On Yes Means Yes

Feminists who postulate that boys must obtain a spelled-out "yes" before having sex are trying to establish rules, cut in stone, that will apply to any and every encounter and that every responsible person must obey. The new rule resembles the old good girl/bad girl rule not only because of its implicit suggestion that girls have to be protected but also because of its absolute nature, its iron-fisted denial of complexity and ambiguity. I bristle at such a rule and so do a lot of other people. - Mary Gaitskill, "On Not being a Victim"

A friend of mine sent me an article she said had made her think of me, and then casually mentioned it might be worthy of a blog post. It is, in many respects; but this is the one she's getting at the moment. I'm not sure if it's the one she expected. As some people know, I have a history of misinterpreting fairly clear-cut texts. I missed much of the conventional thought about Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and libertarianism, taking out of it a doctrine of selfishness that I feel has served me and my liberal-pinko leanings well. I missed the environmental lesson of the film Ferngully, seeing it instead as a feminist screed about men not being trustworthy. I was 15 and 5, respectively, when I came to these conclusions. So I can see how I could possibly be off-base regarding the feminist thought known, now, as Yes Means Yes. But I don't think I am.

I'm not aware of which feminists, exactly, the author was pointing to in 1994 who wanted boys to obtain a spelled out yes before engaging in sexual acts with women. I was 8 in 1994, so I think I have some excuse as to this particular hole in my knowledge. And it is entirely possible that, like in the anti-porn movement of the decade earlier, the mainstream feminist thought was, well, sex adverse. But this is the same argument that crops up now regarding this particular philosophy of sex, and I think those people making the author's claim now are missing out on a few key details.

Firstly, I don't see Yes Means Yes as a way to make sex and sexual actions more puritanical, or even to adhere to rules carved in absolute. I see this particular campaign as an attempt to change how we think about sex, and about how women relate to sex, and how men relate to women in the pursuit of sex. I'm of the mind that how we handle sex in America right now to be fairly unhealthy. I'm of the mind that in many instances, we are following the old rule book, where men are supposed to be the actors and women are supposed to passively accept sexual contact, or actively reject it. And when something comes up - like rape - we as a general society are quick to point to a woman's (or girl's) supposed deviation from this norm as a reason for that particular crime (case in point: Cleveland, TX). I see Yes Means Yes as a way of muddying up those rules. As a way of making the advancement of sexual acts more complicated, but the sexual acts themselves more fulfilling. As a way of turning the general thinking about women and sex from passively acquiescing to actively participating and actively seeking. As a way of making sex into a conversation, rather than a silent action. And along with that thought is this one: it is important to change the very structure of how we think about sex. Not just how we think about sex with our significant others, or with our flings, or with our friends with benefits, but in general.

We need to start having frank discussions about sex and sexual pleasure from a young age. We need to start not only telling women and men that both women and men have sexual autonomy, but supplying the language and the thought process for that very autonomy. That means changing the nature of the conversation from speaking up when things have become uncomfortable to having ongoing conversations about sex, sexual wants, sexual needs, and what we expect from our sexual partners. We need to change the conversation from a "I don't want that" to a "I want that, I want to try this, and I never want to touch that thing over there". And getting to the point where you know and can speak about that thing over there that you don't ever even want to try.

One of the more interesting points of Gaitskill makes in this article is talking about how she didn't have the ability to stand up for herself at specific moments, to stop what was happening at specific times. I'm not going to try and explain why Gaitskill herself was unable to do so; she explains it quite well enough on her own. But I will say that I think at least part of the problem is the fact (a) the rules to sex are nebulous (even now), but exacting if a person (a woman person especially) is perceived to have not followed them, and (b) the language of sex is shrouded and couched in euphemistic terms. Yes means Yes, for me, is about changing both of those things. It is about being able to say the word "uterus" on the floor of the Florida House. It is about not having overarching rules regarding what you should or should not do sexually, but about having your own set of rules that you can converse with your partners about.

I've been told that talking frankly about sex takes the, for lack of a better word, sexiness out of the act. That somehow the very act of verbal affirmation deflates sexual desire. I don't doubt that for some people that's true. But I think that's because, in general, we have this idea about what sex is. Sex is supposed to be an action. Sex is supposed to be wild and passionate and taking place in a moment of wild abandonment, and it would suck to put that sort of thing on the backburner to figure out exactly how your partner wishes to go about this, if your partner wishes to go about this at all. For my part, talking about sex in detail, talking about likes and dislikes, taking the time to figure out how to make talking about not-wants and wants, and still getting on with business (or, you know, not) is a sign that a person is ready to have sex. Not wanting to talk about it for fear that talking about sex makes sexy time go bye-bye is, for me, a strange concept. I want to talk about sex with my partner. Talking about sex with my partner generally leads to better sex. Talking about sex with my partner allows those times when the sex isn't so great to be understood better, so we can change things up for next time. Talking about sex with my partner makes sex that much more fulfilling, and more of a journey than simply an act accomplished.

The thing about changing the conversation from a "No means No" to a "Yes means Yes" one is that it has the ability to change the functionality about how we think about sex. If we change the model from a "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" experience where we want to see how much we can do and how far we can go before our partner shuts us down to one where find out where our partner's boundaries are beforehand, we are less likely to violate those boundaries even accidentally. That's the place I want to get to.

