99- Geoz-- Re: Regrets. There are a great many situations where there really is no good outcome. If you go with choice A, and if it turns out badly, it's normal to wish you'd gone with choice B. The same is true the other way around. It takes a lot of maturity and self-knowledge to to get to the point of realizing that the problem was the whole situation, that the real regret is was ever being faced with that set of circumstances and that set of choices.

I hope the woman who accused you falsely got to that place eventually. I hope she realized that anything she did when she was feeling so vulnerable was going to end badly. She would have felt bad if you'd gone further, if you'd let her take the initiative, if you left when you did, if you hadn't seen her that night, if you'd awakened in a gutter, if you'd plunged over a cliff. People who are that vulnerable simply make bad decisions. I also hope that you were eventually able to clear your name. What you went through sounds like a nightmare.

100- Mydriasis-- Thanks for putting into words something I haven't. When my friend all those years ago said she'd been raped, I jumped to the rather reasonable conclusion that she meant our mutual friend was a rapist. I'd guess she didn't see it that way.

It seems to me like what Yes Means Yes is/should really be about it making everyone responsible for saying "Yes!" when they are actually interested. Then the lack of a "Yes!" would clue their partner into them being uninterested, and doesn't require shy people to say "No!" even in awkward situations. This is different from the constant asking that many people seem to be complaining about, as all it requires the more assertive partner to do is listen for a "Yes!".
I do agree that the best solution is for everyone (including girls and women) to be confident enough in themselves to say "Yes!" and "No!" when appropriate, and to be true to their feelings, but I think that suggesting that a woman (or a man) say "Yes!" when they want it does not have the same anxiety-inducing baggage as saying "No!" when they don't want to.

"but I think that suggesting that a woman (or a man) say "Yes!" when they want it does not have the same anxiety-inducing baggage as saying "No!" when they don't want to."

I completely disagree! Haha.
I have no anxiety about saying 'no' to something I don't like. But putting the onus on me to constantly verbally reassure my partner that I'm okay with each thing he's doing? Um, no thanks.

@78 Have you guys ever actually had sex? For anything to really happen, from kissing to penetration, requires the actual active participation of the woman from start to finish, from opening lips for kissing to taking clothes off or allowing them to be taken off to physically allowing penetration (since we are not talking about rape here).

I've had plenty of sex and some of it was had without any active participation from me. This was from my husband, who was mightily annoyed about my lack of enthusiasm, but my consent wasn't a deal-breaker for him. As I believed at that time that the only thing that made it rape was if I said no, and since I'd said no once and been forced to have sex anyway, I never bothered to say no again.

"Yes means yes" thwarts these situations:
1. Receiver of sex is too drunk to speak or is passed out.

2. Receiver is too frightened or freezes up.

3. Things go too fast, too soon, and receiver doesn't know how to deal with it. Requiring a 'yes' forces the action to slow down (at least for a moment) and the initiator shows some respect for their partner by soliciting their input.

4. The receiver later tells the initiator they didn't want it. However, the initiator can point out that they asked, CLEARLY, if the receiver wanted [insert sex act here] and the receiver gave an indisputable affirmation.

All of the ambiguous situations that have been mentioned (including the story Wendy related) become unambiguous if the receiving party is required to give clear and unambiguous consent.

@Gamebird.

You don't think "fuck me harder" is clear and unambigious consent???

109: I think your whole illustration of sex as something that has an initiator and a receiver is screwed up.

To take your cases: 1 is resolved by not getting that drunk, or so drunk that you don't remember anything past the third margarita. What if your partner is ALSO too drunk to speak? Or claims he or she was? Or took your slurry mutterings as yes in drunken good intention? How do you prove they didn't hear a yes-sounding thing from you, if you were that far gone? I hate the comparative blood alcohol standard for determining who raped whom in the messy memory of the morning after. And several people have encountered the friend vigorously tearing off someone's clothes who sure as hell seemed to be consenting in aggressive spades and the next day claims to remember not a thing, and doubts they would ever sleep with someone wearing sandals and socks.

2 and 3 are covered by NMN, in control of both parties to initiate this.

4 is fine for being able to say I told you so, but since notarized documents probably weren't involved is going to be just as subject to the vagaries of memory. And all the "Well I said yes because you wanted me to and I was scared of what might happen if I said no and I just didn't feel safe so I said yes" that are implicit in 2 and 3.

My@108: As a shy person, saying no wasn't a problem. It falls squarely in the 'act like a grownup with agency over your life' penumbra. I may reflexively avoid conflict, but sometimes you need to be clear that you aren't just silently and resentfully going along with what someone else wants. (Out of bed, mostly, in real life.) But if I were required to give a loud enthusiastic YES to get my sticker for doing sex right, and that was how my partner could tell he wasn't forcing me? God is that not a realistic standard.

I like 105's summary, that it is nice when you have a partner who pays attention to your reluctance in a compassionate way, it is a good standard to apply oneself with partners, and one needs NMN for covering all those situations where this nice mutual communication is not happening.

@IPJ

Bingo. I do the nonverbal 'yes'ing and no one has had any trouble getting the picture. Just ask my neighbors.

Dan, on behalf of all us sexually active people who have friends, and are capable of forming new friendships -- Thank You!

@ Mydriasis and others who don't like yes means yes:
I think you've missed two things. 1. The proper target audience of a yes means yes campaign is not young women who may or may not lack confidence, it is young men who have too much. Apologies for the gender stereotype but that's the way it works most often. 2. Your personal sex preferences aren't under threat here. This is an effort to make a marginal difference in the lives of a certain proportion of young people. It doesn't mean that all other efforts to prevent rape or sexual coercion will stop.

@115: "This is an effort to make a marginal difference in the lives of a certain proportion of young people."
-------
And what I am saying is that encouraging people to put responsibility for their sex lives in the hands of others is a very poor idea. Teaching kids that they have a reasonable expectation that every sex partner will ask at the right time in the right way is not going to help. I don't want any girl to conclude that if she's helping a guy take her panties off while thinking maybe it's going too fast, she needs to hope like gangbusters he asks soon.

Every one of the "YMY might have led to a different outcome" cases comes down to "If only my partner had asked at the right moment, or if only I could have been more assertive." The latter is in your control, the former is not. Every one of those "if s/he had asked, or if I had asserted myself" cases would have been solved with the person who was uncomfortable applying NMN. A person who would have a bad reaction to an unprompted No wasn't going to have a good one to a prompted No. People who aspire to be treated like adults damn well better act like they have agency: the vision of women as helpless beings who can't be trusted to know their own minds is not one I'm ever going to get on board with. And I was a cripplingly shy teen. It didn't mean I needed to be treated like a young child.

I've argued strongly all down the thread for mild YMY as an adjunct to NMN for cases in which your partner is inexperienced. Even if you're even more inexperienced. It's a considerate standard to apply in one's own life, absolutely to any inexperienced partners and possibly to any new ones. It's a crippling standard to assume from everyone around you.

@115

1. Except you saw the letter he was responding to, right? He didn't mention YMY in response to "So I had sex with this girl and I thought everything was great but now she's saying I pushed things too far! She didn't say no, how was I supposed to know she wasn't into it??" That's why we're talking about YMY in the context we are.

2. Again, we understand that it's an effort to make a difference but it is also a somewhat inherently flawed system for reasons many people discussed above. For example, I said this:

But as many people mentioned, most of the forces that stop her from saying no would still be at play to make her say yes. You can ask for consent in a very domineering or pressure-laden way, and it's just as bad as - maybe even worse than - saying nothing at all.

