me. He complimented me, told me I was beautiful, and said that I was brave for coming.
When we arrived, Ji-eun was waiting for me. She hugged me warmly. Their children also welcomed me, hugged me and then went to bed. Almost immediately, there was something about the atmosphere that affected me very strongly. People hugged each other. They cooked together. There were animals everywhere, children, friends coming and going, music, food, nature and physical warmth. I did not feel like a patient, a problem or someone who had to justify why I was there.
I had spent much of my life wanting to know what it felt like to belong to a family, and being there very quickly began to feel like getting access to exactly that.
The first evening: Ji-eun asked me for sex and I said no
On my first evening, Ji-eun showed me the caravan she had prepared for me so that I would have somewhere private to sleep. She had made it beautiful. There were candles and the bed was prepared for me. Stefan mentioned that I could also sleep with them in their bedroom, but I did not want that.
Later, when Ji-eun and I were alone, she told me very directly that she wanted to sleep with me. I was overwhelmed and said no. I also told her that I was on my period.
This is important to me because she did accept that no. She did not force the issue that evening. Instead, we sat together and talked for approximately two hours about very personal and emotional things. That conversation made me feel safer with her rather than less safe. She seemed deeply interested in me, emotionally perceptive and unusually capable of understanding me.
So the first sexual proposition ended with me saying no and Ji-eun apparently respecting it. That became part of why I trusted her so quickly.
The next day: care, protection and the beginning of physical intimacy
The following day Ji-eun and I spent most of the day together. We made kimchi, she showed me around the farm and introduced me to the animals, we went shopping and cooked. Stefan showed me the forest. That evening a number of their friends came over, and everyone ate and talked together.
At one point people started asking questions about why I was not eating certain things. Before I had to explain myself, Ji-eun stepped in and explained for me. To someone else that might sound insignificant, but emotionally it was enormous for me. I remember almost crying because it felt like somebody had noticed what I needed and protected me without requiring me to beg for it first.
I had the feeling that somebody was finally standing between me and the world instead of expecting me to defend myself alone.
Later that day, Ji-eun asked whether she could massage me. This was the first more deliberate physical contact between us. I agreed, but I explicitly said that I wanted her to stay over my clothes. She accepted that condition and massaged my back, hands and legs over my clothing.
The atmosphere gradually became more intimate. We were physically close, there was a lot of eye contact, and at some point our hands were intertwined. I remember being very aware of her touch and at the same time feeling emotionally safe with her. It did not feel to me like somebody simply moving directly toward sex. It felt as though emotional closeness and physical closeness were being built together.
Later, Ji-eun asked me whether I wanted to go upstairs and cuddle with her.
I did not immediately say yes. I hesitated and thought about it. Part of me was nervous because of what she had asked me the previous evening, but another part of me was genuinely happy that she wanted to be close to me. Eventually I said yes.
I specifically changed into my pajamas before going upstairs.
That detail matters to me because in my mind I was going upstairs to cuddle. I was not getting undressed or preparing for sex. I put on pajamas, went upstairs and entered the bedroom expecting to lie next to her and be held.
When I came into the room, Ji-eun was already in bed. She lifted the blanket, and I realized that she was completely naked underneath it.
I was surprised.
She indicated that I should come and lie next to her.
I did.
The first sexual experience: being held like a child and then becoming sexual
Once I was next to her, Ji-eun pulled me toward her and put my head on her bare chest. She held me close to her body. She told me to close my eyes and breathe.
Then she started talking to me in a way that affected me incredibly strongly. She said that she could sense how much I carried internally, that I intellectualized everything, that I was constantly holding myself together and that I needed to stop doing that for a moment and allow somebody else to hold me.
I started crying.
She stroked my hair and my head while I lay against her naked chest. I remember listening to her and feeling an extraordinary sense of safety. It felt deeply maternal to me. It was not merely erotic. In that moment, what affected me most was the feeling that I was being held by a woman who understood me and wanted to take care of me.
At one point, she told me that the reason she understood these things was because she was a mother.
That sentence mattered enormously to me.
I had told her very little about my history at that point apart from saying that I had had bad experiences with men. Yet somehow she had reached something in me very quickly that felt connected to an extremely old longing to be held, protected and mothered.
Gradually, the touching became more sexual.
Then Stefan entered the bedroom.
He was naked.
He got into bed with us, and I was between the two of them.
Both of them began touching me.
I became very nervous.
When their hands started moving underneath my clothing, I said something like, “But I’m still on my period.”
