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.

She said it here.

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.

In their regular “Wise Guys” sectionEm & Lo asked “Do guys ever turn down casual sex?”

I like the column, not least because even when the answers are conventional they’re often conventional in non-stereotypical ways. This week not so much.

It’s a trickier question than it sounds. One of the interesting consequences of a tradition that requires men to do all the initiating… and the obvious corollary that we only initiate when we’re interested… is that we rarely have to confront invitations when we’re not interested.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got enough expectations tied up in “scoring,” and we have enough institutional and biological padding that we don’t have to worry as much about consequences (like reputation hits and pregnancy) that we can get interested pretty quickly.

But still, when it happens and we’re clear-headed enough to assess the potential fallout, it would be nice to have some kind of vocabulary to fall back on besides, oh, say

Yes guys do, contrary to popular belief, turn down casual sex on occasion. The number one reason given, “That bitch was crazy!”

Read the quote in context here.

Because saying that? That’s more like covering up when you’re panicked and looking for excuses. My suggestion? How about manning up and saying “no thanks, I’m not in the mood.”

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Short of maybe Brad Pitt every single, actively heterosexual man on the planet knows exactly how nerve wracking is to ask someone out… and knows just how much it can sting to get the rude brush off. And so every hetero man out there probably ought to either a) show a little collegial courtesy… or at least “honor among thieves.” :-) Or, seriously, a little sympathy and a considerate yes or no when someone summons the nerve to ask us!

And not to put too fine a point on it, from a men’s perspective the more women begin asking men out the more sympathy we’ll get when we ask them out!

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One final point. One of the more corrosive aspects of the no-sex class paradigm is that men don’t just condition ourselves to passively believe that “good” girls can be sexualized but not independently sexual, we also condition ourselves to actively enforce perceived departures from our ideological expectations. Thus a woman who initiates is a recurring sexual fantasy, sure, but like sexual initiative-taking, sexual fantasy tends to happen when… we’re in the mood.

On the other hand, if a woman initiates in real life, especially at a time when circumstance or mood makes us disinclined, it isn’t received so much as sexy, interesting, or a fantasy come true or, especially, for an opportunity to do something fun with someone who, other than genital anatomy, is just like you. When that happens men aren’t given a lot of places to go except up (with superior pronouncements like “she’s a bitch”) or out (with escapist characterizations like “she’s crazy”) but never straight across (“I’m sorry, I’m already in a relationship” or “I don’t think that would be a good idea… can I call you a cab, I don’t think you should drive” or even “Not now but can I call you later.”)

I’m not even going to say there’s something wrong with one (fantasizing about forwardness) or the other (preferring reticence in reality) since in day-to-day life women seem to feel somewhat similarly. I will say, though, that men need to spend a little time reconciling the differences. That plus making room for everybody and not just men to initiate, proposition, or propose, and walking back the panicky name-calling reactions next time a woman seems more ready, willing, and able than we are.