I'm just gonna jump right in on this one. A few concepts all gelled together for me under the concept of "modesty," and I have to write it down and see it in print to be done trying to understand it.
So, the first concept is the commodity model of sexuality. Your sexuality is subject to the laws of supply and demand, and so it is more valuable the fewer people have access to it. To quote one of the most concise and amusing explanations on the subject, "We’ve all heard the phrase “no one will buy the cow when they can get
the milk for free,” and when I refer to the commodification of sex,
that’s the perfect accessible example. People, and women especially, are
taught that sex is a good that we have to offer someone else, and that
we have to preserve, and even amplify, the value of that good. We make
our sexuality more valuable by decreasing the supply, to thereby
increase demand. Because apparently my vagina is a widget."
The second concept is the inherent sexuality of the body. Any interaction with a body is always perceived as sexual, regardless of context. So if I am naked, and you are looking at me, then we are sharing a sexual interaction. Period.
I am of the general opinion that a body is neutral. It just, kinda, is. It exists. It's just there, like a tree or a rock. And looking at it is like looking at a tree or a rock. In and of itself, completely neutral. Context is required to give it meaning. Taking my clothes off in a "come hither" way as part of foreplay with my husband? Way totally sexual. Taking my clothes off because a friend wants to see my tattoos? (No I don't have any tattoos yet, but a girl can dream) So not sexual.
(Note: This is why I do not consider myself an exhibitionist, and why I
believe people who automatically assume that I am an exhibitionist
because I am not disinclined to take my clothes off have bought in to
the idea of the inherent sexuality of the body. Showing my skin is not a
sexual act. You looking at my skin is not a sexual act. So I don't have to be getting a sexual charge from it to be okay with taking my clothes off.)
(BTW, if there were any uninterested or underage parties in the room, they would consider it rape. No I'm not kidding. Think about it. Why else is "indecent exposure" a crime that gets you on the sex offender registry? You don't have to have touched, spoken to, or even been aware of the presence of another person. Merely exposing your body to sunlight is a SEX crime. Your body is sexual, and putting it in the possible line of sight of someone who did not consent to look at it is rape. Consent fits in there, fair enough, but you have to assume that just showing/looking at a body is a sex act for that logic to follow. Allow me to respectfully disagree.)
(ALSO, this partially explains how angry people get about people they don't find attractive, mostly women, showing their bodies. They don't want to fuck you, but you're showing them your body, which is sexual, so you are forcing them to have a sexual interaction with someone they don't want to have a sexual interaction with. Fat shaming is partly a result of what we've convinced people is rape trauma. Because our culture is that fucked up.)
(ALSO ALSO, this partially explains the "she was wearing a short skirt so of course I could have sex with her" thing. If you were exposing your body, and someone else saw it, you were already having sex! So sticking your dick in a girl who is wearing a short skirt where you can see her is the same as sticking your dick back in a girl you're in the middle of having sex with.)
(But I digress.)
The third concept is the generalized belief that women are only supposed to have sex with people they love. Monogamy is a huge motivator for that idea, but this belief persists in people
in ethically non-monogamous relationships as well so I treated it on
its own. Women having sex cuz they feel like it, without an established relationship and deep abiding commitment, is just weird. They're supposed to wait, hold out on sex until they know that the relationship is going to last. It's the subject of many an advice column. Wait. Don't have sex right away. Make sure he's the one. Instead of, possibly, having good sex and then deciding to pass on the relationship part.
So. Modesty is the sum of these three ideas. Women, you have to cover up your body, because if you expose your body and someone else sees it then you have shared a sexual interaction with that person, and you are only supposed to share sexual interactions with people you love/only one person, and if you do show your body to lots of people (see: nude modelling) then you are a slut on the same level as someone who has sex with multiple partners and subject to the same devaluing of your sexuality.
There. Phew.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
My Hero
I have been tossing a story idea around in my head for probably about six months now. Today I finally sat down and drafted out the skeleton of the whole plot. It took me four hours and five pages, but that's not really remarkable. What's remarkable is that it took me six months to get started. Normally if there is a story clawing at the back of my mind as hard as this one has been, it's impossible to keep me out of it. I have *got* to get it out, and I will go on caffeinated writing binges until I can't move or until it's done. The reason I hadn't been able to with this one is... slightly depressing.