For everyone in this argument on the relative merits of NMN and YMY and when each one should be applied, go back and read Dan's original answer to GOY. He got it right the first time. His answer was about empowering GOY to make better decisions in the future, not making new policy to govern teen sexual situations in general.

With that in mind, I offer this advice to GOY and anyone who too often makes a choice on the spur of the moment that they end up regretting. This includes situations where the other person might be pressuring you or where you feel pressured when the other person might not actually have known h/she was coming on too strong. It includes sexual situations and the vast number of ordinary situations when we're invited to do something. The advice goes like this: If practicing saying no is too hard, practice saying "I'll get back to you" even when the answer is yes.

Take a totally benign example. A friend has asked if you'd like dinner next week. You'd love to go. You're excited about the invitation. But instead of saying yes, say "that sounds nice, but before I promise to be there, let me check my calendar at home. I'll let you know definitely one way or the other tomorrow." Practice saying maybe to everything you're asked for a month or more.

Then, when the invitation isn't to something you know you want (volunteering to head the committee, dinner with someone you're not sure you like so well), you have confidence and practice saying maybe. You have time to rehearse saying no. When you text back, you say "no thanks."

It's a little different in sexual situations, but the principle is the same. When someone is moving too fast, even when you're pretty sure you want to say yes, say maybe. If the potential for a good sexual relationship is there, it can wait until you've had time to process those feelings, then go at it again.

Remember that this is only an exercise to practice. I'm not suggesting that you should never give plain yes answers for anything from dinner to committee chairs to sex over the course of your life. It's only a something to help people on their way to making snap good decisions.

@Crin

I think Dan's advice to GOY was good. I just had a criticism of YMY especially in the context of people in her position.

I think your advice is good too. I've never had problems saying no to people (in women-as-"nice" socialization, that makes me a 'bitch') so I can't speak personally but I think it's very reasonable!

@123: If I wanted my husband to change more diapers, I communicated this via "Could you change the kid's diaper?" Rather than silently stewing and wishing he would think to ask. One of these hypothetical responses involves using my own agency to try and change what's happening, and one involves thinking at him really hard. As a long-time diaper changer, I highly recommend the first as much more likely to result in one's partner changing the diaper.

The limitation of power is in saying I just have to hope that the broader culture or my partner's behavior changes, rather than trying to affect both via saying what I damn mean.

the FEELING as if you were helpless and didn't know your own mind
If you don't know your own mind, how the hell is people asking you supposed to help? One of the last things I want, as the parent and aunt of both boys and girls, is a society in which it is assumed that the girls don't know their own minds.

@121: Re-read 90. How should the guy in question have acted differently under a YMY paradigm?

(Never mind that people who are quick to trot out "blame the victim!" are always the first in line judging what a man should have done differently when the topic turns to false rape accusations.)

@129: You do need to draw the line between things that you yourself do after getting blotto, and things that are done TO YOU after getting blotto. Going and getting shit-faced is consenting to, at most, passing out under a barstool. (Some people drink because they like the feeling of being drunk, not because they are anticipating doing something regrettable and need an excuse.) It is not consent to being laid out on the pool table and have the rest of the bar have their way with you.

It's perfectly reasonable to say that if someone is passed out drunk, or nearly so -- in other words, in a state where one is so impaired as to be unable to communicate denial of consent -- that person cannot be said to have consented. If they can't even manage to slur out a "No,", they can't slur out a "yes," either.

Also, you do have to make allowances for unintentional drunkenness (alcohol can disappear very effectively in fruity drinks and people can get drunker than they intended) or worse, intentional poisoning by a predator.

However, I think the idea of any impairment whatsoever invalidating consent has been extended beyond the point where it is reasonable. The idea that a person can be actively involved in heavy making out, following someone up to their room under their own power, getting out of their own clothing, and climbing on top, but then regret it the following day and claim that they were too impaired to have good judgment and therefore it was rape is very unfair. For one thing, that person could arbitrarily claim any level of impairment they wanted, after the fact. Short of carrying a breathalyzer around with you to use on your potential hookup, the only person who would know for sure just how shit-faced they got is the one on the inside of their skin. Everybody else has to go by external behavioral cues -- which means that apparently enthusiastic participation has to count for something substantial in the way of establishing consent, alcohol or not.

130: I passionately agree with your last paragraph. Especially the unreasonableness of expecting everyone around you to both accurately judge your exact blood alcohol content, and care. (And have a lower blood alcohol content themselves, so they can make responsible decisions for you both rather than cooperate in doubly bad decisions.)

People regularly get what to an outside observer looks like 'comprehensively refreshed', and the difference between buzzed and won't remember anything past the third margarita is pretty much impossible to judge. In this state they perform unfortunate karaoke, leave drunken protestations of undying love on the voicemails of their exes, and have enthusiastic, under their own power sex with people. All of these being things they might not do sober, but are seen as having consented to do while drunk.

There are cell phone apps in which your phone demands that you solve challenging math problems before it will let you call your ex. There's no way to get your phone to stop you from having sex with someone when you're too drunk for long division, though.

129-- I draw a distinction between 2 people getting drunk together and 1 person purposely buying drink after drink for the other with the plan ahead of time getting her to that point of impaired judgment. But essentially I agree with you. I'd even take it a few steps further. From time to time someone has used having had a few too many drinks as an excuse for saying the wrong thing, or giving the wrong impression. My response is always the same: If you can't be responsible for what you say when drunk, then don't drink. No sex, no car wrecks, just someone making idiot comments, insults, maybe explaining that they deserve expensive gifts or that Mother always loved you best. Whatever. If you can't take responsibility for it, don't say it.

@130, I agree. And I'll take that a step further. I interpret the 'drunk as an excuse' ploy as that person really not being into what we're about to do. If it doesn't sound fun when you're stone cold sober, you're probably not that into it. And not the best playmate either.

Drink, if that's what you like. But before you do, lets get the ground rules established. And I'd like to see some enthusiasm as well.

@132

"If you can't be responsible for what you say when drunk, then don't drink."

This is exactly why I gave up drinking around age 18. I had lots of bad experiences, did a lot of stupid stupid things, got myself in multiple dangerous situations, and was a disgusting person. I hated the drunk version of myself. So I gave up drinking.

When I tell people I don't drink I get two responses:

1. "Why??" And then the person trying to convince me that I should drink, just 'more responsibly' (to what end?)

2. "Oh. I should do that."

The second happens more than one might think. In a few years I realized that pot, painkillers, coke, ecstasy - all the uppers, downers, laughers and screamers I loved (unlike alcohol, which made me miserable) didn't put me in those awful situations, or make me that awful person. Every now and again I like to get high, but I avoid alcohol like the plague (except in very very specific contexts).

You're a completely faggot ass insincere douchebag. Look at you, you're a total queer LOL LOL LOL> LIberal homosexual lover............what have you done that hasnt either promoted your liberal ass show or your liberal faggot ass pro gay anti-christian stance?

this is for the Everettites out there, there are two churches in Everett that are accepting of LGBTQ and what have you, they are Zion Lutheran Church of Everett and Trinity Lutheran Church of Everett

135- I'm getting off topic here, but let me spin off on the reactions to not drinking. I totally believe that that 2nd response happens often. I get that "should do that" thing a lot, and to the weirdest things. If say that I don't watch daytime television or don't like a particular junk food, if I say that I've been pleased with the mileage on my economy car or that I'm happier answering all my email in the morning, I get the "should do that," and I wonder if I sounded like I was putting anyone down. No, I was just explaining that I don't want oreos and don't know what food network star you're talking about.