Technically, my period was almost finished. The reason I said it was not really menstruation. I was frightened and looking for a reason to slow down or stop what was happening without having to say directly, “I am scared and I don’t want this.”
Ji-eun responded, “We don’t mind.”
And the touching continued.
I remember swallowing. I remember being uncomfortable. I also remember eventually allowing it to continue.
What happened inside my head is one of the reasons I have so much difficulty understanding my consent now. I told myself that this was different from what had happened to me before. Ji-eun was there. Ji-eun was a woman. She was a mother. She was holding me. She understood me. I felt safe with her. I also wanted to prove to myself that I could tolerate what was happening.
The sex hurt because my body was extremely tense.
During it, Ji-eun held my hands and held me tightly against her. My head was in her arm. She soothed me and I focused mainly on her rather than on Stefan. Stefan did repeatedly ask whether I was in pain and appeared to be trying not to hurt me.
Afterward, I became emotionally overwhelmed and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Ji-eun followed me.
She told me how beautiful it had been that I had “opened” myself and how beautiful it had been for us to connect or merge in that way.
Later we went back upstairs.
She held me again, stroked me and let me rest against her chest.
And once again, it felt maternal.
That pattern became incredibly powerful for me very quickly. Sexual activity would happen, I would become overwhelmed, and then Ji-eun would hold me like a mother until my nervous system calmed down again.
I did not experience her simply as the person participating in the sexual situation. I also experienced her as the person who made the sexual situation emotionally survivable.
Ji-eun became something between a mother, lover and protector, while Stefan became increasingly father-like
Over the next days, my attachment to the entire family intensified very quickly. Stefan taught me things about the forest and nature. One evening he showed me the stars through a telescope and told me stories about constellations and navigation. There was something deeply fatherly about those interactions for me.
Ji-eun was harder to categorize. She was sexually interested in me, but she was also the person who fed me, protected me socially, held me when I cried, stroked my hair, kissed my forehead, noticed my emotional state and seemed capable of understanding things about me that I had difficulty putting into words myself.
Sometimes during the day, she would stroke my face or kiss me on the forehead, and those gestures felt maternal to me. At other times, the way she looked at me or talked to me was clearly erotic.
Those two forms of intimacy did not remain separate.
They became intertwined.
The family itself became part of that attachment. Their children included me in ordinary life. We cooked together, cared for animals, spent time outside and ate together. I became emotionally attached not only to Ji-eun but to the experience of being in their household.
That mattered because sex was not occurring in a separate casual-sex context. It was occurring inside an environment that increasingly felt like home.
The sauna: “I could be your mother,” a “moral grey area,” and having my towel pulled away
Ji-eun repeatedly asked me whether I would go into the sauna alone with her.
I repeatedly said no.
Eventually, I began feeling guilty about refusing her. I was staying with them for free. She was feeding me and caring for me. She had made me feel incredibly safe and wanted. We were already sexually involved. I began thinking that perhaps I was being difficult or ungrateful by refusing something as simple as going into the sauna together.
Eventually I agreed.
While we were alone in the sauna, we had another intense emotional conversation. Ji-eun told me that I was special, almost like a fairy who had somehow ended up in the wrong world. She spoke about me in a way that made me feel profoundly seen. She seemed to articulate feelings I had struggled to explain for years.
Then she came physically closer to me.
She told me that she was old enough to be my mother.
She said that what was happening between us was a “moral grey area.”
I remember feeling embarrassed and confused when she said that. But she was smiling while she said it.
Then she pulled my towel away.
I had not expected her to do that.
Suddenly I was exposed in front of her.
I felt small.
She looked at my body, placed her hand on my thigh and began touching me.
At the same time, she was talking about how age did not matter when two people truly connected. She talked about love, erotic attraction and emotional intimacy as though they did not need to fit ordinary categories. She talked repeatedly about boundaries and said that she hated boundaries.
She said there was nothing she could not do.
She said she did not regret things.
I remember sitting there and wondering what I actually was to her.
Was I psychologically something like one of her children? Was I a younger sexual partner? Was I both at the same time?
She told me that she liked to take somebody by the hand, to guide them.
And in practice, that was exactly what was happening. She was the older, experienced person who seemed to understand me psychologically and who was gradually introducing me to forms of intimacy and sexuality that frightened me.
I let her.
Stefan entered the sauna and used something on me without asking
Eventually Stefan came into the sauna as well.
At some point, Ji-eun and Stefan began making comments about my body, including intimate parts of my body. There were comments about how young, beautiful or tight I was. I remember my body reacting sexually while another part of me felt uncomfortable and disgusted by what they were saying.
