The limits of "no means no"

I've repeatedly applauded the significance of the right to say "no." It's sort of hard to imagine that until the early 1980s the right for men to force their wives to have sex was unquestioned in law. (Once a man bought the cow it was his to milk whenever he wanted.) The problem with that view of life is that it robbed "yes" of all meaning because consent is possible only when both yes and no can be honored equally. Consequently I feel, passionately, that to the extent we can enjoy contemporary sexuality it's thanks to the radically underappreciated efforts of women like Andrea Dworkin, who pointed out, correctly, that sex without a possibility of saying "no" is indistinguishable from (she never said "identical") rape.

So in the context of ancient traditions wherein women were considered more property than people the surprisingly recent general consensus that "no means no" was an extremely big milestone...

...in a process, I now realize, that still has a long, long way to go.

Via the quite interesting and new-to-me Infra of Skin::filter() comes a highly relevant quote on ThinkingGirl from a commenter named Scarred. ThinkingGirl's post was about a website for "professional pick-up artists," a.k.a. PUAs. Scarred points out that

I kept looking at the behavior and the comments that the PUAs and their symps kept making. I'll use one quote as a springboard to my observations: "I think that these 'pick up artists' are just are just [sic] using a different kina of 'artilery' [sic] to make the 'dating scene more equal. It never has been. Women have always had the sexual power. Women know this already or should. Cause women are beautifull [sic] 'as they are' correct? The make up and whatever it is they learn from magazines/friends/media as well as the pressure they feel to abiding by these teachings is in itself 'artilery'. These 'pick up artists' are simply trying to catch up and make the 'sexual powers' equal cause they more than likely have been fooled/ruled by the (above stated). And I'd be lying to you if I told you they were that they happy about it. The Dating scene will only get worse from here."

...

He and other PUAs/symps are going on the delusion that women have *the* "sexual power." He mistakes a woman's right to say no to men who approach her as being in control of the dating scene. ... If someone is limited to having to pick or refuse advances and not allowed to *make* advances as well, that person or persons does *NOT* have the "sexual power."

There's a world of possible discussions in that excerpt but I'm going to focus on the part that relates to the right to say "no." Except in the most abstract political sense neither "yes" or "no" are direct actions. Thus "no" can only be a *reaction* to an action initiated by another. To that extent it creates a limited right to be left alone *thereafter,* but not a right to be left alone in the first place. And, as Autumn of the now-dark Putting Perfection on a Curve frequently mentioned, it was wearing to be obliged to decline the (generally polite) advances of multiple men whenever she just wanted to sit down by herself at a table in a bar, have a beer, and spend the afternoon writing.

In other words the right to "no" is a critical defense. But actual power? Um, not. Or, if power at all then no more so than the right to say "don't call back" every single time a telephone solicitor interrupts your supper... in other words, not much.

Now Scarred and her proxy correspondent point to a pretty serious structural problem for both genders. By unspoken and largely unconsidered convention, regardless of the intended scope or duration of a relationship men are supposed to make initial contact. Enough so that to a very large degree it's considered unusual for women to do so. We seem to hold those conventions very dear but the consequences are ridiculous.

Now obviously when surveying a group of random people both men and women are able to assess those they'd like to have relationships with and and those they wouldn't. And whether Wendy Shalit likes it or not, men and women are equally capable of selecting from such a group the individual she finds most desirable.

But then it gets weird. Since by convention women have the right to say "yes" or "no" only *when asked,* and since, by convention, it's considered a social breech for them to initiate contact on their own they're forced to fashion themselves in such a way as to make themselves attractive in hopes of, well, *attracting* an initial contact.

And here's where it gets even weirder. Problem #1: by our pesky convention, women aren't supposed to walk up to people they like, buy them a drink, and ask for their phone number. Problem #2: By making one's self attractive to the one person she might be interested in, a woman is also going to make herself attractive to most others in the room (available and *unavailable*.) With the result that she may receive "collateral" approaches from people she has no interest in whatsoever.

We could spend all day cataloguing other, weirder ways it gets but past a certain point it's just piling on. The main thing is the whole shebang seems like an extraordinary price to ask women (or, for that matter, men) to pay for maintaining the tradition-driven, almost certainly patriarchal conceit that women are supposed to wait for the "man of their dreams" instead of simply initiate a conversation.

The point is that, as Scarred suggests, the right to say "no" must be respected instantly, with neither hesitation nor prevarication but it's not enough because convention does not yet allow for a corresponding right for women to also say, in effect, "may I have the next dance?" to one person without having to make a gigantic wind-in-her-face statement out of it as well.

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Just to be clear, I'm not saying that women never ask men out or that men never wait for women to initiate. I'm not, not at all. I'm just saying that when it comes to the men-initiate/women-wait model *both* parties have the wind at their backs. And while it's really some kind of wind -- everyone from Desmond Morris to Emily Post to 50's teenage dating guides to Antonin Scalia all telling you it's in our evolution, it's in "The Book of Love," it's in a "strict interpretation" of both Bible and Constitution -- it... kind of might be a lot of hot air.