Start by moving one hand up to the back of her neck--keeping the other hand either at mid-back or on the lower back," he says. "Then you can tilt her head back a little, which is both hot and calming. Then slowly slide your fingers up the nape, along her head, spreading your fingers out. Then slowly close your fingers into a soft fist, making sure you have a broad grip of her hair. She will feel a tightening, but it won't be painful, the way it would be if you grabbed a small section of hair." He adds that not all women like to have their hair pulled--and if you are sensing that she's uncomfortable with what you're doing, don't force it. (You might even ask if she likes it).While few people take magazine dating tips seriously, this Marie Claire article demonstrates a phenomenon that’s widespread: asking if your date likes something is often considered an afterthought, if you ask at all. In the mainstream dating world, negotiation is often non-verbal and based on a mutually shared set of assumptions about what romance and sex include: kissing, touching, fondling, cuddling, oral, PIV (penis-in-vagina penetration), anal sex, etc. These assumptions may often be valid, but each person has their own ways of expressing their sexuality, and there is no way to truly know what a person wants unless you have an honest conversation. This step is often skipped due to nerves, shyness, fear of ‘breaking the mood’, or tipsiness when people use alcohol as a social lubricant—or to overcome their own (or their date’s) inhibitions.
The BDSM subculture developed the idea of negotiating in order to allow people to do what they want in a safe, sane, and consensual way. In BDSM, before anyone touches another person, players talk about what will happen to whom, who will be involved, and what the safe-word will be in case anyone wants to stop. Play can be physically and emotionally dangerous: if you’re going to beat someone with a riding crop, verbally humiliate them, stick needles in them, or otherwise do new and exciting things together, then you both need to know what each others’ desires and limits are. Just because someone gets off on being called a ‘dirty little slut’ doesn’t mean they’ll like it if you suddenly use flash cotton to set them on fire.
In mainstream dating, there seems to be an unwritten, unarticulated script with a codified order of operations, much like high school algebra. In its crudest form, you can break it down in to a baseball metaphor—first base involves kissing, second base, feeling up & fingering, third, some sort of oral sex, and fourth, usually a variation of penetrative sex. Rather than assume that this is how things will progress on a date (even if that’s what you want), it’s important to check in with your partner(s) to make sure they’re on the same page. As exciting as fumbling in the dark can be, the grim reality is that we live in a culture where rape and sexual assault are normalized, where women are regularly told that they’re damned if they do have sex and prude if they don’t, and where men are told that they should be up for it all the time, every time.
There’s a lot of pressure on people regardless of sexual orientation or gender. One way to dodge these bullets is to swap the old script for a page from the BDSM playbook. By making negotiation a natural, sexy part of mainstream dating, we can avoid misunderstandings, dodge the wordless awkwardness of ‘should I take off hir pants’, and ultimately create a more progressive way of hooking up and fooling around. By introducing negotiation into our own sex lives, I believe that we can create a socially acceptable way for people to talk about their sexual desires and expectations, negotiate safer sex (for example, condom and dental dam use), and prevent drunken hook-ups that may have negative emotional or physical consequences. In the Marie Claire column, each move depends on how your partner reacts to your actions—it takes a certain level of empathy, self-awareness, and responsiveness to your partner to make the hair pull sexy (unless it happens to be an immediate turn-on for that particular person). As a new partner, you don’t know your date’s comfort level, sexual history, or what gets them going. If both of you are jiving on a non-verbal level, more power to you. If both of you want to follow whatever script you’re writing together, that’s great. But if you’re not sure what you want, or what they want, then negotiation is a tried and true way to build trust, amp up chemistry, and determine what you both actually want. Ultimately, keeping things fun, safe, and sizzling for everyone involved is our goal—no matter what the method.
So how do you actually negotiate in a sexy way? Start by being prepared. On the physical side, that means having safer sex supplies, a movie to watch, or whatever you think you might need to make the evening go smoothly. On the mental side, that means thinking about what you want to do, what you’d be open to doing, and where your hard limits are. If your date agrees to come home with you for some alone time, that’s an appropriate time to start flirting, gauge their interest, and possibly make a move. “I really like watching sci-fi,” I might say, “And the only thing that could make Firefly better is some hot cocoa and cute company.”
