Note: Still on a happily hectic family vacation on the awesomely laid-back Greek island of Lesvos and so posting and comment moderation will continue to be sparse.  Today or tomorrow we're going to try and get over to Skala Eresou, which in addition to being Sappho's birthplace is also supposed to have an awesome beach.

It's really great to keep spreading the message that "No means no" and as a slogan "no means no" is memorable and effective. But a slogan isn't really adequate for helping people navigate real-world situations: you also need real-world illustrations and examples. Sarah Sloane offers an example from the BDSM community that ought to be part of mainstream Relationships 101.

Keep in mind that you do not need to have a reason to say no – you are entitled to say no for any reason (or even no reason) at all. It’s YOUR decision whether to play or engage in sex. You also do not need to give them a “rain check” or tell them maybe another time unless you want to – in fact, in my experience it’s been worse for me to tell them “maybe” instead of just saying no and leaving it alone.

When I came up in my leather community, I was taught that one of the things that bind us together is a sense of respect; part of that is respect for ourselves and our ability & power to say no, and part of it is respect for the other person that we’re talking with. Honesty – not the blunt, hurtful kind, but the compassionate kind – will be something that both you and the person that you’re being honest with can live with.

Practice saying no – to your mirror, to friends, in writing – and use those practice sessions to feel more comfortable and confident when you say it. When you’re in a position where you’re not sure what to say to the other person, tell them that – and ask them if you can get back to them. Take the time you need to make a decision; it’s a very rare situation to have a potential play session with someone that you will literally never see again, so there’s no need to pressure yourself into deciding. And when it comes down to it, remember that no means no – and if the person in question spends time trying to talk you into it, or becomes defensive, then that should be a clear indication that it’s not someone that you wanted to play with in the first place.

Source: Fearless Press

It's almost a cliché in social theory that minority or alt communities will be more accurately aware of their differences and similarities than will the mainstream culture they're embedded in. And that therefore they may have useful insights that the mainstream culture would benefit from. Cliché or not, the BDSM community really has necessarily invested considerable time pondering issues of peer pressure, consent, and maintaining mutual respect. Of course, Sloan's case demonstrates that, being human beings, BDSM people often need active coaching and sometimes frequent reminders. But, being human beings, everyone else frequently needs those same reminders as well.

Via Viviane's Sex Carnival

I'm an occasional participant in the popular "Wise Guys" feature at Em & Lo.  This week the question was "You often hear how the rape fantasy is common in the minds of many women. Do men have this fantasy, too?"  Here's how I answered.

First of all, I don’t know who actually has them more often, but I get the impression that more women than men seem willing to disclose their rape fantasies. Based on my own experience, though, I think it’s important to mention that the term “rape fantasy” covers an awful lot of different ideas. So when you say “rape fantasy” you could be talking about Rhett Butler sweeping Scarlett O’Hara up the grand staircase or something that might scare Ted Bundy. And both men and women’s fantasies cover the whole range. One more good reminder why communication and negotiation are important when translating fantasy into roleplaying.

In my teens I had a lot of fairly vanilla rape fantasies, inspired in part by “bodice ripper” romance novels and in part by the much more direct Victorian BDSM novel A Man With a Maid. This was furthered by two of my earliest girlfriends who shared the fantasies (and their romance novels) with me. Roleplaying was lots of fun — but not for everyone, as I pretty quickly figured out with the next couple of partners.

Years later I was involved with someone whose ideas of roleplaying were so dark I felt a little uncomfortable — and even more so when she mentioned what she really fantasized about when I was trying my best. And that’s a great reminder that what we fantasize about and what we actually want to do in real life can be very different things.

Source: Em & Lo's Sex, Love and Everything In Between

Of course reading that now I'm doinking myself on the head for missing what should have been an obvious chance to add to the bogus Two Rules of Desire. If it's both intolerable and inconceivable for women to express sexual desire, and for men to be sexually desired, then "he made her do it" types of fantasies make a lot more sense. Even more so considering that, unlike real-life date rape and criminal sexual assault, in most fantasies both parties enjoying themselves.

While the fantasies themselves are pretty harmless the implications of this are not amusing. At all. Because I'm pretty sure that the fantasy that overcomes those two really bad rules creates real misunderstanding when it comes time to cope, socially and legally, with the actual crimes of rape.

Weirdly, I think the two rules might help account for social intolerance of consensual BDSM. Which for a lot of non-practitioners seems a little too intentional and voluntary and thus not in keeping with the "propriety" of the rules.

Hmm... I'm going to have to think about this a little more.

Summary: This post is about the objectively stupid claim that feminism makes Sweden a really bad place to be an even modestly considerate sexually active heterosexual man. Sweden!

Question: Which of the following three items is not like the other ones?

Item #1: According to this Time Magazine archive article from 1964!:

Sweden, which generally plays it lightly, last week was in an uproar about sex. The cause was a petition of protest to King Gustav VI Adolf signed by 140 eminent Swedish physicians, including the King's own doctor. Their plea to the monarch and to the government: take swift steps to stop sexual laxity, which "is a menace to the vitality and health of the nation."