On the other hand, for me, wine is a wonderful thing. For all my taking a hard line against people who use being drunk as an excuse, I adore it. I'll drink on purpose before sex because it helps me enjoy it more. I come more easily and let go of small anxieties. That's more when I was younger than now, but I credit the wine with helping me over the anxieties so I can enjoy more without the wine. In non-sexual situations, I like the free-floating feeling alcohol gives me far more than pot's fuzzy dizziness.

@138

Oh yeah, I'm not putting alcohol down. Alcohol affects different people differently. The horrible person I was when I'd drink is not any indication that all people become horrible when they drink.

Some people drink to unwind and let go of anxieties. I have sex to unwind and let go of anxieties. I feel most like myself in sexual situations, way more comfortable, in my element, etc. I prefer sober sex, although I will admit that certain drugs impart a certain something to sex (neither alcohol nor pot make that list for me).

I don't like pot either, so I'm with you there. I've actually gone a longer time without smoking than I have without drinking. Again, this is about how it affects me personally. I don't always have the tightest grip on reality anyway (I'm prone to derealization/jamais-vu/depersonalization/dissociation etc) so when I used to smoke I actually did not understand if reality was real or fictional, whether I was awake or dreaming, or what universe I was in. I didn't like it.

@129

You think being unconscious is consent?

@90/100/104, re rape without a rapist... I think it's possible (not legally, but emotionally)...

Once, I was making out with a guy and fully intended not to have sex. But it was the first time I had made out with a new guy since I had begun having intercourse, and I didn't realize that my body had new expectations that could override my mind. So I had sex, me on top, and afterward I felt raped, by my body, though of course that wasn't his fault. Destroyed that friendship, though.

Another time, a few years ago, I intended to stop at oral, but my body had other plans. Emotionally, that one ended up being fun -- my mind got on board with the sex after my husband came over to assure me it was hot. But it was still a big surprise to me to be reminded that my mind isn't always in charge of my body.

Bottom line: as long as the woman in wendy's story didn't press charges, I can appreciate her feeling raped...by her body. Especially if this was the first time she had made out with a new guy since getting married -- she may have thought she had the self-control of her teenage virgin self, only to find that her lusty married body had different plans.

Obviously, the word 'rape' has legal consequences and shouldn't be used for the feeling that one's body took over, but we don't have much vocabulary for that. So if you hear someone say they were raped, you might try asking them specifically -- are you saying he raped you? Or just that the situation went further than you wanted it to?

Erica - may I ask? How old were you when you first have sex? The way you describe the trajectory (virgin teenagers have self control, "lusty" married women do not) is so so foreign to me.

@46 "As a woman I find it offensive that people think I'm unable to assert myself enough to say one fucking syllable, and have to work on the assumption that I can't say no."

But you do seem to want men to expect you to not want to have to say "yes". And work on the assumption that asking you a simple yes/no question will turn you off. If a man is going to make an assumption, why would you want the assumption to be in your favor if this is next sentence is true:

"I care a great deal about other women who do have a hard time with these things, and I'm concerned about their wellbeing, but there has to be a better way. "

All that is being asked of you is that you tolerate being asked for consent. That's the sacrifice(?) that you seem very unwilling to make. Not even that, though. All that would be required of you would be for you to let your partners know ahead of time that you don't want to be asked.

No, YMY wouldn't be a completely bulletproof guarantee against any form of sexual coercion. I don't think that is what it is supposed to be. Sure, a person could ask in a forceful enough way to elicit a "yes". This person clearly doesn't care about your willingness and has no discernible motive for asking at all so I find that situation to be off topic...and unlikely.

I strongly disagree that somebody too timid to stop a partner mid-sexytimes will probably also verbally agree to continue sexytimes if asked, despite not wanting to.

@142, had first intercourse and first orgasm (from masturbation) at 20. Before that, I'd made out and given oral (and received, once, against my will).

No idea how common my experience is. But it exists.

Anyway, I think the timing of the lusty body is immaterial to my point: A woman (or man) can be taken by surprise by the strength of her body's sexual desire, and can experience it as external to her own will. (For clarity, "against my will"@144 refers to a time when I was saying no loudly. So not an example of the kind of mind/body dissociation I raised @141.)

"Sure, a person could ask in a forceful enough way to elicit a "yes". This person clearly doesn't care about your willingness and has no discernible motive for asking at all so I find that situation to be off topic...and unlikely.

I strongly disagree that somebody too timid to stop a partner mid-sexytimes will probably also verbally agree to continue sexytimes if asked, despite not wanting to."

This is basically the heart of our disagreement. And to the best of my knowledge both of us are working not off of actual research on the subject but our own theories of what is or is not likely based on our own experiences and the experiences of those close to us.

So we're probably just going to have to agree to disagree, I guess.

I will say, however, that those two paragraphs suggest to me that you're missing a lot of nuance.

It's not as simple as some men are straight up rapists who won't take no for an answer and others care 100% about the woman they're with and are eager to stop the second they know she's not completely on board. For example, I wasn't suggesting that he might ask for consent in an intentionally pressure-laden way. I was suggesting that a big reason people don't say no is because they are very aware of the other person's desires and feel obligated to please them for whatever reason. Asking for consent may imply "I won't force you" but it doesn't necessarily say "I'm not emotionally invested in fucking you and I won't get mad, or dickish, or rude, or mean if you stop things. You aren't a tease, or a bitch, or a cunt if you stop things at this point. If you stop things it won't put the future of our relationships/friendship/marriage/etc in danger. etc etc etc."

That second cast of concerns often informs the kinds of women who are too timid to say no and YMY doesn't change that, in my opinion. In the small sliver of subsets where a woman thinks that her "no" will change 'consensual' sex into rape and possibly escalate into violence it MAY help to use YMY in some people's minds.

I have been in those kinds of situations. I said no. I do not regret my decision and I would not regret it if they had gone in a worse direction than they did. And I would point out that they are rare in my experience. I believe the majority of "she didn't say no" situations are about pressure to please or to avoid emotional consequences (a sullen or angry response from the partner, for example). In these cases I do not believe YMY adequately addresses the problem.

Re: "tolerate being asked for consent"

Being asked for explicit verbal consent drastically changes the psychological dynamic of sex for me. As I mentioned above it implies insecurity ("I need reassurance!") and ineptitude ("I can't read body language so I need an explicit confirmation that what I'm doing is okay"). Both of those things are a turnoff. On top of that I find it somewhat personally insulting. If you don't understand how I can be insulted that someone assumes I lack the basic capacity to stand up for myself just because I'm a woman, while also being compassionate towards women who lack assertiveness, then that's a seperate conversation.

Though I did mention that I personally find YMY deeply unsexy (while aknowledging that other people don't seem to mind it at all), my main issues were with its lack of effectiveness and the message I believe it sends to women and girls.

@Erica

Thanks for sharing :)
As someone who has an extremely low tolerance for celibacy I understand what you mean about your body being in control. However, I have never felt 'raped' by my own body. What you wrote made sense to me, in a way. I just haven't had it happen myself.

@146 I think it's ironic that you thought I missed nuance then presented my position as, essentially, "...some men are straight up rapists who won't take no for an answer and others care 100% about the woman they're with and are eager to stop the second they know she's not completely on board."

I am not talking about rapists. I'm talking about men who don't really care if you are into it or just too timid to say no. That's narcissism but it isn't rape.

In the letter, this girl didn't describe agreeing to have sex because she didn't want her partner to be angry. She describes being too timid to assert herself. She didn't know when or how to express that she didn't want to have sex. A simple question would have provided that opportunity.

I have been in several situations where this was absolutely the case for me. It had never happened to me with sex. It has happened in situations I was new to and not well educated about; situations I felt very unsure of myself in. I did not assert myself but felt very relieved when my opinion was requested.