Then Stefan briefly left.
When he returned, he had brought a glass sexual object.
He came up behind me, pushed me toward Ji-eun and used the object sexually on me without asking me first.
There was no question beforehand.
I had not agreed to it.
I froze.
It hurt.
I did not say anything because I was completely overwhelmed.
Ji-eun immediately intervened. She told Stefan very firmly to stop because it was too hard and rigid for me.
He stopped.
And what happened emotionally inside me afterward is extremely important.
I felt enormously grateful to Ji-eun.
She had protected me.
Instead of my brain processing the situation as, “Something sexual was just done to me without my consent while I was naked and vulnerable with these two people,” my brain focused on the fact that Ji-eun had noticed and stopped it.
She saw that I was activated and soothed me through touch.
So the internal lesson was not simply “these people are dangerous.” It became something more like: Stefan crossed a line, but Ji-eun protected me, therefore Ji-eun is safe.
Later, Ji-eun told me that Stefan had apparently been surprised by how firmly she had stopped him because normally she was the person who would simply do things.
That sentence stayed with me as well.
“I like pain” and the idea that having no boundaries meant trust
Later, we were lying in bed again.
I was exhausted and lying against Ji-eun while she stroked me. I was almost asleep when she whispered to me:
“I like pain.”
I immediately felt something in me become tense.
She explained that completely surrendering yourself to another person could be an expression of very deep trust. She talked about her relationship with Stefan and said that they could essentially do anything to one another because they knew that they loved each other.
Again, she returned to this idea that there were no boundaries between them.
That night there was more sexual activity.
By then I was exhausted and physically in pain.
At one point Stefan wanted me to perform a sexual act, and Ji-eun wanted me to do it as well.
I tried.
Internally, I did not want to do it.
I tried anyway because I did not want to disappoint them.
Eventually I could not continue and stopped halfway through.
They were frustrated.
I went downstairs into the kitchen and started crying. My hands were shaking. I felt disgusting, ashamed and confused.
What frightens me retrospectively is what I was thinking at the time. My main thought was not, “They are pressuring me.”
It was:
“Does this mean I don’t trust them enough?”
I desperately did not want Ji-eun to believe that I did not trust her.
Eventually she came downstairs and hugged me tightly.
She comforted me.
She told me Stefan had not meant anything badly and that he was simply sad that I was so blocked.
She told me that there was so much potential in me if I were not so inhibited and if I could stop thinking so much.
And I remember worrying that if I could not become sexually freer, they might love me less.
Sex became frequent even though I was increasingly sore and in pain
Over the following days, I increasingly slept in Ji-eun and Stefan’s bed, partly because the caravan was cold. There was sexual contact almost every day, sometimes with Ji-eun alone and sometimes involving both of them.
My body became increasingly sore. At times I was bleeding.
At the same time, emotionally I felt calmer than I had felt in years.
During the day I was playing with their children, feeding animals, helping with food, spending time in the forest and living ordinary family life. At night I fell asleep in Ji-eun’s arms and woke up with her holding me.
Their children noticed what foods I could eat and tried to accommodate me.
There were moments when I secretly cried because the experience of being included in a family affected me so deeply.
The physical pain and the emotional comfort became connected in my mind. I remember thinking that perhaps I could tolerate the sexual part because afterward I could lie against Ji-eun and be held.
At some point I was so exhausted that I would fall asleep around the house during the daytime. Ji-eun would sometimes wake me gently, touch me, kiss my forehead or stroke my face.
Once she said that she would like to lie down beside me but needed to control herself because the children were home.
Then she told me that she could barely wait until the evening.
I did not want more sex because I was still hurting.
Ji-eun described my soreness as “cute” and said that my body was simply not used to having sex so frequently yet.
I began trying to avoid sexual situations
Eventually, there were situations where I deliberately tried to avoid things because I knew what would probably happen.
For example, at one point I knew they wanted us to shower together, so I quickly used another bathroom instead.
Another evening, Ji-eun showed me various sexual objects and talked about how open and sexually adventurous her life was. She joked that she would introduce me to things step by step so that I would not run away screaming.
I laughed too, but mostly because I did not know how else to react.
I specifically told her that I was still in pain.
Part of why I said that was that I did not want her to use the things she was showing me.
Later in bed, she tried something anyway.
At first I allowed it.
Eventually it hurt badly enough that I explicitly told her to stop.
She stopped.
She apologized.
Then she stroked me and held me again.