For years, in Sweden, premarital intercourse has been widely condoned, and the government provides legal abortions when deemed "in the mother's interest." The result, warned the doctors, has been a tide of extramarital pregnancies and mounting venereal disease—with most of the victims young people. Sweden's gonorrhea rate has jumped 75% in five years, and of last year's new cases, 52% were among teenagers.

Reform Talk. The physicians placed the blame squarely on Sweden's schools, where sex education starts in the first grade, pointing out that young minds —unless taught differently—can confuse instruction with encouragement. Arguing that "chastity in no way is harmful to health," the doctors declared that "monogamous marriage [with] common responsibility for the children, is the natural order of life." In sum, the doctors urged schools to teach "what is right and wrong."

Source: Time Magazine: March 06, 1964

And item #2: And in early 2009 Kommissarie F. Curiosa of Sweden's English-language The Local said

With one of the highest birth rates in Europe, the Swedes seem to be pretty prolific when it comes to making babies, but even after six plus years of living in Stockholm, I'm still not sure how Swedish relationships actually happen.

The only obvious explanation seems to be massive quantities of alcohol. In other words, Swedish babies wouldn't exist without Finnish booze cruises and Systembolaget.

In recent months, The Local has reported that Swedes are much less inclined than their European counterparts to spend vast sums of cash in their efforts to find a mate. This didn't surprise me at all. That's because they spend it all on alcohol trying to get themselves drunk enough to talk to a member of the opposite sex.

I know that it will seem ungrateful to be accusing my host country of being a nation of stingy alcoholics, and I'll be the first to admit that a few drinks can be a fantastic social lubricant. It's probably also a case of “it's not the Swedes, it's me,” but Swedish mating and dating rituals (and usually in that order) appear to be a very slow process that go nowhere (except the bedroom) fast.

In a nutshell, it goes something like this:

A) Meet at a mutual friend's party.

B) Get really, really drunk.

C) Make out. Sex is optional.

D) If you're lucky, you are sober enough to save the other person's telephone number in your mobile, AND to put it under the correct name.

E) Send a text message along the lines of "last night was nice. Shall we have a coffee sometime?"

F) Spend hours analyzing the various ways in which aforementioned text message could be misinterpreted. Get your friends involved.

Source: The Local

Item #3: Via of Echidne of the Snakes

Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism. I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism. -- Julian Assange

Source: Echidne of the Snakes

Yeah, Sweden's such a "feminist Saudi Arabia" that Assange was easily able to hook up for casual sex with two separate, consenting Swedish women in less than 24 hours.

My understanding, actually, is that it's approximately as easy to have heterosexual sex in Sweden as it is to have gay male sex in San Francisco. I.e. pretty bloody easy. And for approximately the same reasons: however many class or income barriers might exist in San Francisco, since everybody having gay male sex is... well... male. And so on a gender level they're pretty much going to treat each other as sexual equals.

The intent of all those ferocious Swedish feminists is to... create an environment where sexual equality between heterosexuals there is as routine as is equality between homosexuals here.

M'kay. Now. Let's posit a little scenario. One that takes the San Francisco analogy a little further. Let's say Julian Assange is gay instead of straight. And let's say Assange had dropped into San Francisco instead of Stockholm last year. And let's say Assange hooked up with an anally topped two men in 24 hours. And let's say that in one case he "accidentally" neglected to use a condom, and in the other case he didn't use a condom when, after properly condomed sex he penetrated his partner a second time without a condom while the partner was asleep.

In those circumstances would a hypothetically gay Assange's male partners have any cause for complaint? Fucking right they would! In fact I believe in quite a few states they could file criminal charges, and in a few others prosecutors might file charges even if the partners themselves said it was no big deal.

Here's the even bigger trick, though. If these hypothetical partners of a condom-tossing Assange kicked up a fuss would we say "oh boy, are those gay guys politically correct?" Would we call them militant homosexualist? Would we call California, or New York, or... Illinois, Missouri, or Oklahoma(!) militantly homosexualist for their "knowing transmission" laws? Why that would be no.

With that little thought experiment out of the way, what do Assange's antics look like now? A charismatic if somewhat narcissistic young man kites into Sweden, easily arranges consensual sex with two women (at least! remember only two women complained!) And due to their intensely egalitarian upbringing the young women felt as comfortable hooking up for sex with a man as a gay man in San Francisco would. But also like San Francisco men those women expected to be treated with equal consideration.

And when all he did was skip condoms when he, and they, knew he was sperm-positive and could knowingly transmit pregnancy they went all "feminist Saudi Arabia" on him?

Dudes! Do you have any idea what kind of heterosexual casual-sex paradise America, England, or, say, Germany would be with the kind of "feminist Saudi Arabia" values Assange was carping about?

Seriously?

Sweden?