I've been the asker in similar situations. Just knowing this one person was new to the scenario we were in, I asked how they felt about it and it turned out they were terrified and wanted to back out. They were just going to do it anyway, just to not have to assert that opinion.

Again, these were non sexual situations but this is absolutely a way timid people behave. Not all. Not always. But I absolutely think that is common. And a YMY policy would be a lot of help every time the situation is what I just described.

Re: "Being asked for explicit verbal consent drastically changes the psychological dynamic of sex for me."

Again, you could tell the person ahead of time you don't want to be asked.

"If you don't understand how I can be insulted that someone assumes I lack the basic capacity to stand up for myself just because I'm a woman, while also being compassionate towards women who lack assertiveness, then that's a seperate conversation."

I don't understand how you can have compassion for these women but refuse a way that might help them because it would involve you answering a question. Those two things are not in proportion, to me.

If you have compassion for these women, you agree they exist. That is the only assumption a guy needs to make to ask your consent. Why would you think he's assuming any more than that?

I am getting really annoyed about how everyone assumes it is always the guy who has to ask for consent, and the woman who gives or denies consent.
As letter 2 demonstrates, even young horny guys who are interested in another person might not feel ready for or are uncomfortable with sex or even just specific sexual acts. And some of them are hesitant to say "no" because of lots of reasons.
And as Erica has shown just because one is physically aroused doesn't mean that one's mind is ready for it (just for the people who'll say that it is pretty obvious when guys aren't into it).

GOY,

If you had "sex" when you didn't want to, that's called rape or sexual assault. No, not everyone has been there like Dan Savage suggests. It is not normal and it is not OK. I would suggest seeking legal advice and therapy. I hope everything works out.

@148 I have been in several situations where this was absolutely the case for me. It had never happened to me with sex. It has happened in situations I was new to and not well educated about; situations I felt very unsure of myself in. I did not assert myself but felt very relieved when my opinion was requested.

I've been the asker in similar situations. Just knowing this one person was new to the scenario we were in, I asked how they felt about it and it turned out they were terrified and wanted to back out. They were just going to do it anyway, just to not have to assert that opinion.

Again, these were non sexual situations but this is absolutely a way timid people behave. Not all. Not always. But I absolutely think that is common.

Now that you mention it, I've seen this many times in a management role or as a team leader as well. The management and leadership training courses hammer into your head over and over how you should ask each person for their buy-in on whatever's going on. Not only are you showing respect to them, but you're giving them the opportunity to speak up, an opportunity that they won't take when there's a skewed power dynamic.

Pretty much every time, between any two people, one is going to be in a more powerful position than the other - more experienced, less vulnerable, more confident of their ability to secure another partner, more determined to get satisfaction, whatever. Requiring each to check in with the other does no harm. (I do not regard 'it's unsexy' or 'it's a turn-off' as harm. Getting one's boat rocked is not nearly as important as coercing someone into sex they don't want.)

141- Erica-- At the time you felt you'd been raped by your own body, had you ever been raped in the conventional sense? By that, I mean had you ever had a stranger overpower you, force your legs apart, and have intercourse with you despite your struggles, your screams for help, and neither your body nor your mind wanting to or enjoying it before, during, or after? I'm wondering what the basis of comparison was when you say you felt "raped."

i find this assumption that one will always know when someone is into you a tad annoying. i think YMY is great because it encourages active communication. just that. i often struggle with the demure femme girls because they don't damn well ask for what they want. and i can't tell the difference between friendly, flirting, and hitting-on. especially in a multi-cultural, multi-sub-cultural environment. i'm constantly missing cues of sexual interest.
#68 and others, obviously live in a relatively mono-cultural environment. in a half hour walk across town i can go from 'normal friendliness - means nothing' to 'outrageous fliting - hard come-on' _for the same behaviour_. unless you are genius with your social cues, you gonna stuff it up sometimes unless we all do the ADULT thing and USE OUR WORDS.

@154: I'm sure by that point she'd gone up to a guy's place for drinks. And had her opinions taken at face value. And presumably not chosen to be a lesbian.

If y'all feminists are going to rape the word "rape", at least be consistent when you do it.

@155: "you gonna stuff it up sometimes unless we all do the ADULT thing and USE OUR WORDS."

Exactly. Like No.

@154 I had previously been raped by a friend. Do you have a point?

@148

I think you're completely missing my point.

"In the letter, this girl didn't describe agreeing to have sex because she didn't want her partner to be angry. She describes being too timid to assert herself."

Why would she be too timid to say no? Or to put it another way, why does "no" require assertiveness in this context? In my opinion, because she

1. Wants to please her partner
2. Wants to avoid displeasing her partner
3. Fears her "no" will not be accepted (essentially "if I go along with this, it's not rape, if I say no, it will be" and/or if "I say 'no' this will become violent")

I believe that in cases where the woman does not believe her partner to be a rapist, reasons 1 and 2 are the major deterrents from the big bad "no". YMY may help in the case that the woman is falsely concerned about case 3 (it will hopefully indicate that the person has no intention of forcing her, should she not say 'yes'.) But I believe that the majority of times people are too timid to say no it is because of reasons 1 and 2.

YMY does not address reasons 1 and 2. That is why I believe it's misguided and would have a paltry payoff.

"Again, you could tell the person ahead of time you don't want to be asked."

I could. But I don't have to! (No one has ever asked me for explicit verbal consent to sex) And I like it that way.

Finally...

I have no problem answering questions. As I said, it's not the answering that bothers me, it's the being asked that is a turnoff to me for the reasons I mentioned above.

I agree that timid women (and men) exist. I disagree with your interpretation of how that timidness works, and I don't agree that YMY effectively addresses it for the many reasons I listed above and in other posts.

Your final question baffles me. You're saying I shouldn't be offended if a guy works on the assumption I am unable to assert myself and need his help in order to stop sexual situations I am uncomfortbale with. And the reason I shouldn't be offended is because some women like that do exist. If you don't understand why stereotyping someone based on their gender is offensive, then I can't help you.

@ Eirene: thank you for your thoughtful post. I tried to reply as best I could.

See, to me that all sounds like giving up agency on purpose -- being in the passenger seat, as you said earlier. I would find *that* infantilizing. (I realize you don't, having freely chosen it.)

Well you kind of hit on the point a bit. I have chosen to 'give up' agency (although I don't see it that way) - but only until something happens that I don't like (as I said before, I have said "no" many the time). This is different than someone assuming I had no agency in the place. Does that make sense?

I would find it a terrible strain if anyone wanted me to take on the driver's-seat role, too.

Then we might not make good bedmates ;). Honestly, the guys I have found myself with over the years are quite happy to have control over the situation. Some people find it a bit of an ego trip, for example.

I prefer give-and-take, cooperation, a kind of mutual creation of an experience. And consent does go both ways -- this conversation has had a whole lot of gender essentialism in it, but even in my bog-standard vanilla-het relationship it's often me initiating, or asking the clarifying questions.

I think most people (including myself) like give-and-take in some capacity. However, I prefer mine nonverbal, as I mentioned above.

I *don't* think asking necessarily implies any degree of ineptitude or insecurity at all. But even if it *did*, to me sex is where people expose their vulnerabilities: it's not just for showing off their competence and confidence. There would be something almost inhuman to me in a sexual partner who never needed reassurance; indeed the word "reassurance" expresses to me a major part of what people go to sex *for*, emotionally.

Some people find having a partner who lets them have control to be "reassuring". Some people find having a confident partner who gets in the drivers seat "reassuring". Some people prefer more literal "reassurance".

