The legal definition of rape varies over time and place. We have come to understand rape as an absence of meaningful consent rather than previous understandings which centered more around how hard someone fought and was seen largely as a property crime against the man who owned the woman in question.

A client cannot meaningfully consent to sex with their T just as a child cannot meaningfully consent to sex with an adult. Even though in either case the person in question might “want” to have sex, the power differential is too great for that consent to mean anything.

That’s why therapists have a great degree of responsibility and that’s why this messed you up more than an ordinary relationship would have.

Precarious, I think you can call it rape. I think it’s rape. We’re not talking about a court of law now, we’re talking about you trying to understand and explain what happened. And one of the horrible things about rape is that we’re often not believed and undermined and blamed overtly or subtly when we come forward. It sounds like that’s what happened with your previous T. But now you can talk about this experience in whatever way is helpful and feels most true, and I hope your current T and the important people in your life can listen and validate that.