See, my story is in the genre of epic fantasy. Swords and magic, though lacking in the dragon department. It has a heroine. She's fantastic, almost Amazonian.But, it also has a hero. A male hero. A fairly stereotypical male epic fantasy hero, all young and gorgeous and long waves of blond hair and unnaturally gifted at the one thing he has to be unnaturally gifted at to be the hero. And, of course, the hero and the heroine fall in love. They have to. It's written in the fantasy rulebook somewhere. And it's so sappy too, how sweetly and predictably they fall in love. So... heteronormative.
But I thought I was more enlightened than that. I thought being enlightened wasn't that. I looked at my strong male hero, saving the day and getting the girl like everybody knows he's supposed to, and I said, "You are so old fashioned! You are so not what a hip young feminist writer should be encouraging! You should be like Nicholas Carraway in The Great Gatsby, the narrator but not the hero! I should make the heroine the only driving force in the story. Strong women! Fuck Yeah!"
But as hard as I tried to change the character, change the story, I couldn't do it. It never worked out. I'd make some "feminist" or "progressive" change, shift the heteronormativity a little to the left, pull some of the hero's power away, and hit the fuzzy gray space in my mind that means there's no more story. I tried, but I couldn't emasculate my hero. I NEED my hero. And I need him to be heroic! I need him to kick ass and take names! Because that's what heroes DO! And yes, I need him to be the love interest, the sex interest, the soulmate of our fair heroine, because that's part of what makes it epic.
So I just finished reading Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers, out on my porch with the hookah this afternoon. I take some serious issues with a lot of what she has to say in that book, but her last chapter deals quite a lot with how second wave feminism censored art. The book is almost twenty years old so I hesitate, without much more research, to say how much of what she suggests still holds true. But it spoke to me this afternoon. She spent a few pages talking about heated debates within feminism at the time over the scene in Gone With the Wind (which I slept through, by the way, so I'm taking her word for it) where Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs and ravishes her and then is gone by morning, when Scarlett wakes up smiling. Lots of women, understandably, swoon. Second wave feminists get enraged and talk about how it was rape (regardless of the fact that the swooners consciously make a distinction between rape and ravishment, or "mutually pleasurable rough sex," in the words of a respondent to a survey by Harriet Taylor on the subject) and it's just wrongheaded of women to swoon over such things. The feminists know better. They know that artists who create such fiction are propping up the patriarchy, and it doesn't matter if women actually enjoy reading about such things or watching them in movies because those womens' desires are just wrong and foolish and they don't know how deluded they are.
And, in one thing I just can't argue with her on, Sommers reminds her readers that there is just no right way to be attracted to someone. Well meaning as the feminist movement may have been, and as beautiful as their perfect world fantasy of genderless romance may have been, some people, some women, some FEMINISTS!, are always going to swoon over Rhett Butler. And there is nothing wrong with that. I myself find it very difficult to argue against mutually pleasurable rough sex, or the "alpha male" character that is typical of the hero. Call me crazy, but in the otherwise fulfilling life that I certainly have, that's kinda hot.
And this is mostly because I know that I live in a world where I have options, in my life and in my fiction. I don't have to spend my life tied behind a man. I don't have to be a misandrist either. I could make my hero the only character with momentum in my story and leave my heroine a trailing Lois Lane. I could make my hero a helpless puppy and give my heroine all the momentum to lead the story forward. But I don't like it that way. I like my epic fantasy hero, complete with the mark of destiny on his forehead and the heroine beautiful and strong at his side. I can't fight for censorship. I can't fight for any "one true way-ism." I can fight for options. I needed Christina Hoff Sommers this afternoon. I finally gave myself permission to make my hero as strong as I needed him to be without feeling like he was threatening feminism, or that I was through him.
And I started writing.
