This summer I went to a sort of adult hippie camp with ~150 people, in nature. It has no ideology per se, except “enjoy being in nature together, naturally” and finding solutions in consensus (no leaders of any kind).
Nudity is widely accepted but not a must; especially around the sauna people are naked as a matter of course, but also in other communal areas. Just as casual as wearing some or little or very little clothes. This was not any sort of nudist camp though.
Ages vary between 20-60, roughly. Some small children, too. I (male) am in the upper regions of this bracket, both persons I’m talking about are in the lower.
Every day I saw this woman (I’ll call her X from now on) who I thought was very beautiful. I wasn’t trying
anything, just noticing. Smiling, sometimes getting a smile back. This impression was intensified
when I saw her moving naked in the area between sauna and river: tall, proud, long dreadlocks,
mostly black geometrical tattoos on pale skin countered by some black piercing in her face.
I don’t think I’m being sexual here - this is artful.
We did exchange a few words, but nothing that would amount to getting to know each other.
After a week a random encounter happened, a friend told me I should ask to borrow an item from her. I did borrow it, put it in my bag, then said the following:
“Don’t get me wrong please, I know I’m just an old fart and I have no intentions whatsoever,
but I just wanted to say that I think you’re very pretty - especially naked.”
She was not completely naked at that moment - some sort of underwear/bikini thing iirc.
First she smiled and said something like “aww, that’s very kind”, but as soon as the last two words were out her face fell, the face of everybody in the round fell, and several people said “this is inappropriate.”
I immediately apologized, saying I meant her tattoos and nothing more!, and fled the scene, slightly panicking.
10-30min later X came up to me and said: “please return the item I just lent you.”
I said OK, gave it to her, then asked her if she’d allow me to explain my obvious fuck-up.
She said “you have 2 minutes.”
I started with saying “I know I have a tendency to stick my finger in it when there’s controversy. I’m sorry for that.”
- This requires a little explanation: one or two days earlier one male attendee of the camp had been asked to leave by
some self-appointed “camp police” because they had been verbally extremely inappropriate with some woman.
So far I’d been on the side of the “police” but he had been willing to stand up and admit and talk about his behavior, which I found commendable. I had my misgivings about forcing him to leave. The discussion spread like a wildfire over the whole camp and some people equalised his behavior to physically violent SA (the r-word) which I find too undifferentiated.
So that’s the athmosphere this thing happened in.
I tried to explain to X again that I wasn’t sexualising her in any way, just that I see the artfulness in these tattoos
and how they seem to complement the rest of her body.
Given the 2-minute-ultimatum all that might have fallen a bit short.
She did say I had no feeling for the moment and my behavior was beyond socially awkward, insensitive. This I agreed with.
She felt violated. This pains me, but I have to accept that, and at least now I can say I do and learned a lesson.
She said I had no right to talk about her body “like that”. I still think “like that” is a misunderstanding on her part, but I fully accept responsibility for it.
I suddenly felt that the whole SA discussion was targeted at me, too. Not a nice feeling. I’ve never SA’d anyone, certainly not physically, and if I was inappropriate/sexist/demeaning sometimes I’d very much like to talk about it and hope to improve.
But we were leaving the next day, so.
One of my last activities on the day of leaving was to go to sauna & bathe in the river.
I had just entered the sauna alone when I saw one of the “police” with X. The man (I’ll call him Y from now on)
then came in and asked me to leave because X felt uncomfortable around me because I had “sexually harrassed” her.
He did this leaning on his role of “police”.
I balked at that. I asked him to also listen to my side of the story.
He said “frankly, I’m not interested in that right now. If you cannot accept my decision, I ask you to leave the
sauna because it is mine, I brought it here.” - The sauna had been in shared use, no questions asked, since day one.
Everybody had used it, many more than daily. This was, in fact, the first time I heard he was the owner.
I told him how I don’t like it but if he pulls that card I guess I’m gonna leave. Went to the river to bathe. Saw X sitting there,
looking uncomfortable. I put some clothes on, then told her that if she wants to talk I’m there. She said yes, that could be good.
AFAIU she felt my apolgies so far hadn’t been heartfelt enough and that I still owed her something. She also said that she didn’t agree
with Y that I should be removed from the sauna.