If you don't feel that it indicates ineptitude or insecurity, that's fine. But you do understand why I make those associations, yes?

As for vulnerability.... honestly, sex is when I feel least 'vulnerable'. It's always been that way. But I'm probably not typical in that respect.

@122: Hunter, please go back to your cave and stay there.

@158 If I didn't really want to have sex, I might go along with it in an unenthusiastic way. I wouldn't say 'no', for the reasons you list as 1 and 2. But if someone were to ask me, "Are you really into this? Do you want to have sex?" my answer would be honest: "No, not really." It's something I wouldn't say under a variety of circumstances, without prompting.

For you, given the stories you've related, it sounds like you have two sexual experiences:
A. You don't want sex, and you tell them no.
B. You do want sex, and you're very enthusiastic about signaling your consent in a non-verbal manner.

For me, my sexual experiences have a broader range:
A. I don't want sex, and I tell them no.
B. I do want sex, and I'm very enthusiastic about telling them this in all sorts of ways.
C. I don't want sex, but I'll put up with it as part of the cost of the relationship.
D. I don't want sex, but I think that saying no will get me in a lot of trouble, so I just keep my mouth shut and hope it ends fast/we get interrupted before anything serious happens/etc.

In situation C, YMY would be useful, though not really all that big a deal. I'd be putting out because I was GGG, but some guys who discover their partner isn't equally interested are put off by it.

In situation D, though, YMY is critical. I wouldn't lie unless the threat was explicit. A partner who showed me the respect of stopping to check in with me would give me the confidence to say something. And once I'd declined, explicitly, it puts the partner in the difficult situation of fucking someone who said no, or putting on the brakes.

I am exactly the sort of "timid" woman whom this policy would benefit, yet your posts label that sort of person as infantalized, inept, and insecure. Putting aside the insults - let's imagine they are accurate even! - why shouldn't we advocate for a policy that protects people like myself, which would still allow you the freedom to opt-out in advance with your partners?

157-
When someone uses a word in a radically different way from what it conventionally means, I try to figure out what they mean. I try to figure out if the meaning of the word is changing. If it is, I try to find a new word to mean what the old word used to mean. I try to clear up misunderstandings that way.

So when women started using the word "rape" to mean a sexual experience they agreed to at the time but had misgivings about later, I try to clarify that. I wonder if they have any basis for comparison between the conventional use of the term or the new one they're inventing. That's where my question came from.

I think we're seeing this in the political sphere as well. Lawmakers are trying to make distinctions between the sort of rape where a man breaks into a woman's house when she's asleep, holds a knife to her throat, and forces his penis inside her while she's too terrified to scream and the sort of rape where a 16 year old girl gets so turned on making out with her 20 year old boyfriend that she goes "all the way" when she previously thought they'd stop at petting.

Re 161: In both C and D, YMY would help if your partner does it. It does not give you, personally, any tools that would help in that situation. GOY needs a tool that is under her control, not her partner's; NAI needs something that will help him with Dave that he can control. Asking Dave if he's into this and can it go farther may not be enough. (Maybe it would generate the right conversation, too. I don't know. I just want another tool in NAI's skillset beyond hoping Dave is good at body language and asks in the right way.)

I was timid and shy, especially as a teen. It may have helped that I was a shy high school nerd in the 80s, when what to do with all the guys hitting on my nerdy self wasn't going to be a problem. But once I went to college and it became an issue, saying no verbally and nonverbally was something I never had a problem with. (Nor did anyone ever argue.) So to me, telling shy girls that the standard is to ask (eep!) and for your partner to ask (waiting... gosh I hope (s)he asks soon....) seems like a poor plan.

As a subsidiary adjunct to NMN, I'm fine with YMY. As a replacement, no.

162- Following up on my own post.

A man who'd had his car broken into told me he felt like he'd been raped. (The man was a therapist who got paid to help people with depressions and other issues.) I didn't at the time ask him if he'd ever had someone fuck him up the ass against his will and how the 2 experiences compared. I almost wish I had. I imagine that what he was trying to convey is that he something bad happened to him and he'd like the same sort of sympathy and consideration paid to him that women get when they've been raped.

I can see this going places. We could have the sort of rape when people's cars are broken into, the sort of rape when store merchandise is stolen, the sort of rape when people tell jokes that make you uncomfortable, the sort of rape when teenagers are made to do the dishes, the sort of rape when the hot guy you like asks someone else to the prom. There are all sorts of possibilities.

Gamebird, I want to start with this

I am exactly the sort of "timid" woman whom this policy would benefit, yet your posts label that sort of person as infantalized, inept, and insecure. Putting aside the insults -

First of all, I did not insult women who are too timid to say no. "Infantalize" was a term someone else used. "Inept" was a word I used to talk about my perception of the kind of man who needs verbal consent to confirm that his partner is interested (inept at reading body language). I never used those terms to describe timid women.

I did suggest that insecurity can play a role in why women find themselves too timid to say 'no', but I do not consider that to be an insult. I'm sorry if you do.

let's imagine they are accurate even! - why shouldn't we advocate for a policy that protects people like myself, which would still allow you the freedom to opt-out in advance with your partners?

I absolutely would advocate for a policy that helps people such as yourself - at no point have I given even the slightest indication that my opinion is "it's their own fault they're timid, fuck 'em". My main concern is empowering women to say no in situation D, I believe IPJ does so as well. I would definitely support a policy that was helpful for the women who have not learned how to assert themselves, but I don't personally believe YMY is good for that in most cases. However, you did explain why in your opinion it would be. Thanks for explaining your own experiences.

In situation D, though, YMY is critical. I wouldn't lie unless the threat was explicit. A partner who showed me the respect of stopping to check in with me would give me the confidence to say something. And once I'd declined, explicitly, it puts the partner in the difficult situation of fucking someone who said no, or putting on the brakes.

So basically, what you're saying is that YMY would completely take the "concerns 1 and 2" I mentioned earlier out of the picture, or make them unimportant.

I think where we differ in opinion, is in kind of timid person we're talking about here. If you look earlier in the conversation, people were telling me 'okay well maybe YMY isn't appropriate for mature adults, but makes sense for inexperienced teenagers' which is the context I have been applying it in. I think that with teenagers the pressure is still there even if the person asks a (likely somewhat insincere because he or she is young and really eager to have sex) question if he/she is really on board.

I believe you when you say YMY would help you, but I think in most cases it would be unhelpful, and (beating a dead horse) as IPJ suggested I think we really need to be empowering women to speak up for themselves even when it isn't easy or popular. We shouldn't be getting them to sit around with their fingers crossed that they end up with someone indoctrinated with YMY.

"D. I don't want sex, but I think that saying no will get me in a lot of trouble, so I just keep my mouth shut and hope it ends fast/we get interrupted before anything serious happens/etc.
------
In situation D, though, YMY is critical. I wouldn't lie unless the threat was explicit. A partner who showed me the respect of stopping to check in with me would give me the confidence to say something. And once I'd declined, explicitly, it puts the partner in the difficult situation of fucking someone who said no, or putting on the brakes."

So you're saying that there are times you put out because you feel threatened by your partner. But if they ask, there's no way you'd feel that there was an implicit pressure any which way.

It may work that way in your head. But when the bodies hit the mattress, I guarantee you'll still have those heavily indoctrinated concerns running around your head. At which point, you'll always think that there's some other way he could've asked, or some other point he could've interjected at, and continually put the locus of power on anyone other than yourself.

Here's a much easier, more effective method that allows you to actually be empowered, rather than turning it into an empty mantra;

>Only fuck people who you're sure trust and respect you enough to slow down/stop when you tell them that you're not comfortable.

