Way down in comments about a seriously disturbing “celebrity sex tape” / revenge-porn issue, Amanda Marcotte of says pretty much all that needs to be said about the erotics of “no doesn’t always mean no.” It’s radical because it’s feminist to the core. But because it’s feminist to the core it’s extravagantly empowering for men.
...to the inevitable rejoinder: “Well, sometimes no doesn’t mean no”, I say that if a man immediately stopped every time he heard no and refused to continue until she had spent at least 5-10 minutes explaining why she said no when she meant yes, then that behavior would stop pretty quickly. Don’t let the girls who say no when they mean yes get away with it. Make them choose.
The bogus, anti-feminist Two Rules of Desire rule out the possibility that men could be responsible enough, let alone confident enough, let alone in control enough of his “animal” nature to put the brakes on sexually inappropriate behavior by a partner.
In a related vein the Rules insist that women are already so ambivalent and/or averse to sex and, particularly, so unlikely to anticipate or experience sexual gratification for herself that if you stop when she says “stop” she’ll never say “go” again. That leads to yet another expectation that men must “strike while the iron looks at least a little warm or at least maybe not outright cold is hot” rather than communicating, let alone doing anything that might discourage a potential partner from giving an ambiguous “no” that wasn’t previously negotiated. (Because, seriously, there’s nothing wrong with role-playing any kind of games you both enjoy — you just have to be fucking clear you’re both playing the same game!)
Anyway, this is something I’ve noticed most feminists, hetero ones especially, understand perfectly. And something that seems to perpetually baffle non- and anti-feminists.
Heck, you can even confirm it with standard anti-feminist accusations of feminists! For instance anti-feminists are frequently outraged at assertions that men could ever be lucid enough to use, for instance, rape or sexual harassment strategically to control women rather than merely to satisfy unslakable, animal lust. (Proving, by the way, both my point that feminists have higher expectations of men and my point that anti-feminists think men have less self-control than your average three-year-old.)
Anyway, Amanda’s dead right that when men climb off the ledge of imagined sexual scarcity long enough to confront seriously inappropriate behavior when, or possibly if, it happens then the quality of sexual discourse (and very likely intercourse) will improve dramatically.
