Good afternoon, Miss Cholmondley-Smythe, fine weather we’ve had for the past fortnight wouldn’t you say?
Indeed, Reverend Fortesque, veritably balmy for October. More tea?
Most kind. And these cucumber sandwiches are delicious. If it’s not too much of an imposition, might I invite you to engage in a spot of rimming, and then fuck you in the ass?
Not an imposition at all, Reverend Fortesque, I would be delighted!
American society is uncomfortable talking about power differentials, which manifests in all sorts of spheres, including sexual, racial, and employer-labor relations. Men are told by the culture to seek as much sex as possible, treat women as free floating individuals, that anything is OK as long as she doesn’t say “no” or lash out physically, and then everyone acts surprised at all the problems this causes. There’s also some resistance because enthusiastic consent and “yes means yes” models would make sex marginally more difficult for men, which is basically the end of the world given how so many of them feel entitled to sex. In recent years there’s also a lot of men suffering from cognitive dissonance at the realization they may have assaulted previous partners or that their behavior towards women isn’t as chivalrous as they thought. Overall though, things seem to be moving in a positive direction, especially with younger people.
It’s better than the old “lack of a no means yes” model.
There are other issues, like men feeling entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or how women are socialized to be “feminine,” which often means deferring to others and trying to make other people happy, even if it’s to the detriment of their own well being. Those will probably take longer to tackle.
Older generations are not famous for their progressive sexual ethics. Marital rape in the U.S. wasn’t even illegal in all 50 states until the '90s.
What do you mean by “free-floating individuals”?
I’m a woman, and enthusiastic consent models would make sex more than marginally less enjoyable for me. I’m not into sex by questionnaire. (“So we’ve established you do NOT want to be kissed on the shoulder.” “No, I don’t want to be BITTEN on the shoulder. Kissing is fine. As long as it’s the LEFT shoulder.”) Nor, as I said in a previous post, would I feel any safer with a checklist because I wouldn’t be any safer. Or are you assuming any man who’d go through the Enthusiasm Checklist is a man to be trusted?
On what do you base this assumption that this is especially true for younger people? Surveys? A demonstrable decrease in the number of date rapes (and not just those reported to law enforcement) among 18-25-year-olds? Or are you making an ageist assumption?
Is it though? In fact, except that it’s preceded by a checklist, nothing has changed. If A gives an “enthusiastic yes” to B before sex begins but changes her mind during sex, you’re still back at “lack of a no means yes.” Unless, of course, A says “NO.” But that’s no different than without a checklist.
Like some men feeling entitled to women’s bodies…some women are socialized to defer to others. And here I thought we were making progress in getting past stereotypes.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that the people who made marital rape illegal in all 50 states were people who were adults at the time. Furthermore, that fight was begun in earnest by feminists in the 1970s. The fight for gay rights? Begun in earnest in the 1960s. Progressivism is…progressive. Each generation builds on the progress of the generation before.
We undoubtedly have a long way to go. I suggest we’d get there a lot faster by working together than by stereotyping by age and gender.
I’ve got a solution. During each session both parties must wear a headband that pops up one of three flags: “Yes,” “No,” and “If you insist.” No new move can be made until one of these is shown.
A prong on the band can inject some number of volts into the other party if he or she offends. Location of the shock is the choice of the offended person.
Works great.
Unless one of the parties is a masochist.
(We should rewrite “The Masochism Tango” with enthusiastic consent.
But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a very weird proposal from someone who appears to have never been in a relationship where trust and familiarity has been established. That kind of relationship doesn’t have to be necessarily long term.
Perhaps if “newer generations” hadn’t evolved to the point where the only way many of them can meet a mate is online or via their phone instead of in person, establishing immediate vibes and boundaries we wouldn’t have such ridiculous proposals as the OP.
Certainly not what I was told by culture.
And decide which you want to talk about - a standard of “yes means yes” (in which both parties are considered adults capable of speaking their minds and expressing themselves clearly and honestly) or “enthusiastic consent” which means that a simple yes does not mean yes, yes means no, and only an enthusiastic yes means yes because one party needs to be protected from their inability to not say yes (weak fragile inferior things that they must be).
The two are mutually exclusive.
Which standard and view do you support?
Here’s the thing. Many relationships, indeed many marriages, exist where trust and familiarity (whatever that means) have not been established, nor will ever be established. Therefore having some polite rules designed to respect everyone’s rights are essential. Furthermore, trust and familiarity are not unbreakable things, but are frequently quite malleable. Partners that may “trust” each other and feel “familiar” with one another can lose that over time because of changes in life and circumstances. So once again, it’s a positive thing when social mores move toward the idea of always be assured of consent rather than just assume.
