“I thought I was one of the good guys. Then I read the Aziz Ansari story.”
That is the title of an anonymous article posted this week on the website Vox, in which the writer tells the story of his encounter with a woman he calls Julie.
In the piece, he details how their texts, their flirting and their interactions led him, one night, to her house and later, her bed.
He was 22, and at 22, “toxic masculinity praises sexually active men”. He wanted to be one of them.
He lay on her bed, they began kissing, he took her top, then her bra, off.
“At some point,” he writes, “I went down on her.
“I don’t remember any verbal cues to stop, but what I do remember is a significant nonverbal cue: She wasn’t making any sound. No moans, no breaths, no words. She seemed stiff. But I kept going…”
It took him “too long” to ask if she was okay.
“‘I don’t think we should have sex,’ she told him. ‘We’re friends, and I think having sex will make things complicated.’
“I responded almost immediately. ‘I don’t think it will make things complicated. I’m totally fine with figuring that out later.’ I kind of laughed, I think, because I thought I was being charming.”
He went on:
“She never physically stopped me from touching her. At the time, I took that as a sign that she actually wanted me to continue. Her verbal objections, I convinced myself, were her poetic way of telling me she liked me enough to want to be in a relationship with me.
“If I hadn’t stopped when I stopped, I would have committed rape. But in that moment, it didn’t feel that way — it felt normal. I had convinced myself that she still wanted me despite her objections.”
In the back and forth that has followed the Ansari story, where the actor and comedian was accused of assault by some and coercion by others, the debate about whether bad sex constitutes sexual assault has been riddled with nuance.
Listen: The Mamamia Out Loud team on everything to do with Aziz Ansari. (Post continues…)
Though public discourse hasn’t agreed on much, one idea has many parties on the same page: We have a problem with sex. Men have a problem with what constitutes good sex for women.
Articles like the one in Vox today are important. Many rapists do not know they’re rapists. Many men don’t realise their conduct is improper; that some of it may flirt with the lines of assault.
Many men who are the problem don’t realise they are, in fact, the problem.
When Mamamia interviewed anonymous men following the story’s fall out, one man said in the case of the Ansari story, there was a sense that because the woman went to dinner, then back to his house, there was a chance she was “genuinely” interested in sex.
“It doesn’t excuse the way he behaved once she came back to his house, which seemed a bit ignorant of what her actions were saying, but also shows how confusing it can be. What he did (based on her account, which is the other issue, because that’s all we really know about the situation) doesn’t make him a predator – I reckon it just shows that he’s human.”
Another spoke of his realisation that “enthusiastic consent” is crucially important.
"That's what I've been taking from it. How, for example, you could be having sex with someone who is consenting but not enthusiastically consenting, and that's on you. It really shows how carefully you need to read signals, signals you might actually miss if you've been drinking."
As the anonymous Vox writer contends, the fact he considered the sexual experience "normal" is the bedrock of the problem. He saw the cues. He just thought it was his job to push past them, to change her mind, to quell her confusion.
"With Julie, I was aware of her verbal and nonverbal cues. But I had been socially conditioned to believe that women would want to have sex with me if I could convince them."
And the more stories we read like these, the better. Because sexual assault is rarely a monster hiding in the bushes ready to pounce. Sexual assailants walk the street like you and me.
To read the Vox story in full, click here.
Top Comments
I believe the reason why so many women don't verbalise is fear of our safety. Men in our society rarely have to consider their safety yet for a lot of us it is constantly on our minds.
For me, I was drunk at a party when I was 18 and started making out with a guy. We were in a bedroom with other people, they left and the guy started to get a bit forceful. I was too scared to tell him to stop he was already so aggressive. He mentioned his collection of toys at his house that he thought I'd enjoy, and thank God it gave me the brainwave of pretending we should go there instead. As soon as we left the room I latched onto my friends and told them not to let me out of their sight.
I have had a couple of one night stands where the guys have literally stopped to ask me if I'm OK, if what they're doing is OK and if there's anything else they could do for me. Perhaps this could become standard with time!
He makes a good point on checking in on the partner - even if not with words, but noticing that she wasn't into it and stiff is a definite sign.
However, I don't think the responsibility should be completely with the male. It should also be up to the woman to say no, or stop progress. And I think a lot of men/women do both these things but we seem to be hearing about the stories when they don't, so maybe there needs to be some education around this.
My friends and I used to joke about all the men we didn't but could have slept with when we were single as the men were always keen but we stopped things going all the way on more occasions than not - not because we were assaulted or anything, but only that we didn't want to go any further. We never thought that going to someone's house automatically meant we were going to have sex, and neither did the men we were with. Maybe we were lucky, maybe times have changed, I don't know, but being vocal as a female is important.