After watching an episode or two and gauging their interest, you could say, “I think you’re a really cool person, and I’d love if we did X, Y, and Z together tonight. What about you; what are you interested in?” In these two sentences, you compliment your date and reiterate your interest, tell them what you want, and ask them as an equal what they enjoy. Both of you should step up to the plate and talk about what you want—and make sure that you listen to what the other person wants, too. Rather than cold and clinical descriptions, good negotiations become a way to talk dirty, seduce your partner(s), and increase desire and anticipation.
On my Firefly date, I might say, “Being with you is such a rush. I’d love it if we lay in bed together and kissed all night. Would you be into that?” And depending on what we both wanted, we’d keep talking, maybe make out, and enjoying each others’ company. The most important words you can use are, “Tell me what you’d like to do together”. There is nothing sexier than having a hot date tell you how much they’d like to caress your face while you go down on them, or push them up against a wall and kiss them, or make love while listening to their favorite song (unless it’s a song you don’t like—but then, you’ll know beforehand). If you don’t want to do something, you can simply say, “I’m not really into that. How about we listen to Portishead instead of Savage Garden?” You can also tell your partner what you’d want or need in order to do something. “I’d love for you to go down on me,” I might say to my theoretical Firefly date, “but first you need to learn how I like to be kissed.”
Negotiation doesn’t mean breaking the mood. It means that you don’t assume you know what the other person wants—you ask. It means that you speak up about your own desires and encourage your partner to speak up about theirs, and listen to what they say. It means that if you have common ground, you agree what you want to do, and how. And it means that if your desires are different, you accept the other person’s answers with grace and don’t pressure them to come around to your point of view. Start slow and simple: “I think you’re really cute, and I want us both to have fun. Let’s talk.”
18 comments:
Bravo Courtny! The secret to great sex is in communication, especially since women's bodies and desires vary so widely. Men, if you want to make women cum and be a great lover, man up and use your words!!
Dear Courtny,
I think this article is great! People really do need to learn how to verbally negotiate their romantic encounters, and I love the way you've presented the issue with clarity, humor, and respect for people with a wide variety of lifestyles.
One concern that I have is that, in heterosexual feminist subcultures, open negotiation could systematically shortchange men. It can be taboo for a man to say something like "I don't want to be very affectionate or get very invested in your emotional needs unless there's some penetrative sex in it for me." Feminist men aren't supposed to want much in the way of casual sex -- even voicing the desire to treat a woman as a means to a sexual end, let alone point out that your decision to give a woman love or affection could be conditional on her permission to do so, can be very, very scary. It sounds too much like coercion, or even rape. But if only women are allowed to ask for what they really want, then an open negotiation probably won't lead to a fair compromise or creative solution -- it'll probably give women most of what they want at the expense of what men want.
I generally agree with you that "if your desires are different, you accept the other person's answers with grace and don't pressure them to come around to your point of view." Certainly starting the discussion slowly can be a big help. Sooner or later, though, some men will have to voice the thought that they would care a lot more about a person who's willing and able to meet their sexual desires -- and that thought, all by itself, can be a kind of pressure.
It just so happens that Firefly and hot cocoa is pretty close to my idea of a fun first date, but something about the way you describe it reminds me of putting out soft drinks for people at a party who don't want alcohol -- the idea is to make sure there's a safe alternative available, right? So that people can say "no" to sex without feeling like the date was somehow a failure. I think it's a cool idea, but for me, it doesn't really capture the full story. What if I don't "think you're a really cool person," and I'm just physically attracted to you? What if I do really like you, but it's been years since I got any action, and I'd be so upset if I found out that you didn't want to do anything intensely physical that I'd want to end the evening early?
I think it's wrong to use alcohol to overcome a date's inhibitions, but it also seems wrong to let women's inhibitions always and categorically set the tone for romantic encounters. Having sex that wasn't quite what you wanted can be emotionally damaging, but, then, so can going for years on end without having access to any sexual encounters at all. I'm worried that a focus on respecting people's comfort zones could inadvertently lead to a sex-negative "race to the bottom" that only allows the lowest common denominator of people's sexual interests to find expression. In the BDSM world, where there's no particular reason to expect to find more tops than bottoms and where people are generally willing to accommodate any imbalances that do arise in a local community by playing with multiple partners, this kind of "lowest common denominator" isn't much of a problem. In a feminist, monogamous, vanilla world, though, I'm pretty uncomfortable about the implications.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my comments, and, more importantly, thanks for taking the time to write yours. I really do think there's a lot of important advice in what you have to say, and, despite my lengthy misgivings, I hope a lot of people read it.
Best,
Jason GL
Hey Jason,
Thanks for reading!
I think you're making a couple of unfounded assumptions about what Men and Women want:
Who says that only men want casual sex that involves penetration?
Who says that feminist men (or women!) can't want casual sex?
Part of the gist of this article is to imply that people are often afraid to talk about what they want, regardless of gender.
I can't imagine it would be easy to find someone who's interested in monogamous and emotionally unattached sex, but nonmonogamous hookups? No doubt. A relationship that includes regular sex? That seems to be what many people want.
My hypothetical date scenario was simply an example of a way that a negotiation could go, not the way that every negotiation should be. If someone just wanted a date where they met up, said hi, had wild passionate sex, and then left--then negotiate with your potential partner(s)!
I have a couple of issues with some of the language you're using: "a sex-negative race to the bottom" and "lowest common denominator of people's sexual interests" implies that some sex acts are better than others.
Being sex-positive does not mean everyone should want to have the kind of sex that you want to have.
Let's think about this in terms of television. It's pretty easy to find someone to watch Lost with, but rarer to find someone who's really into Firefly. Does that mean that the enjoyment other people get out of watching Lost together is any less valid, even though I personally think Firefly is more interesting?
And--lastly--YES, it IS right to let a partner's inhibitions always and categorically set the tone for a romantic encounter--and that includes your own inhibitions!
Don't do anything you don't want to do, or your partner doesn't want to do!
And if you or a partner is into 'saying no, but meaning yes', well, Marie and I have a post on safewords coming up soon.
Best,
Courtny
Hey Courtny, thanks for writing back. :-)
"Who says that only men want casual sex that involves penetration?
Who says that feminist men (or women!) can't want casual sex?"
Nobody. There are thousands and thousands of counter-examples, and people of all different genders want all different things. My thought is that there is a statistical disconnect between what women want on average and what men want on average. If you tried to match up all the straight men with all the straight women in partnerships that gave everybody most of what they wanted, you would run into a lot of friction. Even if you were a perfect matchmaker, you would be stuck with a bunch of men who wanted sex on terms that the leftover women were generally unwilling to provide it on. You would also be left with a bunch of women who wanted an emotional commitment on terms that the leftover men were generally unwilling to provide it on.
People are often afraid to talk about what they want, regardless of gender, and I think that, on balance, getting them to talk about it will do a lot of good, for everyone. I also think that there might be a residual problem. After we fix the problem of bad communication, I expect we'll be left with a (smaller) problem of how the default terms on which communication takes place tend to disadvantage men.
I don't mean to imply that some sex acts are "better" than others, but I do mean to imply that some sex acts are (usually) more intense than others. When safer-sex pamphlets advise high school-ers to stick to kissing and mutual masturbation, I'm sure part of what they're thinking is that those activities are physically safer, but I suspect that at least some of the authors also feel that, for emotional or moral reasons, teenagers shouldn't be having "more" sex than that anyway. If two people happen to enjoy kissing more than anything else, and it gives both of them a huge rush that they don't get from sex acts that are stereotypically viewed as more heavy-duty, then more power to them! If people are restricting themselves to kissing because that's the only act that's mutually comfortable, though, then I think it's appropriate to ask whether part of what's making them uncomfortable about other sex acts is that they have aspects of a sex-negative attitude.
You say that it IS right to let a partner's (or one's own) inhibitions categorically set the tone, and I'm curious as to why. Why privilege inhibitions? If a person has mixed feelings about a potential encounter -- if she feels both fear and excitement -- why encourage her to steer by fear?
As for safewords, I'm quite fond of them, and challenge you to teach me something new about them. I do believe everyone should have a crystal-clear way of offering a non-negotiable "no" when they need to, and that partners have an obligation to each other to help them develop that kind of autonomy. I'm just questioning whether every discomfort needs to be shored up with a brick wall of non-negotiable no.
You can argue anything saying 'well, this is statistically significant if you average these people' and then trotting out assumptions based on your own experience; unless I see a p <.05, I'm not buying it.
I also am going to challenge you on your language of "disadvantaging men": men are not entitled to sex with women. Women are not entitled to sex with men. Sex is not a college education where everyone deserves access.
Lastly, yes I am arguing that if someone's inhibitions keep them from doing something, then they should not do it. CLEARLY.
This means people need to own what they want and speak up about it--and their partners need to respect those limits. That's what negotiation is all about--finding mutually good ways to enjoy each other. I believe that people should be on the same page.
As for the combination of excitement and fear--why is this in any way not negotiable?
Jason, you're thinking in such traditional monogamous terms yet you clearly prefer a nonmonogamous style and it's obscuring some of the arguments you're trying to make. Your "statistics" paragraph is founded on the idea of one man for one woman (and no men for other men and no women for other women).
I believe, statistically speaking, that you may not be the only person interested in having multiple partners. Why would you be so reliant on this one-to-one model when you yourself espouse an "insert Jason's life goal"-to-one model?
Feminists have a lot of debates about attitudes toward sex, but we all agree that all sex should be consensual.
And how exactly does an attitude like, "My inhibitions about emotional openness are ok to bring to this encounter, but your inhibitions about trusting your body with me are really bringing down the mood," indicate no inhibitions on the part of men (which is an awful generalization)? What is really disadvantaging men is being held to these sexual, emotional, and communicative stereotypes.
Another point to make in the vein of Courtny's above comment about no one being entitled to sex: just because someone is interested in having multiple partners is no indication that they're interested in having YOU for a partner. So, even if all the women in the world were nonmonogamous, there's still no guarantee that you'd be getting any.
Hi Courtny,
interesting post. I really like that you're giving *specific* examples of what you're referring to, and how talk about sex and individual preferences may be used to get in the mood rather then kill it.
To be honest, I think *this* kind of post is what's missing in a lot of feminist discourse about consent and dating and that leads to a lot of misunderstandings when these posts are read by men.
And I think what you've written about here could/should be extended to include a lot more examples. I think that would benefit most mens ability to use these conversational approaches.
I would also like to mention that it will usually be a lot easier for women to use such conversational techniques than for men - this is because most women seem to have an irrational expectation about men needing to miraculously *know* what they want, and women liking men to stay in control of the interaction. Being in control is much harder if you ask where to go.
You mention one example that I think is a very common female fantasy - being pushed against a wall while being kissed. I've talked about this with a couple of women now and most of them told me that it would really not be the same if they had to tell the guy they like to be pushed against the wall. So they won't. Instead they will see both his asking about it *and* the consequent lack of being pushed against the wall as *his fault*, and this may or may not actually ruin their mood.
What I'm saying is that the appropriate amount of appropriate ex-ante negotiation depends upon the risk level. To attempt a kiss without asking is usually low risk for the recipient, and high risk for the initiator. It's different when people are about to get naked and they aren't as sure as they can be about the other's intentions.
That said, as for your this comment
Lastly, yes I am arguing that if someone's inhibitions keep them from doing something, then they should not do it. CLEARLY.
in your reply to Jason GL, I think that is not necessarily so. I was far too afraid to go in for my first kiss, and if it had not been for her courage to do what I wasn't able to to, there's a very real chance I'd still be unkissed. She did this out of the moment, and showed me how much I wanted it. Before that moment, I would not have been able to verbalize my own desire in a way that may have been accessible to her. She jumped because I didn't - she took a risk I wasn't prepared to take. She simply overcame my inhibitions, which is, not rarely, something women are expecting men to do. A couple of weeks ago, I dated a woman who, in a way, said as much: She expected me to blast through her defenses. We agreed that I'm probably not the guy for that kind of thing, but it serves to illustrate a phenomenon that is quite common.
Hi Sam,
I like your suggestion that more negotiation examples should be offered.
Jason, Sam, and any other male-identified readers, I invite you to provide suggestions from your perspectives.
I also am going to have to agree to disagree with both of you when it comes to overcoming inhibitions: I think it's better to remain unkissed (or unfucked) if you don't have the ability to make your move or talk about what you want. That goes for men and women.
Men can take the initiative and provide the control or leadership that some women may want by beginning the dialogue.
For example, staring into someone's eyes and asking them, 'Can I kiss you?' in a confident voice can be incredibly hot (it's certainly worked on female friends of mine).
Consent doesn't have to be verbal per se, but if you're playing with 'consensual nonconsent', even with stuff like the hair pull, I would highly recommend that it be.
With current rates of reported rape, not even taking into account unreported rapes (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/rape.cfm), many people could be triggered by unexpected force. And even if the person whose hair you're pulling isn't a survivor of violence, many women have a fear of rape in the back of their minds because among other things, we live in a culture where most rapists go free and we are continually told that it's our fault if a man chooses to rape us.
But let's go back to Sam's example of the wall-push.
How do you negotiate the wall push without actually saying 'would you like me to push you against the wall now?'
One point that I've been trying to make is that negotiation doesn't have to be artificial or unsexy. In fact, it can heighten anticipation.
Say you think your date might want to be pushed against a wall and kissed. One way to gauge interest might be to talk about a book or a movie where something like that happens, and see how a date responds.
I keep using cultural references as a way to begin dialogues because I find that to be a good way to discuss bigger ideas and concepts without referring directly to myself and a date: there's a certain safety net there, because you can always pretend that you were just talking about the show/book. Plus it's a good way to flirt and banter.
Hi everyone! Lots of good comments.
Courtny, I love statistical research, but that part of my brain is busy right now proving that p < .05 for some of my final papers for law school, which are mostly focused on economic issues. If you don't want to take my anecdotal impressions seriously, you don't have to. I am curious about your opinion, though. Do you think that men and women, on average, want pretty much the same thing?
Marie, for the record, I identify as poly and heteroflexible. I agree with you that letting people choose multiple partners of all different genders can help ease tensions. I'm certainly not trying to box anyone into monogamous or heterosexual assumptions, and I hope my posts don't come across that way.
Courtny and Marie, you've misunderstood my argument if you think I'm saying that a Nice Guy (tm) is entitled to sex with any particular woman. My point is that men should be able to *bargain* for the kind of sex they want without being accused of oppressing women.
Courtny, you ask "as for the combination of excitement and fear--why is this in any way not negotiable?" I'd like to think that it would be negotiable. As I currently understand your argument, though, when a potential partner says that activity X in context Y makes her feel both excited and afraid, I should just forget about the idea of doing activity X in context Y with her. Rather than explore whether the excitement is more or less important than the fear, I should just respect her comfort zone and return to activities that are more likely to be entirely within the comfort zone. Isn't that part of what you're saying? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I think that that kind of intense respect for comfort zones is appropriate in certain kink scenes because of the huge risks involved, but I tend to agree with Sam -- it's hard for me to see why a simple kiss should be treated the same way. Certainly with enough creativity and effort people can find ways to negotiate such things without killing the mood, but why should they? What are the stakes? Is it so unforgivably awful if someone tries to kiss you or touch you and you don't want them to?
I read the Millar "performance theory of sex" article linked at the top of the page, and I got confused by the analogy to music. Millar seems to think that sex, ideally, should be treated more like making music and less like buying and selling a hot commodity. She points out that being forced to play music at gunpoint would be awful; it would be a violent intrusion into one's personal creative space. I could see tacking on an extra couple of years of jail time onto whatever the term for ordinary threats made with a deadly weapon would be.
But if you follow the music analogy, what would it be like for an apparently unarmed bassist to hand you a guitar, say "go on, play something," and then start playing his bass right next to you before seeing whether you wanted to jam together? It might be annoying, or awkward, but it hardly seems like a heinous crime. If you then said "Hey, man, I don't want to play with you," and he said, "Oh, that's lame!" and threw his bass down and stormed off, you might think he's a jerk, but it's hard to see why you would need any special protections against people like him. If sex is really like performance, then I don't understand why non-consensual sex is the sort of thing that should always be punished by jail time.
Courtny,
thanks for your reply -
"I think it's better to remain unkissed (or unfucked) if you don't have the ability to make your move or talk about what you want. That goes for men and women."
I think that you're wrong to assume that a lack of ability to talk about such issues is necessarily indicative of a lack of readiness. I'm all for a sex-positive social discourse about sexuality, but I think it's a fact of life that many, if not most people, female and male, do not have the ability to talk about sexuality, their sexuality and their preferences in such a manner. I mean, there's a reason so many people are excluded from actual sexual education in the US. It's not something people have the ability to talk about easily. That is certainly different in some parts of the population - you mention BDSM communities - but I think it's highly problematic to tell people who don't have a ready access to their sexuality that they are now basically obliged to put it out there in order for them to become physically intimate on any level. I think that's taking the "be ready before you have sex" idea to an extreme, and probably at least partly unhelpful level.
The higher the risk, the more talk is appropriate, but as far as *I* am concerned I will always be grateful to the woman who kissed me without waiting until I was able to verbalize my desires (I already had a graduate degree at this point)
"For example, staring into someone's eyes and asking them, 'Can I kiss you?' in a confident voice can be incredibly hot (it's certainly worked on female friends of mine)."
Yes it *CAN* - I've done it last week. But it's a really, really difficult thing to pull off. If there's one thing that kills attraction in any phase of the mating dance, it's male lack of confidence. It's really an art form to honestly weave your own veulnerabilities and preferences into a confident and sexually attractive narrative about yourself *and* the interaction you're having. These are the *best* conversations people can have - but to make those the baseline expectation of what it should be like to flirt would probably lead to a lot of silence in clubs.
"With current rates of reported rape,... we live in a culture where most rapists go free and we are continually told that it's our fault if a man chooses to rape us."
Here's a general suggestion for feminists talking to men about dating, physical intimacy and miscommunication. We're too often talking past each other because feminists don't think about how defensive guys get when they are confronted with "rape". Feminists don't really seem to think how using it in conversation about dating communication is often seen as a hidden accusation thrown at the person you're talking to. Remember that post about "Schroedinger's Rapist" published on Kate Harding's blog? It was good dating advice, saying that for most women feeling safe is the first step in being attracted to a guy. But what most guys read was: If you initiate a contact, she has every reason to think of you as a rapist. I understand that the rape aspect is really important, but for the sake of the conversation I would not put it front and center, and only use it after making clear that it's *not* a hidden accusation.
(continued, as only 4096 characters are allowed per comment...)
"One way to gauge interest might be to talk about a book or a movie where something like that happens, and see how a date responds. "
Yet I still wouldn't *know*, right? I mean, (using a pop-culture example ;)) remember that scene in Ally McBeal where the shy lawyer is sitting in bed with his girlfriend and she tells him about her fantasy of being spanked? She leans over to grab something, he spanks her, and she breaks up with him. Seems like testing the waters with stories will not always be a reasonable safe indicator. It would still come down to having to either do it or not do it in absence of perfect knowledge of her actual wishes. And again - maybe she doesn't even know she would like to be kissed *until* that moment. Happened to me, more than once. I was kissed, and it wasn't before *that* moment that I thought "yeah, let's do this." I have discussed "pushing against a wall" with a number of women, but I have never pushed a girl against a wall yet. And it wasn't because I didn't think they would like it, it was because I wasn't *100%* sure.
And this is another problem that often occurs in such discussions: Mistakes happen, mistakes are a necessary consequence of being human, and they multiply when two humans are interacting, even with the best intentions. Feminists are often too ready to assume malintent instead of honest mistakes, and that is also making it harder for guys to participate in such discussions.
"I invite you to provide suggestions from your perspectives."
Well, with respect to the wall example, as I said, I only ever talked about it, and *trained* it with a female friend, never actually did it. But here's what I think I would (want to) do: Find a wall, lean against it myself while chatting. At this point of a conversation with someone you just met, kissing is usually not really the next thing to happen in the interaction. Introducing how "I read about this female fantasy" at this point. Change subject. Move around until she is standing against the wall. Bring up the wall issue again - "hey, you're leaning against a wall... clever girl ;) You're good at subliminal communication, aren't you ;) But so am I..." See how she reacts, drop it again, move on to dance or have a drink somewhere else, and then, if going for the kiss is something I'd think both of us would want, slowly steer back towards the wall we already know. If she leans back against the wall, and looks like she wants to be kissed, I'd lean in a little closer, put one arm next to her head, looking in her eyes - move in 80% of the distance between our lips. She needs to reciprocate by moving in the remaining 20%.
Suggestions?
While I don't have time to make a long comment right now, I just wanted to say that this is one of the best discussions we've had on The Guide in a long time.
Thanks for putting your ideas out there: that's exactly what this blog is here for.
Keep up the great discussion, I can't wait to hear what you all have to say next!
Marie,
apparently all has been said ;)
Jason GL:
I think we are actually arguing the same thing in the first part of your comment: that men and women should be able to bargain for what they actually want in interactions. If you change the word bargain to 'negotiate', there you have it.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy activities that raise both fear and excitement. I think we have different ideas of what the word 'inhibition' is referring to. I am using the word inhibition to refer to things that someone is pretty sure they do not want to do in order to protect their body or mind: for example, an inhibition about having oral sex without barrier protection.
Rather than saying everyone should just stick to their comfort zones, I'm saying that you should talk about things in order to understand where people's comfort zones are, then negotiate when either of you wants to step out of them.
There's a difference between negotiation and pressuring. Negotiating is finding common ground: pressuring is trying to force someone to do things your way.
As for the Millar essay, I think you're creating a straw man argument by pushing the metaphor too far, and I certainly hope that you don't really believe this:
"If sex is really like performance, then I don't understand why non-consensual sex is the sort of thing that should always be punished by jail time"
Sam,
A big issue with sex education is most curricula don't teach young people how to communicate about sex, desire, and relationships in healthy and open ways. I think that this is something teenagers should definitely learn how to do.
I agree with you that certain acts carry certain levels of risk, and going in for a kiss without asking is certainly not the end of the world. However, part of what I'm arguing is that you can ask with confidence. Just be ready to respect a 'no'.
I think it takes more courage to ask than to assume.
Thanks for the example.
Courtny,
"However, part of what I'm arguing is that you can ask with confidence. Just be ready to respect a 'no'."
Hmm, sure. You *can* ask with confidence. It's very hard though.
But the thing is, if you do *ask*, you'll get no's not only because women don't *want* to be kissed, but also because they don't want to *say* that they want to be kissed. I mean, it's hard to talk about one's own desire is hard as such, but for a lot of women slut shaming is an issue that will make this even harder. A lot of women don't want to take responsibility for their desires.
Again, this is a problem and I hope one day we'll get to a point where this is no longer much of a problem, but at the moment I think it is a fair assessment that we have to live and date NOW. And we have to play with the cards we've been dealt. It can be different as soon as two people get to know each other, but for the initial stages, for better or worse, that's usually what we're stuck with.
We can change bits and pieces, one by one, but most people we'll encounter, most women I encounter, certainly don't appear to be able to do what you're expecting them to do. A number of female friends I've talked to about this (because I am pretty good at "talking women wet" but so bad at physical initiation and mostly rely on women to do it) would rather go unkissed than say they want to be kissed, even when asked about it.
That's just the way it is, even if we don't like it.
Great posts, everyone; really enjoying this conversation.
Courtny, it's starting to look like maybe we do agree after all about bargaining/negotiation. I really like the way you talk about figuring out together when people might want to step out of their comfort zones, while respecting people who decide to stay inside them. Do you have any kind of rigorous definition for "pressure?" What does that word mean to you?
Sam, I mostly agree with you; I think in a world where women don't want to say that they want to be kissed, then in situations where it really is unclear what should happen next, it'll sometimes be useful for their partners to just take a risk and kiss them.
Courtny, I never intentionally set up straw men; maybe I just misunderstood Millar. I thought she was saying that sex *really is* primarily a kind of performance. If Millar was just trying to make an analogy, then I guess that's fine. I wonder, though -- how should we understand sexuality? What is it? Can it belong to anyone? Are there any good models for it?
Finally, in support of my comment way up top about systematic differences between what women want and what men want, check out this paper:
http://zpm.uke.uni-hamburg.de/WebPdf/sexmotiv.pdf
The primary point the author was trying to make is that women's interest in sex (as opposed to 'tenderness') goes down over the course of a relationship much faster than men's interest, but if you look at the graph on page 36, you can see that women report themselves as just wanting less sex in general with p << .05.
Just stumbled across this blog, and I have a couple of things to say.
First THANK YOU. I think this is one of the few feminist blogs I've read where I actually feel acknowledged as a human being. I of course recognize the great importance and value of safe spaces for women to discuss feminist issues on their own terms, and in no way do I fault them for that. But it does make it extremely emotionally draining to actually push through and really hear what's being said. So resources like this blog are so extremely welcome. So thank you. A lot. I will definitely be tracking this.
Second, I want to mirror what Sam said about the usage of rape in these discussions. As a guy, it's really hard to look at that and see what's actually being said. And, although I can't speak for all guys everywhere, at least for me it has a lot to do with growing up and existing in a culture where, as a guy, you are constantly having to prove that you are not dangerous. Especially to women. And of course there are (good) reasons why women often require such proof, and again I do not fault women for this. It's just the way things are right now. But it does make it a sensitive talking point for a lot of guys, I suspect. It certainly does for me.
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