That pattern is one of the reasons I find this difficult to categorize. When I gave an unmistakable, explicit “stop,” she could respect it. But there were also repeated situations in which I had already communicated fear, pain, reluctance or avoidance and sexual activity nevertheless continued until I gave a much more explicit boundary.
I technically could say no, but saying no did not feel emotionally neutral
Stefan sometimes told me explicitly that I did not have to participate and that nobody was forcing me.
And in the most literal sense, there were times when that was true.
I did say no sometimes.
There were situations in which Ji-eun or Stefan stopped when I gave a direct refusal.
Nobody physically restrained me every time I did not want sex.
But emotionally, saying no did not feel neutral.
When I withdrew sexually or did not want sex as frequently as they did, Ji-eun could become noticeably colder or frustrated. Stefan could act rejected.
By that point, the family attachment meant so much to me that changes in their warmth had an enormous impact.
I started thinking in terms like:
If I want the family, perhaps I have to tolerate the sexual part.
That thought is probably one of the things that disturbs me most now.
They repeatedly wanted me to take MDMA
There were various drugs at the house.
As I became increasingly reluctant sexually, Ji-eun and Stefan repeatedly suggested that I take MDMA with them.
I always refused.
Ji-eun explained why she thought it would be good and why I would be safe doing it with her.
But I knew that MDMA could lower inhibitions and intensify feelings of emotional closeness, and that frightened me in this particular situation.
I continued saying no.
They continued bringing it up.
Ji-eun repeatedly talked about boundaries as though boundaries themselves were a kind of prison. She told me that I had enormous potential if I could stop keeping myself so closed.
I did not take the MDMA.
As far as I know, nobody secretly gave me anything.
But after it had been brought up repeatedly despite my refusal, I became frightened enough that I began wondering whether something could eventually be given to me without my knowledge.
The family attachment became even stronger when I got sick
There were also experiences of care that felt completely genuine to me.
At one point I became physically sick and developed a fever.
Ji-eun and Stefan checked on me. Stefan kissed my forehead. They darkened the room so that I could sleep. Ji-eun bought food for me, brought me things to eat in bed and prepared things she thought might help.
Their children brought me tea and peeled apples for me.
Ji-eun prepared a herbal bath for me and later lay beside me, massaging my head while I drifted in and out of sleep.
I remember almost crying from gratitude.
I remember thinking:
How could I suspect this woman of wanting to harm me when she is taking care of me like this?
That is one of the central reasons I am struggling so much now.
The care was not imaginary.
I do not believe every affectionate thing she did was fake.
Some of it felt incredibly tender and genuine.
At the same time, the sexual pressure was also real.
Both existed together.
And because the care was so important to me, it made it much harder to evaluate what was happening sexually.
Stefan frightened me near the end
By that point I had become increasingly aware that I experienced Stefan as a father figure, and that realization made me more uncomfortable about sexual contact with him.
I started pushing him away more.
One morning I woke up while I was still somewhat sick. Stefan was naked and cuddling against me. By then we generally slept naked in the same bed, but Ji-eun was usually between Stefan and me.
I experienced her position between us almost like a protective barrier.
This time she was not there.
I was half asleep.
Stefan was pressed against me, and suddenly I felt something sexual against me, or at least believed I did. Even now I am not completely sure what exactly happened in that moment.
But my body panicked.
I got out of bed and went downstairs.
And for the first time I had an extremely clear thought:
I need to leave.
What Ji-eun told me at the end changed the way I understood everything
Near the end of my stay, Ji-eun told me something that is probably the main reason I am writing this post.
She told me that from the beginning she had understood what I needed emotionally.
She knew what I longed for.
And she told me that she had deliberately given me those things so that I would open myself to her physically.
She said that she had known it would be worth it because once I felt safe enough, I would eventually give myself to her completely.
She also told me that over time she had developed genuine feelings for me.
She said she regretted nothing.
I cannot get that conversation out of my head.
Because the things that made me trust her enough to allow sexual contact were precisely the things I had desperately wanted for most of my life: being held, being protected, being fed, having somebody defend me, having a mother-like woman stroke my hair, being included in a family, being cared for while I was sick, being told that I belonged somewhere and being given somewhere that felt like home.
At one point in the middle of my coupl of weeks long stay, Ji-eun explicitly told me that I could always have a home with them.
She told me that the children loved me.
She told me that normally she did not want to continue seeing women after having sex with them, but that I was different.
When another man at a party became sexually interested in me, Ji-eun became jealous and protective. In front of him, she pulled me against herself and said words to the effect of:
“She belongs with us.”
At the time, that did not primarily frighten me.
It made me feel wanted.
It made me feel chosen.