Still not convinced? Let's put it another way then, hmm. Let's say you're a sex-loving heterosexual in a culture where casual heterosexual liaisons between social equals are as easy as arranging casual gay ones because by both custom and law all parties, women and men, have equivalent or equal degrees of faith and trust in the system. Then along comes some coarse Aussie dork who's used to the idea of sex as something that has to be purchased, extorted or otherwise "scored" off of women... and he thinks that's a good thing because any sheila who didn't have to be extorted into sex is either a slut or a whore. Oh yeah, and he thinks it's of zero consequence to him if he gives a sex partner a STI or an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy and when he gets to your town instead of picking up on the handful of social rules and basic hygiene that keep your very-mutually-beneficial sex lives humming smoothly he basically goes out of his way to avoid using condoms even when his partners expect him to use them.

Even if for some reason you didn't think this was unacceptable behavior on strictly egalitarian grounds would you be happy with this guy peeing in the community water supply like that? No. You'd want him called out on the carpet so fast his comb-over toupee would still be hanging in midair like Wylie Coyote.

Now. Does this have any bearing on whether the charges against Assange are trumped up? No, not really. If Sweden's applying it's laws unevenly that's a nuisance. But is there a problem with the laws themselves? I'd argue, forcefully, that for sex-loving heterosexuals, particularly for sex-loving male heterosexuals the answer has to be no. Because, seriously, Sweden? We're talking about a country where (according to the aforementioned post from The Local) it's far more common to fret about asking for a romantic date after the third time you've had sex than vice versa! And you know one of the biggest reasons it's so easy to have that kind of casual sex in Sweden? Because feminism won! Assange just didn't get the memo and thought he could treat Swedish women like the 2nd-class pieces of shit Australians grow up getting away with. And he got busted for it. (I'll ask the question once again: what possible incentive would even deeply anti-feminist Swedes have for letting foreigners screw up their sexual gravy trains? None? Right in one.)

Kasheesh! Like we should all have those problems Swedish men have!

Ampersand of Alas, a blog has a very cool contrast and compare post about consent as seen through the filter of nominally “mainstream” anti-feminism and nominally “edgy” BDSM. Read the original post, which I heartily endorse, to get the full eye-opening point. Read this post, though, for a quick dissection of the intentional misunderstanding common to anti-feminist descriptions of feminist principles.

Here’s Ampersand quoting a gee-I-just-don’t-get-it date-rape apology post from Cathy Young

Feminist critic Cathy Young, in the comments of her blog, wrote:

“I really can’t think of anything that would kill the moment (at least, for a lot of people) more than stopping in the middle of the mating dance for a clear and rational ‘consent’ discussion.”

Read the quote in context here.

In terms of the ordinary transition from neutral to lusty to actively sexual I can only think of a couple of circumstances where the kind of showstopper conversation Young frets about would ever be necessary. And since I think, speak, and write about sexual relationships all the time if I can only think of three then it’s really rarely necessary.

Before you get sexual? Sure, that’s a great time to have the conversation — it can even be an integral part of flirting. (Think of the game “I never…” only slightly more seriously.) Sometimes after sex? Sure, conversations to refine or clarify boundaries based on previous experiences together make perfect sense.

But during? While seamlessly transitioning from, say, dining and dancing, to maybe kissing in the cab or car, to standing at the door deciding whether one will ask the other in, to heavily petting on the couch, to slowly undressing each other, to slipping into something more comfortable… like a bed, couch, shower, or (heck!) even dungeon? Sorry, that’s usually pretty silly.

It’s silly first because there’s usually some lull in the action — while parking, say, or settling the bill, or while fumbling for keys at a doorstep where if a serious conversation is needed it can happen pretty naturally.

Even more importantly Young is being silly because (as Clarisse Thorn’s example makes amply clear in Ampersand’s post) you usually don’t have to have the sort of long, drawn out, and no-doubt earnest, detailed, and possibly stridently dialectical discourses Young implies when she says “clear and rational … discussion.” Instead there’s checking in. As in “May I?” or “Are you ok with this?” and “Not so fast” or “Mmm, more!” Repeated as necessary. Instead of being assumed, taken for granted, or ignored altogether.

Point being that once you get what consent is all about it really doesn’t take much to keep enthusiasm going… and if there’s not enthusiasm? Well what the fucking hell are you doing pushing ahead anyway without checking in anyway, right? If somebody’s just said “stop,” or “no,” or even just stiffened up and stopped responding then… um… yeah, you probably need to start a conversation but it’s probably going to be about more than “consent.” Sheesh!

-==-

BTW, the three instances I can think of where stopping in the middle of a “mating dance” for a full-on negotiation of consent would be

a) When, without prior agreement, the non-initiating party appears to be playing around with “no doesn’t really mean no.“

b) When, without prior agreement, the initiating party doesn’t appear to be getting the message that no actually means no!

c) When both parties have erotic negotiation kinks such that stopping, possibly repeatedly, to discuss minutiae about what exactly will and won’t happen.

-==-

See also:Guess What Else? Sometimes Drunk Students Commit Rape and Then Claim They Aren’t Rapists In the Morning | Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex