6 November 2024
Emily Atack has warned men that drunken sexual encounters could be seen as "rape".
Emily Atack has warned men that drunken sexual encounters could be seen as 'rape' now
The 34-year-old actress is backing the Affirmative Consent campaign to change the law on informed confirmation of consent and recalled the "awful" experiences she had as a teenager as she explained that men will now be "scared" of their encounters with women under the influence of alcohol because of the way they could be viewed now.
Speaking on the 'Great Company with Jamie Laing' podcast, she said: "My situations have only been uncomfortable - yeah, literally. Honestly, I can only count on one hand probably where I've actually enjoyed sex. Growing up, I'm sorry, as a teenager it was awful.
"I went through life thinking if you wake up after a night out and something has happened but you don't really remember it, you just have to suck it up and get on with it. It's like there's no way anyone's going to....it's just not worth going down that road of 'but I don't remember, I don't remember any of that.
"Yeah, you do, but it's been so repressed for so long, we were taught for such a long time that that was kind of a normal way to have sex - that you wake up after a party and go 'Ooh, Jesus Christ, I don't really remember that, anyway.' And then you just kind of carry on.
"We're taught that that was like normal.
"The problem is now Now we're all having the conversation more, people are coming out and going 'Oh right, well, I was raped then.' And it's very difficult to have to admit it to you. But also the reason why it's difficult as well for the men, men are getting angry because they're scared, because so many men will listen to this sort of thing and go 'I've done that before'."
The former 'Inbetweeners' star acknowledged that some men may now "regret" their behaviour and noted that it can be "difficult" for them to even consider what they may have done in the past.
She added: "There'll be men that are getting their kids uniform ready for school and they will listen to something like this and stop in their tracks and go 'Oh f***, I've done that before.' And they probably regret it and feel really terrible about it, but to be told now that that was wrong, and that actually that's now seen as rape, that's hard for people to digest because they know that they've done that somewhere in their lives a lot of people, loads of people."
"That's why it's so difficult to go there."
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English (US) ·