I repeated that any sort of harrassment had not been my intention, and that I thought she wasn’t interested in talking anymore, so I hadn’t tried.
The problem is, by now I felt offended and hurt myself because of the way Y had told me to leave or else. And in real time I started to realize that they’re an (almost) couple (in fact she gave him a massage after all that). He also inserted himself into the calm dialog we had, which I found threatening. I told him “I think we’re doing well here, no need for that” but he clearly disagreed, and X said nothing. She was intent on making me see things her way, but by now I started to feel that this should be a 2-way street, and isn’t.
The talk did not really go anywhere and I left with a bad feeling.
Since then this has been spooking me every night. I’m not the mentally most stable person and believe me, something like this is bound to get the paranoia out. I did talk to some friends but I really want to know what (esp. younger) people think, without any obligation to spare me.
Please understand this is not a standard AITA question - there’s no doubt in my mind that I fucked up. Still, all in all, I feel ganged up on and unfairly treated. Imho I - after the remark that sparked all this - acted responsibly and sensitively and did not deserve this.
You tried to hit on a younger lady by saying she looks good naked, then tried to back track it by saying it was about her tattoos. If it was just about the tattoos you would’ve said “I like your tattoos”. If this was a dude who had cool tattoos you would’ve have phrased it like that at all.
You balked about being accused of sexually harassing her but my guy, you did. It’s pretty clear you thought she was hot and you shot your shot.
And then you flubbed the apology, basically said it’s your nature to do that (so it says that you don’t think you can change), and then at the end were saying that it felt like she was trying to get you to see her side, and dismissed it by saying you think it should have been a two way street.
So look at all this from an outside perspective. Old letch comes up to young lady, takes something from her, says he’s watched her naked and likes it. Back in the day someone would’ve punched the guy. She asks for the thing back and the guy makes excuses. No apologies, just “it’s my nature” and “you got it wrong”, not “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable”
Dude sees the old guy in his naked hot box and steps in because the guy was a creep and it’s his hot box anyway, and the creep tries to get the girl alone and then goes off and sulks when kicked out.
Then when she sees him again at the river, she tries to explain her feelings, and he just makes the same excuses.
Does that sound as good?
So here’s how you fucked up.
don’t ever compliment someone on something they didn’t choose. No one chooses their body. People choose their clothing and tattoos. Those are fair to compliment. Saying she looks nice naked isn’t.
Apologies involve understanding how you made the other person upset, recognizing it and acknowledging it, trying to make amends and then trying not to do that again. You did not apologize, you made excuses. Saying sorry isn’t a full apology. You needed to listen to her instead of a two way street.
being sulky and feeling like the police guy was being mean to you sucks, but you did creep on someone, in an atmosphere that was ready to blow because of someone else being a creep. To a woman. All things considered him kicking you out of his own sauna was mild, and the lady was clearly done talking to you because she didn’t say it was ok. It sounds like you had repeated your side enough that the guy had heard it already.
-you watched him get a massage from her? You sounded pouty and jealous about it.
So here’s my advice. I’ve let you have it so this is the nice part. This is not an insult. Don’t take it as an insult.
You have autism. I’m certain of it.
The way you acted, the way you reacted, the lack of social awareness, the way you explained things in this post, being scared afterwards, etc. All signs point to autism. Especially if you’re older and acting this way.
Being autistic isn’t a shameful things and if you were never diagnosed there was support that you could’ve had that was denied you.
If you want to go back to this event next year, I STRONGLY suggest that you get checked out for autism, and if you do have it, that is basically the ONLY way you’re going to salvage this situation with these people. “I’m sorry about last year, I’m sorry I upset you, I found out I’m autistic so I screwed up” is probably the only thing that can come out of your mouth that would make younger people less pissed at you at this point.
It might help you a lot and I know older people balk at the idea of even being checked, but I really think you should, it’ll help you out a lot.
Armchair diagnosing autism isn’t very helpful. People can fuck up social interactions without being autistic. There isn’t enough info here to say with the certainty you are leading with. Nothing wrong with suggesting they be checked for it, but even then, the bar you are using here to speak with such certainty of it is low.
K