>If you don't feel comfortable that someone will respect your expressly stated wishes, don't hop into bed with them.

>Only fuck people who you're sure trust and respect you enough to slow down/stop when you tell them that you're not comfortable.

>If you don't feel comfortable that someone will respect your expressly stated wishes, don't hop into bed with them.

My ability to predict if someone will slow down/stop is lousy. I don't KNOW they won't stop until they don't stop. Your statement reads a lot like 'the way to avoid being raped by your date is not to date rapists!' It's pat; it's easy; and it shows a complete lack of understanding of the problem.

IPJ got at it earlier in something I thought was understood - YMY is *NOT* primarily targeted at women. It's targeted at men. (And yes, I am fully aware that men can be raped by women, etc. Complain to me about my sexism when the ratio is not so overwhelmingly tilted in the direction of men being perpetrators against men or women, and women being victims of men.) Also, nothing about YMY removes NMN.

Empowering women is fine. I'm all about that. However, we should also be dictating to men what the new social contract is. That new social contract is not that they can get away with having sex with any person who doesn't explicitly refuse them, but that instead they are limited to only having sexual access to those persons who explicitly welcome them.

It's a paradigm shift from the idea of men being sexual opportunists to being sexual partners.

@167: If you meet enough people who don't take your "I'm not comfortable with this/I'm not enjoying myself" for what it is, either you suck at communicating or your sense in partners is way off. Either way, therapy sounds a lot more practical than expecting all men everywhere to coddle you.

(I know it's not PC to say this, but if you find yourself in abusive/borderline cases often enough, you are doing something wrong. You're the kid who's a bully magnet. And the worst thing about tired old miniskirt arguments is that they hide the real, important solution. Getting professional help.)

If you want to change the social contract, stop saying things like "I would've done it if you got me drunk first" an "I'm shy, so I prefer the man to make the first move". Expecting men to make the first move when you want and intuit your feelings when you want is, as well-said upthread, something that happens in twilight fanfic.

@169:
"And it does go both ways (often within a single conversation). Plenty of guys are afraid/ashamed of saying what they want or don't want. Notice that both the original letters concerned SAME-SEX COUPLES, after all, where the male/female socialization divide wasn't even friggin' THERE."

Thank you!

Fair point, Eirene. Abortion doctors should also ask at every step of the way, just to make sure that women are really enthusiastic about going through with it.

Bonus points for making her listen to the heartbeat to give her an effective out-point, and refusing to sedate her because any consent given after that point is null and void.

I get it, though. You expect the empowerment and liberation of women to happen entirely because men do all the heavy lifting.

@ChiTodd:

Have women really compared sex with you to abortion?
In that case, you might consider that you are doing it wrong!

@ChiTodd, I really disagree with the idea of 'bully magnets' doing something wrong -- having been one in highschool for the simple reason, as far as I can tell, that I was (and still am) physically much less muscular than the typical bullies plus I had a much better average score than they did.

I understand you're suggesting that some people may do unwise things that they could reasonably avoid. I'm all in favor of people evaluating their options rationally and not making stupid decisions just because of ideology, believe me. I even have a couple of personal stories on this very topic; I do get the idea that doing this empowers the individual. But the very expression you used does shift the responsibility onto a class of people who are really not doing, as a group, anything wrong (other than being physically weaker and attracting attention for some reason, be it IQ and school results, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, etc.).

@mydriasis, I suspect a lot of 'interaction philosophies' like NMN or YMY end up being necessary only in the sense that people's personalities may make it more difficult for them to do the rational thing -- evaluate the situation they're at now, see the options, and select the best available option. Some people need more help in order to feel sufficiently safe to make a decision rationally at a given moment; other people don't. In principle it's not all that different from being the kind of person who will go with the gang watch a movie s/he doesn't really like (or even positively hates) for fear of what others in the group might think if s/he doesn't go, or being the kind of person who doesn't care about that and just says no if s/he really doesn't like the movie terrible.

All in all, it's better to be the autonomous kind of person who does speak his/her mind and says 'no' or 'yes' when s/he wants to say 'no' or 'yes.' But not everybody is there yet -- either because they're too young and don't have enough experience, or (more probably) because they're not this kind of person, and may never be. YMY and NMN may very well be the Dumbo feather that helps them be strong enough to do what they really want to do.

@173(ChiTodd), you're really comparing apples to oranges here. Sex is a fun activity more easily comparable to eating out with someone, or going to the movies, or to a club, than with no-fun activities that are resorted to only because they will solve some huge problem, like abortions or lung transplants.

It's not a question of asking us men to do all the heavy lifting. It's a question of us noticing that, hey, there is something to lift, and we're supposed to use our hands to help lifting it, too. There is such a thing as unethical behavior with respect to one's (potential) sex partner; trying to avoid this fact is not going to help any gender.

siiigh. This is what happens when there's so many threads.

@Gamebird

"However, we should also be dictating to men what the new social contract is. That new social contract is not that they can get away with having sex with any person who doesn't explicitly refuse them, but that instead they are limited to only having sexual access to those persons who explicitly welcome them.

It's a paradigm shift from the idea of men being sexual opportunists to being sexual partners."

Yeah, agree to disagree.

@Eirene

Waiting for someone to give you an easy way to express yourself is not assertiveness. Speaking up only when the stars line up for you to do so is the opposite of assertive. Being assertive, by its very nature means speaking up when it isn't handed to you.

There's a difference between saying that there's a "gender divide" (which I never did) and suggesting that the way girls are socialized plays a role here. Though there are some men who are timid, and that is a legitimate issue, a huge reason things like this happen is because girls (like the LW) are taught to be deferential and please others (of either gender, but especially those they have romantic relationships with), avoid conflict, etc. There's a chance that the LW's friend/partner/whatever she is now might have been immune to this socialization (like yours truly!) but that doesn't mean that gender is irrelevant or that commenting on the gendered nature of this problem is heteronormative (though some people did take it in that direction).

@ank

Just to be clear - NMN is just a fancy way of saying 'don't rape people'. No one's arguing against NMN.

With regards to YMY it basically comes down to.

1. I am dubious as to whether it would actually help women who lack assertiveness (especially when compared to alternate systems).

2. I know I would not appreciate if I ever encountered that behaviour from a man and I'm very glad that I never have and hopefully never will.

Ank: Either women are rational adults who can be trusted to know their own minds, or they are children who need major support structures in place to protect them from themselves. Expecting to have it whichever way is more convenient for you at any given moment is a mark of adolescence. There's a reason we're careful what rights and responsibilities we extend to teenagers.

As far as bullying, while I'm not saying it should be all on the victim, it is worth noticing that some people become victims a lot more often than others. Flip answers like "fight back" or "don't dress like a whore" ignore the very real problem some people have with broadcasting vulnerability in a way that makes them highly attractive to abusers.

Which isn't to say that the victim deserves any blame. That all attaches to the abuser. Only that if it happens often enough, it's probably worth sitting down with a professional and working on.

(And also, because it bears repeating, that simple flip answers are counterproductive.)

Crinoline @162/164 -- People have used the word "rape" for centuries to mean "an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside." As long as no one is talking about arresting another person for legal rape, I advise chilling out about the use of the word.

Your acquaintance whose car was broken into used reasonable words to express the idea that he felt something offensive had been inside his stuff. A friend of mine once had someone break into and take a shit in her car; she described it similarly and found it very hard to use the car again.

If it will make you feel better, I'm happy to say that I felt that I "violated" myself instead.

In return, I would really appreciate you not erasing the majority of legal rapes, which involve men raping someone they know, not a stranger.

@179 By legal rape, above, I mean illegal rape.