Rape & Sex Education, A Two-Part Rant

So, yesterday, at lunch, the women I work with were discussing their families. I generally like these discussions, since they so rarely veer off into political speak or declarations about how Fox News is just so unbiased. They're a bit on the boring side, but they also make my coworkers happy. And I'd rather have a happy coworker when I need help than the opposite. But every once in a while, a subject comes up that veers us close to the third rail of office discussion.

Yesterday was one of those days. A woman's niece, age 12, was staying after school to finish a test, and was left alone for a few minutes with two boys in her class - also age 12. One of the boys then said, "Let's rape _____". The girl asked the boy why he wanted babies (which seemed like an odd reaction to me, but wevs), and then told her mother after she got home.

Here is the first part of my rant. Everyone at lunch agreed that this was inappropriate. Everyone agreed that the mother, my coworker's sister, should report the incident to the principal. And I was one of those agreeing.

But at the same time, the incident was profoundly disturbing to me. Part of it is because in recent months, a 12 year old girl was raped, by a fourteen year old, and that rape was not seen as a serious matter by school officials. It was also because I happened to sit across from a jerk of an 8th grader at lunch, and his continuous barrage of sexual-type comments were not taken seriously by my school officials, up until I hit him with his own lunch tray. And then I was told "boys will be boys" (yes, seriously, that exact phrase was used). It is because when I was in high school, my regulation tank top was deemed as being "distracting and exciting to the boys" by my gym teacher. And it was only because I have a father who is actually pretty damn scary when he's pissed that I got an apology for that. In other words, we live in a world, even us in the liberaler states in the Union, where schools like to protect their own asses, and where the culture of boys will be boys and girls have to endure sexual comments doesn't stop at the doors of an educational facility.

It is terrible that my coworker's 12 year old niece was threatened (jokingly or not) with rape. On an individual level, it is horrible. Her mother should report the incident to the principal, to the teacher, and maybe calling up the boy's parent(s)/guardian(s) and telling them what their son said. But on a more meta and less micro level, shouldn't we be focusing part of our attention on why this statement could and is casually uttered? I know kids and teenagers and young adults say shocking and controversial things, sometimes in order to seem more sophisticated, sometimes to lash out, and sometimes simply to be seen as shocking and controversial. I'm Facebook friends with a large portion of my sisters' high school, and they have taken to FormSpring like ducks to water, so I know. Trust me. And that could segue into a post about how being gay (or bisexual, or assumed to be gay) is still ZOMG, the WORST thing to be EVER in high school, but I'll just restrain myself. The thing is, something must make it seem like it is okay for this 12 year old to talk about raping his classmate, and it isn't something that affects just this 12 year old. And we should prevent individual 12 year olds from saying such things, but shouldn't we impress upon everyone that rape isn't, actually, something to casually throw around? That it is, actually, a serious offense? That it isn't, actually, something that should be used as a threat, fake or not, faux-funny or not?

But instead, we switched over to sex education, where the second part of my rant comes in.

Mother to the 12 year old girl decided that her daughter's response to a rape threat should probably not be, "Why do you want babies?" So, she sat said daughter down for a sex talk. And talked about how much sex hurt. Always. And about how sex was bad, how sex was unpleasant, and how if you kissed someone, you were kissing every single person he ever kissed (being gay really isn't seen as an option in that house).

First my sister's reaction to the kissing line: "I would have said, 'Well, then I guess I've kissed a lot of people'". Which was, especially if you know her, hilarious.

Secondly, I understand the impetus to discuss sex and what sex is when your daughter is sheltered at age 12. I don't understand the impetus to discuss sex and not touch upon what rape is, why it is a horrible thing to say to someone. It seems that if your sex talk is happening because a kid in your daughter's class talked about raping your daughter, some discussion about rape would be in there. But, no, apparently not.

Third, though, is this: if you decide to have a discussion with your twelve year old about sex because you feel that she is sheltered and needs to have some understanding of it, what the fuck does telling her lies about sex do for her? Seriously now. And here is the crux of the post. As much as it isn't an aberration for a 12 year old boy to feel like joking about rape is acceptable, it is also not aberrant for people to not actually have solid, true information about sex. What benefit is gained from telling a 12 year old girl that sex always hurts, that sex is bad, that sexual contact is something to be avoided? None.

I'm not suggesting that parents should begin telling their children that sex is wonderful, is the best thing ever, and you should totes be open to it. What I am suggesting is that misinformation about sex is troubling, that painting sex as bad or dirty or a necessary evil is problematic, and that telling little girls that sex hurts always is wrong. Morally as well as factually.

This isn't just a problem for this specific 12 year old. This is a problem for all of the twelve year olds who do have parents who aren't open and honest with them, who go to schools where the answer to any sex question is "don't".

And that brings us to this question: is the problem teenagers having sex, or is the problem teenagers having sex irresponsibly?

I would prefer to think of my 17 year old sisters as 5 years old for the rest of their lives. I would prefer to not think about their sexual predilections or habits. But what I want is for them to have the information, to know about sex, to not feel shamed for having it or wanting it. I want them to know about contraception, and also more of the fun stuff. I want them to feel comfortable asking questions, and for them to have the reasonable expectation of honest answers. And I want that for their friends, and their friends' friends. I want sex to not be a mystery to them, not something their parents squick away from discussing, and their school refuses to touch. And I want that for my coworker's niece as well. I want sex education to contain some education about sex. And I don't think that's too much to ask.