See, my story is in the genre of epic fantasy. Swords and magic, though lacking in the dragon department. It has a heroine. She's fantastic, almost Amazonian.But, it also has a hero. A male hero. A fairly stereotypical male epic fantasy hero, all young and gorgeous and long waves of blond hair and unnaturally gifted at the one thing he has to be unnaturally gifted at to be the hero. And, of course, the hero and the heroine fall in love. They have to. It's written in the fantasy rulebook somewhere. And it's so sappy too, how sweetly and predictably they fall in love. So... heteronormative.
But I thought I was more enlightened than that. I thought being enlightened wasn't that. I looked at my strong male hero, saving the day and getting the girl like everybody knows he's supposed to, and I said, "You are so old fashioned! You are so not what a hip young feminist writer should be encouraging! You should be like Nicholas Carraway in The Great Gatsby, the narrator but not the hero! I should make the heroine the only driving force in the story. Strong women! Fuck Yeah!"
But as hard as I tried to change the character, change the story, I couldn't do it. It never worked out. I'd make some "feminist" or "progressive" change, shift the heteronormativity a little to the left, pull some of the hero's power away, and hit the fuzzy gray space in my mind that means there's no more story. I tried, but I couldn't emasculate my hero. I NEED my hero. And I need him to be heroic! I need him to kick ass and take names! Because that's what heroes DO! And yes, I need him to be the love interest, the sex interest, the soulmate of our fair heroine, because that's part of what makes it epic.
So I just finished reading Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers, out on my porch with the hookah this afternoon. I take some serious issues with a lot of what she has to say in that book, but her last chapter deals quite a lot with how second wave feminism censored art. The book is almost twenty years old so I hesitate, without much more research, to say how much of what she suggests still holds true. But it spoke to me this afternoon. She spent a few pages talking about heated debates within feminism at the time over the scene in Gone With the Wind (which I slept through, by the way, so I'm taking her word for it) where Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs and ravishes her and then is gone by morning, when Scarlett wakes up smiling. Lots of women, understandably, swoon. Second wave feminists get enraged and talk about how it was rape (regardless of the fact that the swooners consciously make a distinction between rape and ravishment, or "mutually pleasurable rough sex," in the words of a respondent to a survey by Harriet Taylor on the subject) and it's just wrongheaded of women to swoon over such things. The feminists know better. They know that artists who create such fiction are propping up the patriarchy, and it doesn't matter if women actually enjoy reading about such things or watching them in movies because those womens' desires are just wrong and foolish and they don't know how deluded they are.
And, in one thing I just can't argue with her on, Sommers reminds her readers that there is just no right way to be attracted to someone. Well meaning as the feminist movement may have been, and as beautiful as their perfect world fantasy of genderless romance may have been, some people, some women, some FEMINISTS!, are always going to swoon over Rhett Butler. And there is nothing wrong with that. I myself find it very difficult to argue against mutually pleasurable rough sex, or the "alpha male" character that is typical of the hero. Call me crazy, but in the otherwise fulfilling life that I certainly have, that's kinda hot.
And this is mostly because I know that I live in a world where I have options, in my life and in my fiction. I don't have to spend my life tied behind a man. I don't have to be a misandrist either. I could make my hero the only character with momentum in my story and leave my heroine a trailing Lois Lane. I could make my hero a helpless puppy and give my heroine all the momentum to lead the story forward. But I don't like it that way. I like my epic fantasy hero, complete with the mark of destiny on his forehead and the heroine beautiful and strong at his side. I can't fight for censorship. I can't fight for any "one true way-ism." I can fight for options. I needed Christina Hoff Sommers this afternoon. I finally gave myself permission to make my hero as strong as I needed him to be without feeling like he was threatening feminism, or that I was through him.
And I started writing.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Don't Touch Me
I just finished reading Yes Means Yes!,
an anthology of essays regarding female sexuality and rape culture. One
of the essays, titled "Reclaiming Touch: Rape Culture, Explicit Verbal
Consent, and Body Sovereignty" by "Hazel/Cedar Troost" is about
assumptive touch. If I could link to it and make you read it I would,
but since I can't I'll summarize.