I use YMY whenever I am courting or in a relationship with a woman because I am mildly autistic and literally cannot read the relevant body language, so I HAVE to ask. (Heh: Mydriasis has never been verbally asked if she wanted sex; I have never had sex with a woman without verbally asking her first.) Having experience with it, I don't think it's realistic to expect heterosexual guys with a choice to use YMY a lot. It's clumsy and it reduces your chances with women, who give you points for guessing what they want correctly and dock you points for asking. Mydriasis' feelings are the rule, not the exception.

(Being shy, I also use the corollary of YMY: "You don't have to ask, but if you don't, the answer's 'no'." This doesn't really improve communication, but, realistically, if you have YMY you also have this.)

I'd like it if women would use YMY. About as likely as me winning a million dollars in the lottery this week.

Note to 167: If you're "dictating terms" to someone, your relationship with them is not a "partnership".

"There is such a thing as unethical behavior with respect to one's (potential) sex partner; trying to avoid this fact is not going to help any gender."

This is where I think we're talking past each other.

Being a good partner involves being sensitive to your partner's needs/wants, a willingness to make their comfort a priority, and letting them know that their opinions will be heard and respected. Nobody argues with that, nobody argues with the campsite rule, and nobody argues with NMN. It's common sense and basic human decency.

Formalizing that by insisting that one partner (inevitably the man) perform check-ins at poorly defined intervals ignores the realities of human communication, does exactly nothing to stop anybody from applying pressure during those check-ins, and like any formalized system is vulnerable to lawyering. At the same time, though, it sends a very real message that women can't/shouldn't be expected to understand and articulate what they really mean. It's another of those utopian-sounding philosophies that fails hard when faced with the reality of human nature.

@ Erica

"If it will make you feel better, I'm happy to say that I felt that I 'violated' myself instead."

That would make me feel better.

@Old Crow

Thanks for sharing, I wish you all the best. I also agree with your point @167

@Mydriasis and @ChiTodd:

It's really not only men who should ask. Every teenager, male and female, should. When I was 19, very inexperienced, and drunk, a guy came onto me. I got really into the mood, we went to his car and almost had sex. Since I was the inexperienced one, I thought he wanted it as much as I did. The next day, a common acquaintance told me that I had gone too far for this guy.
A similar thing happened for a couple I know who now have been together for 20 years; when they got together just after highschool, the guy told a friend that they had sex before he felt ready for it. (She apparently did feel ready.)
I think teenage boys are under so much pressure because everyone assumes they want to have sex. If they don't feel ready they are afraid it reflects badly on their masculinity.
The reasons why they are afraid to say no might be different for boys and girls, but they are real for each group.

@ migrationist

"Since I was the inexperienced one, I thought he wanted it as much as I did. The next day, a common acquaintance told me that I had gone too far for this guy."

Huh. I've never had that problem.

You said you went too far? The reason I've never needed to ask is because again, I wasn't the one initiating and setting the pace. If someone's taking off my clothes I assume they want them off, for example.

@mydriasis:
He started the kissing, I was really into it, and thought we could go much further.

Since he and I were both inexperienced and drunk, we didn't really communicate well. And since he has never talked to me again, and the other guy said what he said, I assume my very enthusiastic response might have turned into too much pressure.

Once the guy has done the very first step (yes, I am sorry, but I am too shy for the very first step), I enjoy initiating, I am good at saying "no", but when the response is not completely enthusiastic, I am not good at distinguishing a) a lazy, but receptive mood, b) GGG-ness, or c) reluctancy.

That could be one reason I enjoy asking: apart from the turn-on I get from asking "Do you want to fuck?", the turn-on I get from the answer "Yes, I want to fuck you", being sure about not going too far for the other one is reassuring for myself.

@mydriasis:
"The reason I've never needed to ask is because again, I wasn't the one initiating and setting the pace. If someone's taking off my clothes I assume they want them off, for example."

What do you do if they don't take off your clothes, then? Never get naked?

@187

If it ever happens, I'll let you know.

167 "It's a paradigm shift from the idea of men being sexual opportunists to being sexual partners."
-------

This wasn't the paradigm. Really. All men were not sexual opportunists up until the past decade or whenever, and the majority of the sex they had was not rape, and the majority of women felt like people with sex partners rather than victims of opportunists. "Sex partner" is not some newly coined term.

When I said no to guys in college, and they listened, I felt like they were treating me as an adult with agency who knew what I wanted. Like a partner: an equal who can interact with you as an equal. I really hate the versions of feminism that cast me as a perpetual victim.

And what Crow said about dictating terms to one's "partner."

@mydriasis, way upthread, who wrote:

I don't think any amount of slogans or rules can make up for the core problem that causes women engage in sex acts they aren't comfortable with. We need to address why they do them in the first place.

Indeed. I'd just add that (OK statistical tendencies, but) it's not only women. Despite men's supposedly stronger sexual drives plus testosterone levels plus cultural pressure to be aggressive, it's not infrequent for them to find themselves in such situations (I did, surprisingly [to me] often). Why do people in general (and women in particular) end up going along with sex they don't really want to have, and is there something we can do about that?

My answer thus far in life is: not much other than try to make people know what it is they want or don't want (surprisingly often, it's not all that clear to the person him/herself) and be assertive about it. Other than that, most strategies tend to not work in sufficiently many situations and settings to be really reliable.

@177(mydriasis), I think the discussion here is more about whether YMY is to make girls more assertive (which I agree with you on, it probably won't -- if you're only assertive when you're allowed to be assertive, then you're not really being assertive, etc.), or to make boys more conscious of the fact that they shouldn't assume that saying nothing is the same as enthusiastic consent ('girls are supposed to be coy and play difficult, so if there are no red lights go full speed ahead', etc.). With the latter maybe some progress could be made via YMY.

You've said several times, here and in other threads, that you're perfectly capable of making a guy you're not attracted to understand that you're not attracted to him. That's great, and it's a quality I'm certainly trying to give to my daughter. Nothing wrong with that. But it is also true that some guys make wrong assumptions about 'silences' and such that they didn't have to make; they could check, too. I'm not saying they should ask 'may I' at every inch -- that's way too silly for words -- and yes, there's a game to be played here and non-verbal cues and all. But some (I stress: some) guys do seem to get fixated on a certain interpretation of 'what's going on' ('of course she wants it!') and nothing short of a big 'no' thrown at their faces seems to make them revise their working hypothesis.

It's to everybody's interst (guys and girls alike) for everybody to, well, get their 'situation radars' tuned so they become a bit more flexible in their interpretation of what 'she (or he) obviously wants'. And at the same time also to become more assertive and to have no fear of being quite clear about one's unwillingness to continue, no matter how broken-hearted or angry he (or she) might become.

@178(ChiTodd), I don't think there's a single person here in this thread who disagrees with the letter/spirit of what you wrote. We all want to be reasonable, rational people who can know what our minds are in every situation and are able to act rationally so as to achieve our goals or prevent the things we don't want from happening.

But the point is that, even in this day and age, we're not all born equal and aren't treated equally by society. If men and women are both (a) physically imbalanced (men can more often be more threatening to women than women to men) and (b) socialized differently (men are more often taught to 'go and get it' in life, women are more often taught to 'smile and not rock the boat' -- lots of exceptions, of course, but a trend is a trend is a trend), then one misses the point if one simply says it's up to everyone to learn how to defend him/herself and if the rates of success are different for men and women then oh well, you're an individual, take control of your life and make it better. It's true, of course, but then you're ignoring the point at hand, which is that the differences (physical and social) are still there and still tend to (tend to) lead people to different behavioral patterns and different needs in terms of help to overcome said patterns.

