In the opening credits of Mr Bean, he falls from the sky, a fully dressed adult, stands up and dusts himself off, and sets out into the world.
I have met a great many Beans.
This happens pretty often on blind/internet dates. Pictures rarely show the whole story. The other common scenario is when a guy asks you somewhere, but you don’t realize it’s a date- picture a guy at work asking you if you want to grab lunch, and you not realizing he meant it as a date rather than a friendly thing. Finally, now and then someone can say something so unattractive during a date that all attraction just drops right there…picture a girl disclosing she has a raging chronic yeast infection, or has three kids and is on welfare, or believes the rapture is coming tomorrow.
If you are attractive and I am single, of course I am going to respond positively to a normal sexual overture! I may have some reason for keeping things slow- which may well be that I happen to be on my period that night. In that case, I’ll let it be known that I want to keep it at a certain level of physicality, either by gently guiding the hand away or by just saying it. The only way an attractive person can get a disgust reaction is if he is being manipulative, passive agressive, physically agressive, or otherwise being a jerk.
Here you go:
…with the caveat that you should “probe” slowly and gradually–the key is to give her a chance to turn away or relocate your hands before you actually do whatever it is you’re going for. For example, if you want to kiss her, you can lean in, maybe stroke her cheek, and kiss her if she hasn’t turned away. Assuming she’s kissing you back, running your hands down her back and around her waist, then heading slowly upward gives her a chance to block them subtly if she’s not ready for that without having to call everything to a halt. Same principle applies to further steps. If she stops you, no big deal…just return to what you were doing before you made the rejected move. But a full-handed grab without any buildup will probably be unwelcome (and worse, signal that you either don’t know how to seduce a woman or don’t care about it).
(I’m assuming you’re talking about situations where you don’t know each other very well and are trying to figure out whether you can take things further up the sexual ladder, so to speak.)
Earlier this year I asked out a man I met through a mutual friend because he was smart and funny and we had tons of common interests. I wasn’t sexually attracted to him but I wasn’t not sexually attracted to him, so I thought I’d take a chance and see if any spark developed between us. The first two dates were … nice. On the third nice date it sunk in how completely wonderful a man he was and it was like a switch flipped in my brain; suddenly I was all “GRRRRRRR!” We’ve been together seven months now and are head over heels in love.
I’m a man, and I find this thread, or the OP anyway, odd. I guess we’re not being swooshed, but every time I’ve been on a date or been with a woman, I’ve known exactly where we stood WRT physical relations. Women aren’t that difficult to read, are they? Almost always if there’s attraction, it’s mutual. And how physical we get just depends on the signals sent, mine as well as hers, and the particulars of the situation. It’s not like I’m a cipher myself.
That’s the thing. For most people, it works pretty seamlessly- it’s second nature. But a few people have a lot of trouble with it. For whatever reason, they often end up trying to pin the blame on women. I think they just can’t mentally picture how it works with most people.
I am a woman and I would like to think that my signals have been perfectly clear, now and in the past with previous partners. I can’t remember being in situations such as the ones presented in this question. Perhaps at some point there may have been close calls but I am an extremely good people reader and probably put a stop to it before it even began.
To answer the OPs original question, I tend to be overly passive in these situations and freeze up. That’s the one part of my abuse history that will probably always stick with me. It takes me time to figure out that I can say no. This is true even with my husband. It’s a psychological mind fuck. It has taken years to be able to tell him when I don’t want to, and even more years to stop feeling guilty about it.
Even I have a limit to what I’ll endure, however. I remember I was dating this dude, I loved kissing him. He started pressuring me for sex on like the second date - I was 17, by the way, and he was 28. We actually had some conflict about it and I made it pretty clear I did not want to go there. I had, by the way, been open about my abuse history and how recent it was (at that point it had been less than a year since the last incident) and he said he understood.
3rd date, we’re sitting on the couch making out, he starts asking for sex again, telling me he can help me heal from my past, and when I say ‘‘no’’ he grabs my hand and puts it on his penis.
After a few shocked seconds, I got up and left. He called to apologize when I got home and told me he loved me (3rd date, folks.) I forgave him but something didn’t feel right. I lived with my Aunt at the time, who I told what happened, and the next morning she wakes me up at the ass-crack of dawn and told me she had a dream and starts listing the psychological reasons she thinks I’m dating this guy and how bad it is for my mental health. I could tell she hadn’t slept. We’ve always been close but it’s the only time she’s ever asked me to take a specific course of action.
I called him back and told him it was over.
You’re getting excellent advice in this thread. Usually willingness is something you can ‘‘feel out’’ without necessarily asking. And instead of saying, ‘‘Can I touch your breasts?’’, you could go with ‘‘Is this okay?’’ while moving your hand from waist to general breast region. At a certain point you’ll have enough experience that you won’t have to ask.
When I’m into it with my husband, there’s no question necessary. He can tell the difference because when I’m in the mood I basically tackle him to the ground. It really is about body language. Tensing up is generally a sign of not being comfortable. Usually if a woman is into it, she’ll make that part of her body more available. Is she pressing against you? Is she grabbing you? Also good signs.
I don’t blame you for being confused though. Every body is different. People try to pretend sexual and dating behavior is such a concrete and easy, but I don’t think it is. There are a lot of grey areas, and sometimes the only way of navigating those is to make it explicit.
Oh, and before I forget - in the area of explicitly asking.
The single most hilarious story I have ever heard, origins now lost to the annals of time: A college sophomore is friendly with a guy who lives in her dorm. One night they are sitting on the sofa together, and she looks up to see he has unzipped his fly. Plaintively, he asks
‘‘Would you like to touch Mr. Pickle?’’
Don’t be that guy.
I guess that’s why flow charts were invented.
Indeed.
Oooh ooh, a friend of mine woke up one morning to her boyfriend, inches from her face, asking with the utmost urgency and sincerity:
May I penetrate you?
Don’t be that guy either.
Dammit Devo. I sympathize with the women who have been “violated” in their sleep – most women I’ve known have been cool, but this ex-wife-thing hated being woken up from almost-asleep. ETA and by “cool” I don’t mean having a rod shoved into their unlubed holiest of holies, just pre-amorous caressing, I guess one would say.
Not saying this because I think I’m so cool, but most women, when into some nice making out are pretty much DTF (=down to fuck) even if it don’t mean my dick gets wet. Can still be a good night!
I would see a guy who doesn’t know his moves as awkward and kind of needy (or, if he’d seemed the really confident type, maybe just pushy).
I will say this, past adolescence I never once dated a man I wouldn’t have had sex with. This is not to say we were going to have sex on the first date, or second, or any particular number, because one of the great things about a new partner is the buildup of sexual tension. There’s an optimum time, and if we both didn’t know when it was, that was kind of a minus. For him as well, I’m sure.
I’ve been married a long time, and there are times when I’ve reacted to a sexual move with anger, irritation, etc. For one thing, a prime time for this seems to be when I am COOKING. I hate cooking, I resent it, I get into a bad mood while doing it, and I don’t, do NOT, want a kiss. But at times, a good nuzzle and kiss has, in fact, jollied me into a better mood. Never can tell!
A guy has no right to kiss me or do anything unless he’s clear I want it. Also, guys, “no” to something in bed does not mean “try harder” or “ask me again 1,000 times”. Seriously, though, unless my body language clearly says kiss me, wtf are you doing? !
shrugs I usually respond with a smack. The more grievous the offense, the more force I put into it.
I do recall visiting my boyfriend in his dorm once and leaving - we were not in a sexual relationship or anything but anyway - and his roommate had come out of the shower. He said, “Wanna see my penis?” and I said “NO” and of course he just rips off the towel and says, “WALLLA!” I screeched and ran out the door. <shudders> It was so big and…willy-nilly.
Oh, and another thing! Don’t push my head down there, don’t bring my hand to your penis, just don’t. Why do some men find it perfectly reasonable to grab a hand and place it on their penis in the middle of a movie?! And why does this always seem to happen when I’m on a date with someone who has lived in a) Europe or b) Israel extensively?
Do I understand correctly that if you were on a date with a man and he kissed you when your body language didn’t clearly say “kiss me”, you’d smack him?
Do you think that “I think my body language clearly says ‘kiss me’” and “he’s clear I want it” always go together, so that the former is always accompanied by the latter and the latter always accompanied by the former?