Other people make lots of assumptions about how and when they are allowed to touch you, and you make lots of assumptions about how and when you are allowed to touch other people, that are supported by all of society. Trying to assert personal control over how and when people touch you is extremely difficult. But restoring personal control over how and when other people touch us at all times, not just sexually, and giving other people personal control over how and when we touch them, would be a big step toward ending rape culture.
Two quotes:
This essay made me break down in tears. I've reread it three times and finished it through tears every time. I've wondered for so very long why it bothered me so often when people that I am close to touch me without warning, and apparently I was not the only one. It's because I don't automatically connect intimacy with touch that way. I don't assume that because I have kissed you that I can wrap my arm around you whenever I want. I almost always wait for other people to touch me to know that they are okay with touch. I don't reach for hugs, I wait for hugs. And it's because I am not always okay with all touch at all times even from the people that I am the closest to in my life. I know that sometimes I just don't want to be touched, even if I still like you, and I try to give other people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they might not want me touching them, even if they like me. The touch is a thing in and of itself, which I might want or not want on its own merits. Maybe I like you a lot and think you're really groovy, but I just really don't want to be hugged right now. That's about the hug, not about you.
But our culture links intimacy and touch on a completely one-way street, and links intimacy and touch personally, so that if I reject a certain touch from a certain person at a certain time then I am attacking them personally and threatening our intimacy. Not just rejecting that particular touch because that particular touch is just not what I want right then. With touch and intimacy so tangled up in the minds of the populace, I don't have any way of rejecting touch I don't want without rejecting people I do want.
So I have always had to figure out how to consent "the right amount", to plan ahead, to keep someone at just the right distance because even though I might be okay with kissing them now and would really like to, I can't imagine being okay with kissing them in the future when they assume that they can kiss me again because I kissed them before. And that sucks!
The human brain is a very glitchy pattern recognition machine.
Troost talks about going to a conference on sexuality where the house rules were that everyone had to get explicit verbal consent before they touched anyone else. They had to ask to hug, to shake hands, to pat each other on the back. And a refusal was to be taken as a refusal of that particular activity, not of that person. After that conference, Troost decided to take that rule into the rest of zir life, to ask for explicit verbal consent before ze touched another person and to ask that everyone who wanted to touch zir ask zir permission first.
I've never been this organized about it, but I've been more likely than many of my friends to reject touch, not out of unfriendliness but out of a lack of desire for that particular touch at that particular moment. And I've hurt a lot of people's feelings rejecting their touch when I didn't want the touch and they felt that I was rejecting them as people. The same occurs when I am reticent about giving touch without a clear understanding of consent. I don't offer hugs and am seen as standoffish or spiky because people assume that I should just know that touching them is okay and that I am choosing not to for some reason associated with them as people.
Troost mentions this as well. Ze talks about the backlash ze received from friends, who believed that "...as my 'friends,' they shouldn't have to ask." And ze says, "It felt eerily familiar to hear that somehow I was the offender and they the victim, or that I was 'accusatory,' that it wasn't ill-intentioned, and so on." Eventually ze gave up, and only required those closest to zir to ask permission for all touch, and those ze wasn't as close to ze only required to ask permission for sexual touch.
Even so, I am still giving serious thought to trying this in my life. Assumptive touch has made me feel desperately powerless, especially when I know that even trying to explain what was wrong would be met with confusion and offense. I'd like to think that the people I've surrounded myself with would be understanding if I did start asking for explicit verbal consent. And I would love to be more comfortable in the touch I give others, having asked their permission first and knowing that I wasn't assuming. That bothers me almost as much as having others touch me. The thought that I am making someone else uncomfortable by touching them in a way they aren't comfortable with, that somehow I'm just supposed to "know" what I'm allowed to do with someone else through body language and personal history and other such difficult things.
How sad it is that it never even occurred to me to just start asking?! I mean, who does that?!
Strike that. I even have friends who do this. I just never made the connection. I know that at least one of my friends, a very touchy friend even, does this simply because ze thinks that asking for permission is better than assuming. I just thought ze was a little weird. How sad is that.