Oh come on. It’s a weird proposal because I was intentionally pushing it to the extreme for discussion purposes.
But even as weird as it is, there are no implications here for what trust level there is between the two. A fine reading of the situation is that they trust each other to ask first and to answer honestly. That’s a hell of a lot more than can be said for many couples doing things the normal way.
Anyway in later posts I clarified that prior established boundaries and limits etc could work under this proposal, there’s no need to constantly ask again and again.
Also the proposal isn’t that there be a rule that everyone must do this every time. That would certainly be bizarre. The proposal is that it be a “sexual norm”, i.e., a generally held idea about what the ideal is, where when things don’t go in that way, it’s either because something has gone wrong OR because the people involved trust each other and are happy not to do things normally.
So like for example bdsm violates lots of sexual norms held in the culture at large, but that doesn’t imply there’s anything wrong with it. It just means if people do it, either something is wrong or they trust each other and are happy to do things that are not normal together.
If you live in the US and watch TV or see movies much, then you were told this. Ideally you just didn’t listen!
I portrayed unambiguous communication and of course the background assumption is that no expectation that consent should be given is held, in other words, “prepare to be disappointed.”
Okay so I can see how we could mark out distinctions in non-ideal cases.
Like, wife says let’s have sex, guy says “I’m kind of tired but I can probably give it a go.”
I guess people are assuming (I can understand why, though it’s technically a misreading of what a ‘sexual norm’ is) I would have said something extreme like, if she continues it would be assault or worse.
But no, if they ended up having sex after this, I would not assume something terible had happened under the norm, I would assume EITHER something is wrong between them (severity TBD) OR they are comfortable enough with each other to break the norms, because they know each other well enough and are willing to take risks or make sacrifices and are secure they’ll be okay etc etc.
No problem.
I’m just talking about a “norm”, not a “rule” or “law”.
Let’s take it one step non-ideal farther. A couple gets married. Has three kids. Love each and are great partners in every way except that along the way one of them has a shift to a much lower libido than the other. You’ve used the woman being the more amorous so we’ll stick with that. If she asked that they go to a sex therapist to help them develop a more mutually satisfying sexual relationship and she kept requesting him to satisfy her desires would that be a norm violation? Would such be coercing him to have sex? Would it be more acceptable for her to either live with her desires ignored, to ignore the impact that has on her self-image, to just resign herself to a vibrator forever, or alternatively to abandon a relationship with the man she loves and who is the father of her children?
Good question. That’s of course a deep situation that bears a lot of thinking.
Why are you asking about it?
Because you have posited elsewhere that behaviors perceived as “pressure” (even be it whining a “pleeeease”) counts as “coercion” as in “threat or coercion” Real world relationships between actual adults, at least ones that are not hook ups with strangers, are complicated. They work best when there is clear and open communication about all of their aspects … sex is just one of the facets of the relationship and how a couple communicates. The communication in all its facets, including the sexual one, requires both parties to own up to the need to listen well and to express clearly and sometimes to compromise.
Not sure if you have been a long term committed relationship or not but any of us who have stayed in one realize that.
Sorry, can you remind me where I posited that whining “pleeeeease” counts as a threat of coercion?
In general I don’t find anything to disagree with in the substance of what you said.
I hate it when you use your iphone. It makes it all about you…or I.
Looking back, my apologies, that was Banquet Bear here.
Maybe your op would have been better put as a request to discuss hook up etiquette?
As someone who made house calls fixing computers before the rise of the commercial internet…I just want to point out that publicly claimed “sexual norms” rarely match the private “sexual norms” of those same individuals.
But the premise of this thread seems backwards. Teaching people to pay attention to others discomfort, and ensuring that your partner feels confident in communicating discomfort seems the easier to obtain state.
The problem is that under our social constructs men often just don’t learn these skills, or feel that they need to ignore them.
But it doesn’t change the fact that the primary issue is communication no matter if it is because one party feels that they aren’t free to, or if it is the other party ignoring that communication.
Well, it’s an incredibly common situation, and the standard of “enthusiastic consent” seems to suggest that in that situation, the couple almost never has sex.
Yeah, I didn’t state it that clearly, but this seems like a much better norm for hook-ups than for behavior within a long-term relationship.
Yes, that’s in line with what I was saying.
Can you explain further what the substantial differences are between what you just said and what I was talking about? Not that I think there aren’t differences I just am not sure what you’re aiming at.
Nothing to disagree with here.