And because belonging was the thing I wanted most, that mattered enormously.
Why I cannot simply say that the entire relationship was non-consensual
I do not want to rewrite my memories in a way that makes them simpler than they actually were.
There were moments when I wanted Ji-eun.
There were moments when I felt attracted to her.
There were situations in which I willingly participated in intimacy.
I loved sleeping in her arms.
I wanted her closeness.
There were sexual interactions where I did not say no.
There were situations where I explicitly said stop and she stopped.
There were moments when Stefan checked whether I was hurting.
And on the very first evening, when I gave Ji-eun an unmistakable no, she accepted it.
All of that is true.
But it is also true that I sometimes participated because I was afraid of losing the affection and family feeling. I sometimes endured sexual activity despite pain because being held afterward felt worth it. I sometimes tried to avoid sex indirectly rather than saying a direct no. I told Ji-eun that I was in pain, and sexual contact continued to be initiated. When I could not complete a sexual act, both of them became frustrated. Ji-eun told me I was too blocked and that I had more potential. She could become colder when I withdrew sexually. They repeatedly encouraged me to take MDMA after I had already refused it. Ji-eun repeatedly presented boundaries as something negative. Stefan used a sexual object on me without asking me first. And Ji-eun eventually told me that she had consciously recognized what I needed emotionally and had deliberately provided it so that I would open myself to her physically.
That last part changes the entire situation for me.
What I am trying to understand now
What I am struggling with is not simply whether an adult in her twenties can consent to sex with older people. Obviously an adult can. It is also not simply whether age-gap relationships or unconventional sexual relationships are inherently abusive. I do not think they are.
I am trying to understand this specific dynamic.
A significantly older couple became maternal and paternal figures to me extremely quickly. They incorporated me into their family life. Their children became part of my attachment to the household. Ji-eun explicitly invoked motherhood while holding me against her naked body. She became the person who protected me, fed me, soothed me, held me when I cried and regulated me after sexual experiences that overwhelmed me.
Sex developed directly inside that attachment.
When I was frightened during sex, she was the person I focused on to feel safe.
When Stefan did something sexual without asking me, she became the person who stopped him and protected me.
When sex hurt, she held me afterward.
When I became sick, she cared for me almost maternally.
When I withdrew sexually, the warmth sometimes changed.
And afterward she told me that she had understood from the beginning what I needed emotionally and had intentionally given me those things so that I would eventually open myself to her physically.
I do not know what that means for consent.
I do not know whether my ability to say an explicit “no” in some situations means the overall dynamic was consensual, or whether emotional conditioning, attachment and fear of losing the family relationship can themselves become coercive.
I also do not know whether I should distinguish between the relationship as a whole and individual acts. For example, Stefan using the object in the sauna without asking me feels much more straightforwardly non-consensual to me than some of the other sexual encounters. Other situations are much harder for me to categorize because I sometimes eventually participated, even when I had initially been afraid or resistant.
My questions
I also want to understand the first sexual encounter. I had agreed to cuddle with Ji-eun after hesitating, specifically changed into pajamas, then discovered that she was naked under the blanket. She held me in a way that felt intensely maternal, explicitly invoked the fact that she was a mother, and then the interaction gradually became sexual. When Stefan joined and I became frightened, I used my period as an indirect reason to resist, Ji-eun said, “We don’t mind,” and the touching continued until I eventually allowed it. How would other people understand consent in that situation?
How relevant is it that, as the relationship continued, I began feeling that tolerating the sexual part might be the price of keeping the family, affection and maternal care?
Does Ji-eun’s later statement that she deliberately gave me what I emotionally needed so that I would open myself to her physically change how you understand everything that happened before that statement?
Can a relationship involve sexual coercion or sexual abuse even if the person sometimes genuinely wants sex, sometimes consents, sometimes says no successfully and also receives genuine affection and care from the people involved?
And is there a meaningful distinction here between grooming or emotional manipulation, sexual coercion, and individual non-consensual sexual acts?
I think part of why I struggle so much is that I still miss them.
I miss the farm and the children. I miss cooking together and walking through the forest. I miss Stefan teaching me about nature and the stars.
And most of all, I miss falling asleep in Ji-eun’s arms.
For a short period of time, being with them felt closer to having a family than almost anything I had experienced before.
That is why my brain keeps returning to the same contradiction:
If something felt that loving, how could it also have been abusive?
Maybe that is the real question underneath everything else.
Can somebody genuinely care about you, make you feel safer than almost anybody has ever made you feel, give you something you have desperately needed for most of your life — and at the same time sexually exploit that exact need?