A very, very glitchy pattern recognition machine...
Troost challenges zir readers at the end of the essay to start asking for explicit verbal consent before they touch, and to require it of others, even for an hour, or a day, just to see what it's like, and then to figure out some way to keep that feeling going in their lives.
This is going to happen. I can't say how long it might actually work well enough that I can stick with it. I can only imagine how very hard it would be to keep up constant explicit verbal consent. If only because of how time consuming it would be to always have to remember to stop and ask. It would take me a long time to get into the habit. But I'm thinking it would be worth it. I'm thinking about not having to put up with touch I don't want because I don't have a socially acceptable way of rejecting the touch without rejecting the person. And I'm thinking about never having to worry that the person I'm touching is regretting not having a socially acceptable way to tell me to stop. If making that way is to make myself that weird person who always asks before she hugs someone and makes other people ask before they hug her, I think I can live with that. More pondering necessary. But I am enamored with this idea and I can't imagine that it's going to go away.
Other people make lots of assumptions about how and when they are allowed to touch you, and you make lots of assumptions about how and when you are allowed to touch other people, that are supported by all of society. Trying to assert personal control over how and when people touch you is extremely difficult. But restoring personal control over how and when other people touch us at all times, not just sexually, and giving other people personal control over how and when we touch them, would be a big step toward ending rape culture.
Two quotes:
- "The first question, of course, is to ask ourselves: How much of our bodies do we truly own, subconsciously, legally, and socially? Do we own every inch of our skin? Do we own a six-inch bubble? What do we have to be asked permission for? Fucking? Kissing? Hugging? When we think about owning our own bodies, rather than rape culture specifically, we have to wonder: How do we distinguish between what requires consent (and when) and what doesn't? Or do you ask permission even to hug someone -- every single time? / I do. Or, at least, I do my best."
- "Assumptive touch always involves some kind of map. A map of consent assigns different "difficulty levels" to different kinds of touch, a la the "base" system: Consent to one form of touch implies consent to all forms at its level or below (i.e., if groping is fine, hugging will be, too). These maps are based on relation to intimacy -- they gauge not how much a person likes a particular activity, but how close that person is to the other person, how trusted by them -- and as such inherently creates pressure to consent "the right amount" (not too much or too little). Because maps do not allow touch to be evaluated on its own or judged for how it feels at the time, touch as a symbol of intimacy is incompatible with real ownership of sex and touch -- and thus ownership of the body."
This essay made me break down in tears. I've reread it three times and finished it through tears every time. I've wondered for so very long why it bothered me so often when people that I am close to touch me without warning, and apparently I was not the only one. It's because I don't automatically connect intimacy with touch that way. I don't assume that because I have kissed you that I can wrap my arm around you whenever I want. I almost always wait for other people to touch me to know that they are okay with touch. I don't reach for hugs, I wait for hugs. And it's because I am not always okay with all touch at all times even from the people that I am the closest to in my life. I know that sometimes I just don't want to be touched, even if I still like you, and I try to give other people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they might not want me touching them, even if they like me. The touch is a thing in and of itself, which I might want or not want on its own merits. Maybe I like you a lot and think you're really groovy, but I just really don't want to be hugged right now. That's about the hug, not about you.
But our culture links intimacy and touch on a completely one-way street, and links intimacy and touch personally, so that if I reject a certain touch from a certain person at a certain time then I am attacking them personally and threatening our intimacy. Not just rejecting that particular touch because that particular touch is just not what I want right then. With touch and intimacy so tangled up in the minds of the populace, I don't have any way of rejecting touch I don't want without rejecting people I do want.
So I have always had to figure out how to consent "the right amount", to plan ahead, to keep someone at just the right distance because even though I might be okay with kissing them now and would really like to, I can't imagine being okay with kissing them in the future when they assume that they can kiss me again because I kissed them before. And that sucks!
The human brain is a very glitchy pattern recognition machine.
Troost talks about going to a conference on sexuality where the house rules were that everyone had to get explicit verbal consent before they touched anyone else. They had to ask to hug, to shake hands, to pat each other on the back. And a refusal was to be taken as a refusal of that particular activity, not of that person. After that conference, Troost decided to take that rule into the rest of zir life, to ask for explicit verbal consent before ze touched another person and to ask that everyone who wanted to touch zir ask zir permission first.
I've never been this organized about it, but I've been more likely than many of my friends to reject touch, not out of unfriendliness but out of a lack of desire for that particular touch at that particular moment. And I've hurt a lot of people's feelings rejecting their touch when I didn't want the touch and they felt that I was rejecting them as people. The same occurs when I am reticent about giving touch without a clear understanding of consent. I don't offer hugs and am seen as standoffish or spiky because people assume that I should just know that touching them is okay and that I am choosing not to for some reason associated with them as people.
Troost mentions this as well. Ze talks about the backlash ze received from friends, who believed that "...as my 'friends,' they shouldn't have to ask." And ze says, "It felt eerily familiar to hear that somehow I was the offender and they the victim, or that I was 'accusatory,' that it wasn't ill-intentioned, and so on." Eventually ze gave up, and only required those closest to zir to ask permission for all touch, and those ze wasn't as close to ze only required to ask permission for sexual touch.
Even so, I am still giving serious thought to trying this in my life. Assumptive touch has made me feel desperately powerless, especially when I know that even trying to explain what was wrong would be met with confusion and offense. I'd like to think that the people I've surrounded myself with would be understanding if I did start asking for explicit verbal consent. And I would love to be more comfortable in the touch I give others, having asked their permission first and knowing that I wasn't assuming. That bothers me almost as much as having others touch me. The thought that I am making someone else uncomfortable by touching them in a way they aren't comfortable with, that somehow I'm just supposed to "know" what I'm allowed to do with someone else through body language and personal history and other such difficult things.
How sad it is that it never even occurred to me to just start asking?! I mean, who does that?!
Strike that. I even have friends who do this. I just never made the connection. I know that at least one of my friends, a very touchy friend even, does this simply because ze thinks that asking for permission is better than assuming. I just thought ze was a little weird. How sad is that.
A very, very glitchy pattern recognition machine...
Troost challenges zir readers at the end of the essay to start asking for explicit verbal consent before they touch, and to require it of others, even for an hour, or a day, just to see what it's like, and then to figure out some way to keep that feeling going in their lives.
This is going to happen. I can't say how long it might actually work well enough that I can stick with it. I can only imagine how very hard it would be to keep up constant explicit verbal consent. If only because of how time consuming it would be to always have to remember to stop and ask. It would take me a long time to get into the habit. But I'm thinking it would be worth it. I'm thinking about not having to put up with touch I don't want because I don't have a socially acceptable way of rejecting the touch without rejecting the person. And I'm thinking about never having to worry that the person I'm touching is regretting not having a socially acceptable way to tell me to stop. If making that way is to make myself that weird person who always asks before she hugs someone and makes other people ask before they hug her, I think I can live with that. More pondering necessary. But I am enamored with this idea and I can't imagine that it's going to go away.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Yes means yes!
My kingdom for an online text medium with a "Tab" function.
I decided to christen my long-neglected bloggy thing with a more mainstream version of an essay some of you may have already read elsewhere. It was inspired by a discussion at a local university that got me to thinking about the difference between "No means no" and "Yes means yes" as banner slogans for the fight against sexual violence. I had a certain instinctive understanding of the difference, a gut reaction, but that gut reaction wasn't easy to explain. And I wanted to explain it. Because I feel that as a society we've grown past "No means no," and we need to start reflecting it in our language. I really think we need to resign "No means no" to the rubbish bin of useful slogans and move on to "Yes means yes" and methods of sexual interaction that reflect it.
Here's the main difference between them as guidelines regulating sexual interaction: "No means no" defaults to the assumption that sex WILL take place unless one of the parties involved says "No" loudly enough and clearly enough to make themselves understood to the other party. Failure to say "No" the right way means sex will take place. It is the responsibility of the disinterested party to put forth effort to stop it. Even when you're dealing with a decent human being who will stop as soon as another party says "No," the mere fact that it is their job to stop it and that if they don't it will happen anyway is still just wrong. It's victim blaming, because if sex took place it means the victim just didn't say "No" correctly.