Nobody is saying 'treat women like children' or 'treat men like rapists.' There are shy boys who need to learn to be more assertive and there are outrageous women who need to learn to control their aggressiveness, but usually (70% of the time? 80%? 60%?) it's the other way round.

179,183-- Violated is a much better word than rape for these instances, but I'm still disturbed by the idea of either of them being used as a reflexive verb. The very notion of violation and rape is transitive.

Saying that one has been violated by one's own body removes one's agency and separates the self into the mind and body at exactly the moment when they're most clearly the same thing. I'm okay with the idea of internal conflict. Most of us experience that from time to time, but I'd find it absurd and even offensive if someone said: "When I walked into the bakery, I only meant to have a cup of coffee and felt violated by my body when I ate an assortment of fruit tart pastries instead."

Or put it another way. Consider a man saying this: "When we started making out, I really only wanted to do some petting, and felt violated my body when she said no, and my penis started thrusting inside her vagina anyway."

@mydriasis & migrationist,

in case you find it interesting, I was once in a situation similar to the one migrationist described, except I was the boy who didn't really want to go too far. In fact I didn't want to go far at all. At that time I was in emotional turmoil because my then-girlfriend had made it clear to me she didn't want to see me anymore and I was in full it's-all-my-fault-how-can-I-change-so-as-to-win-her-back mode. Via a number of circumstances that aren't relevant (and to some extent rather boring) I ended up in bed with another girl, one who started getting frisky, meaning trying to take off my clothes. Given my emotional state, and given also the fact she wasn't my type (i.e., I didn't find her attractive), there was very little chance I'd be able to get it up and do anything . And frankly I wouldn't want anything to happen at that moment (even if I had found her attractive); my mind was elsewhere. I'd have to use some crazy fantasy and close my eyes and... I was tired, it would simply be too much work.

Yet she tried. So I had to stop her. I didn't do anything angry or abrupt (I could have, but I just felt so sad); I simply said no a couple of times, and dismissed her arguments ('it can be a great stress release'), and then started telling her about my own problems. That also killed her mood (this probably works better on women than on men, I admit), and by the end of it she was giving me relationship advice instead of trying to get into my pants. (She was a good person, by the way. I hope she managed to get laid the following day.)

179, 183--

I do prefer "violated" to "raped" in these instances, but I'm still uncomfortable with either word used as a reflexive verb. Using them as an intransitive without an object removes agency. It reinforces a mind/body divide at the very moment it's most obvious that they're the same thing.

Consider a man saying: "When we started making out, I meant to stop at petting, and when she said no, I felt violated by my body when my penis started thrusting in her vagina." Does that sound as absurd to you as it does to me?

How about the application to any internal conflict or loss of willpower? If a woman goes into a bakery having decided to have only a cup of coffee but eats a variety of fruit tarts instead, would you say she was violated by her body? Is it only a violation if she'd meant to diet and felt some indigestion afterwards, or is it a violation if she enjoyed the pastries and felt fine afterwards?

@179(EricaP), this use of 'rape' is a metaphor (Aristotle's definition of metaphor: the use of a word to mean something it usually doesn't mean). And indeed it's perfectly OK. We use metaphors all the time with all kinds of words, so why not rape?

In principle I agree. Why not?

The problem, however (at least to me), is that rape, besides being a heinous crime and all, has also become emblematic of gender relations (it plays a role in some schools of feminist thought as 'part of the "patriarchy"'s way of defending itself against gender equality', or it is 'part of the mechanism whereby the status quo keeps itself in place', etc.). Outside of academic women's studies, it is also thrown around in all kinds of discussions involving gender, the social role of women, men's and women's ethical positions in society, etc.

Because of that, the word has apparently acquired a power that goes way beyond its lexical definition or the metaphorical uses it can be put to. It has become part of 'gender studies' and part of the liberal/conservative divide. A little bit (though still -- thank god -- not as strongly, by far) like the word 'abortion': it's often difficult to discuss it rationally, because people get too fired up about what it 'really means' in social terms, and about how evil the people on the other side of the divide are.

I wished we could simply consider rape a heinous crime. That would make discussions, on the internet and elsehwere, way simpler.

Shoot. I was sure my first post had disappeared so I rewrote. Now there it is. Sorry for the duplication.

@195(Crinoline), all crimes (hell, all actions of all kinds) have gray areas, which is what makes life complicated in a way that no system of laws or customs or culture could ever really solve. I suppose all we can do is tabulate the number of people who would agree that the woman who ate cookies and tarts at the bakery when she only intended to drink coffee was 'violated by her own body' and the number of those who wouldn't. Or the number of people who would apply the word 'rape' to burglary because of how it made them feel, and the number of people who wouldn't.

EricaP, Crinoline, et. al.:
What about "betrayed" as a substitute for either "raped" or "violated" when it is used self-reflexively ("I felt betrayed by my own body" or "I felt as if my body had betrayed me/my mind/my expressed desire/my intentions/my intent/my principles")?

"Violation" is something that happens to you. It can be a synonym for rape or suggest an unwelcome intrusion (this would have been a better choice of words for the man whose car had been broken into, and indeed, I've heard it used that way), but it still would seem impossible to be something that one can do to oneself.

@Crinoline, you tell me it was my choice. But your scolding can't change how it felt twenty years ago. If I had raped my friend without mentally deciding to, I would have to accept the legal consequences of my body's actions, just as I would if I fell asleep while driving. But at the time, I didn't understand that I might lose control of my body if I started making out with a guy. If I can alert someone else to the possibility, then I think the use of strong, evocative language is worth it -- maybe I can prevent an actual rape, by letting someone know ahead of time that this loss of control does happen, just as I can warn people not to drink and drive.

@Erica

I think what she's suggesting that for some of us, that "strong, evocative language" can be upsetting/triggering/insulting. And for that.... maybe we don't agree that it's worth it. (Especially since I don't think your story is going to prevent someone who wants to rape from raping)

@202 I'd be interested in suggestions about language from someone who has experienced the strong dissociation I'm talking about. I've experienced it twice during sex, and once during child birth, and never when I wanted a pastry.

> I don't think your story is going to prevent someone who wants to rape from raping

I'm not addressing people who want to rape. You and Crinoline are saying I'm lying, that I did want to have sex that time. Wrong. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I didn't say you were lying.

then why say I'm hoping to "prevent someone who wants to rape from raping"?

"Being asked for explicit verbal consent drastically changes the psychological dynamic of sex for me. As I mentioned above it implies insecurity ("I need reassurance!") and ineptitude ("I can't read body language so I need an explicit confirmation that what I'm doing is okay"). Both of those things are a turnoff. On top of that I find it somewhat personally insulting. If you don't understand how I can be insulted that someone assumes I lack the basic capacity to stand up for myself just because I'm a woman..."

If you insist on interpreting a gesture that is supposed to be for your benefit as the one doing the asking being "insecure" and "need reassurance" or that it equates to assuming you're some sort of weakling who doesn't have the capacity to stand up for yourself, I'd say that you're the one with the attitude problem, not him. If your boyfriend brings you coffee in the morning, does that mean he assumes you're an incompetent cook? That isn't just a chip on your shoulder, it's a whole fucking sawmill.

Honestly, I try to be civil, but sometimes you annoy the fuck out of me.

Oops, kind of blew the metaphor. Trying again:

If your boyfriend asks you if you would like him to bring you coffee this morning, do you think he's insecure and needs reassurance about his coffee-making skills and/or your appreciation thereof? Or, perhaps, do you assume he is implying that he needs to do this for you because you are incapable of making a cup of coffee for yourself?

...or maybe, just maybe, he's trying to do something nice for you?