"Yes means yes" defaults to the assumption that sex WILL NOT take place unless all parties involved say "Yes" loudly enough and clearly enough to make themselves understood to the other parties. It is the responsibility of the interested party to obtain assent to their intentions before sex will take place. Failure to say "Yes" the right way means sex will not take place. At worst, someone who really was interested but doesn't make their intentions clear goes home frustrated. Which sucks, don't get me wrong. That's me all over. But there is a world of difference between unclear intentions resulting in going home alone to masturbate and unclear intentions resulting in rape.
"No means no" was a good start. It is still absolutely true. If at any time anyone withdraws their consent to an activity, that activity should cease. That will never stop being true. It's just not good enough. "No means no" allows people to continue on the assumption that they are allowed to do whatever they want until the other person stops them.
Now, so far I've managed to avoid gender pronouns. I'm going to stop avoiding them now. Because the fact of the matter is "No means no" grew out of a cultural view of rape where the male is the aggressor and the female is the victim. And it reflects that viewpoint. It reflects the cultural views of men, women, sex, and rape that are already wrong and continuing to change.
Knowing that it comes from that viewpoint, "No means no" assumes that a man is a directed force of sexual intent that must be stopped with a verbal rolled-up newspaper to the snout. At best, it defaults to the assumption that men WILL try sex, and that while they can be stopped after they start they cannot be expected to not start under any circumstances, only to react properly when ordered to stop.
And that sucks! Why are we still teaching each other that men are like this? Can we not stop talking about men like this and see if maybe that starts to be reflected in how they think about themselves? Small steps people, small steps.
Well, I suppose first it would have to be true, to be worth teaching. And no, while I'm advocating optimistic language, I'm not sure it is all true. The ideas of entitlement that so very many human males are walking around with are real. They lead many men to believe that they are allowed to just try it first. Often it simply doesn't occur to them that they shouldn't. If you want it, just go for it! If she doesn't want it she'll just say no, right? "No means no" actually gives them an excuse to barrel ahead without thinking, because they're relying on that magic talismanic word to come up if their decision turns out to have been a bad one.
But "Yes means yes" shuts down those ideas of entitlement. "Yes means yes" comes before sex. To get a "Yes" you have to ask first. You have to think first, not just react after.
And you know what? "Yes means yes" reminds us that women can say "Yes!" Women can want sex! Women can enjoy sex! Women are not just the waiting playthings of men, with their only options being complacency or outright refusal. "No means no" paints a woman as a recipient, someone who has things done to them until/unless they say "No." "Yes means yes" reminds us that women should be active participants in their own sex lives, that they have desires, and that those desires matter. And we damn sure need reminding of that.
Now, I don't know you as well as you know yourselves. You and your partner(s) can know when nibbling on his ear is as clear as the words "Take me, take me now." You can know when you trust someone enough that you are willing to communicate in winks and nods and believe that you are being understood. I can't proscribe what consent looks like for everyone. And I can't fix the poor souls who will consent to things they don't actually want because they are afraid of rejection.
But conceptually, can we agree that aiming for a clear expression of consent is better than just avoiding a clear expression of refusal? Can we agree that continuing without expressed consent is still not to be tolerated even if it did not come with expressed refusal? Can we maybe start chanting "Yes means yes!" instead of "No means no!"?
I mean, hell, at the next SlutWalk at least paint one on one side of your sign and the other on the other side.
I decided to christen my long-neglected bloggy thing with a more mainstream version of an essay some of you may have already read elsewhere. It was inspired by a discussion at a local university that got me to thinking about the difference between "No means no" and "Yes means yes" as banner slogans for the fight against sexual violence. I had a certain instinctive understanding of the difference, a gut reaction, but that gut reaction wasn't easy to explain. And I wanted to explain it. Because I feel that as a society we've grown past "No means no," and we need to start reflecting it in our language. I really think we need to resign "No means no" to the rubbish bin of useful slogans and move on to "Yes means yes" and methods of sexual interaction that reflect it.
Here's the main difference between them as guidelines regulating sexual interaction: "No means no" defaults to the assumption that sex WILL take place unless one of the parties involved says "No" loudly enough and clearly enough to make themselves understood to the other party. Failure to say "No" the right way means sex will take place. It is the responsibility of the disinterested party to put forth effort to stop it. Even when you're dealing with a decent human being who will stop as soon as another party says "No," the mere fact that it is their job to stop it and that if they don't it will happen anyway is still just wrong. It's victim blaming, because if sex took place it means the victim just didn't say "No" correctly.
"Yes means yes" defaults to the assumption that sex WILL NOT take place unless all parties involved say "Yes" loudly enough and clearly enough to make themselves understood to the other parties. It is the responsibility of the interested party to obtain assent to their intentions before sex will take place. Failure to say "Yes" the right way means sex will not take place. At worst, someone who really was interested but doesn't make their intentions clear goes home frustrated. Which sucks, don't get me wrong. That's me all over. But there is a world of difference between unclear intentions resulting in going home alone to masturbate and unclear intentions resulting in rape.
"No means no" was a good start. It is still absolutely true. If at any time anyone withdraws their consent to an activity, that activity should cease. That will never stop being true. It's just not good enough. "No means no" allows people to continue on the assumption that they are allowed to do whatever they want until the other person stops them.
Now, so far I've managed to avoid gender pronouns. I'm going to stop avoiding them now. Because the fact of the matter is "No means no" grew out of a cultural view of rape where the male is the aggressor and the female is the victim. And it reflects that viewpoint. It reflects the cultural views of men, women, sex, and rape that are already wrong and continuing to change.
Knowing that it comes from that viewpoint, "No means no" assumes that a man is a directed force of sexual intent that must be stopped with a verbal rolled-up newspaper to the snout. At best, it defaults to the assumption that men WILL try sex, and that while they can be stopped after they start they cannot be expected to not start under any circumstances, only to react properly when ordered to stop.
And that sucks! Why are we still teaching each other that men are like this? Can we not stop talking about men like this and see if maybe that starts to be reflected in how they think about themselves? Small steps people, small steps.
Well, I suppose first it would have to be true, to be worth teaching. And no, while I'm advocating optimistic language, I'm not sure it is all true. The ideas of entitlement that so very many human males are walking around with are real. They lead many men to believe that they are allowed to just try it first. Often it simply doesn't occur to them that they shouldn't. If you want it, just go for it! If she doesn't want it she'll just say no, right? "No means no" actually gives them an excuse to barrel ahead without thinking, because they're relying on that magic talismanic word to come up if their decision turns out to have been a bad one.
But "Yes means yes" shuts down those ideas of entitlement. "Yes means yes" comes before sex. To get a "Yes" you have to ask first. You have to think first, not just react after.
And you know what? "Yes means yes" reminds us that women can say "Yes!" Women can want sex! Women can enjoy sex! Women are not just the waiting playthings of men, with their only options being complacency or outright refusal. "No means no" paints a woman as a recipient, someone who has things done to them until/unless they say "No." "Yes means yes" reminds us that women should be active participants in their own sex lives, that they have desires, and that those desires matter. And we damn sure need reminding of that.
Now, I don't know you as well as you know yourselves. You and your partner(s) can know when nibbling on his ear is as clear as the words "Take me, take me now." You can know when you trust someone enough that you are willing to communicate in winks and nods and believe that you are being understood. I can't proscribe what consent looks like for everyone. And I can't fix the poor souls who will consent to things they don't actually want because they are afraid of rejection.
But conceptually, can we agree that aiming for a clear expression of consent is better than just avoiding a clear expression of refusal? Can we agree that continuing without expressed consent is still not to be tolerated even if it did not come with expressed refusal? Can we maybe start chanting "Yes means yes!" instead of "No means no!"?
I mean, hell, at the next SlutWalk at least paint one on one side of your sign and the other on the other side.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)