Just because your partner isn’t saying “no,” Hugo Schwyzer writes, it doesn’t mean it’s a “yes.”
Note: As with many articles about sexual violence, particularly those that include anecdotes, this may prove triggering for some.
“Sometimes I say ‘yes’ when I’d rather say ‘no.’”
It’s been nearly 25 years, but I can still remember the beautiful Berkeley fall afternoon when I heard those shattering words. Katie and I were sitting in a coffee shop just off campus. What had started as a “friends with benefits” situation had blossomed into a sophomore year romance with this dark-eyed dance-and-philosophy double-major. Katie and I had been sleeping together for more than two months—and saying “I love you” for about a week—when she summoned up the courage to bring up this one very painful truth.
At first, I didn’t know what she meant. She spoke so softly I had to lean across the table to hear her. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” she said, “but sometimes I really don’t want to have sex. Sometimes I do, but not as often as you want it. And sometimes I want to tell you ‘no,’ but I can’t bring myself to do it. So I try and send you signals, hoping you can just tell how I’m feeling. But that doesn’t work, so it’s… it’s just easier to say ‘yes’ or just say nothing at all.”
My face flushed. I felt nauseated. I thought instantly of the previous night, where we’d grabbed what I thought was a hot half-hour when my roommates were both gone. Katie had seemed so passionate when we’d been making out, but then gotten very quiet once all our clothes were off. I’d told myself she wanted to have one ear cocked for the sound of a key in the door. I hadn’t considered—or hadn’t wanted to consider—the more obvious possibility: she was trying to tell me that she didn’t want to have sex.
I looked out the window. I couldn’t meet Katie’s eyes. My gaze fixed in the distance, my voice trembling, I asked what seemed the only possible question: “Are you trying to tell me I raped you?”
I was in my first women’s studies course, and just the previous week we’d been reading about sexual violence and the law. In class, where I was one of only three men, I’d felt rage thinking about all of those cruel assholes who didn’t understand that “no means no.” But now a dark and unseen possibility was opening up: not every “no” could be spoken. Maybe, I realized, sometimes even a quiet “OK” could be a “no” in disguise.
Katie started to cry. “Oh God, Hugo. No. Not rape. It’s just… I wish you could tell the difference between when I really want you and when I’d just rather be held.” She began to cry harder. “Fuck. It’s all my fault,” she wept. “I can’t expect you to be a mindreader. I’m so sorry.”
I begged Katie not to apologize; the responsibility was all mine, I insisted. I came around to her side of the table and held her. But something had changed for both of us, and the relationship was never the same. The one time we tried to have sex after that conversation, we were both so tentative (and I had, not surprisingly, a difficult time getting hard) that we gave up halfway through. We broke up two weeks before Christmas.
♦◊♦
Most “good guys” take a woman’s firm “No!” for an answer. (Those who don’t are best left to the ministrations of our criminal justice system.) But lots of men are like the guy I was at 19—assuming that while “no means no” anything short of a firm “no” is either a “yes” or a “keep at it, boy, because you just might get a ‘yes’ soon.” Call it male sexual legalism, the first rule of which is “All that is not expressly prohibited is assumed to be permitted.” That legalism can turn many men into accidental rapists.
While the legal standard of rape is increasingly well-defined (and what happened with Katie fell well short of that legal definition), common sense suggests that at its most basic, rape is nonconsensual sex. Too many of us, men and women alike, define consent as the absence of a clear “no,” rather than the presence of a clear, unmistakable, eager “yes.” The opposite of rape, in other words, is mutual enthusiasm.
The root of consent is the Latin consentire, which means “with feeling.” Consent is not just about words “no” or “yes”—it’s about the unambiguous presence of desire. That’s a very different and challenging standard. No, I didn’t legally rape Katie. But her reticence and my sexual legalism conspired to leave us having sex that at least some of the time fell well short of the standard of consent we should all want in our intimate lives.
I’m not putting all the blame on myself, or on men alone. It’s not fair to expect men to read minds, or even to perfectly intuit subtle body language. As I tell the teens with whom I work, a precondition for being ready for a sexual relationship is having the courage to say a firm “No” to the people you love. Overcoming the training to be an acquiescent people-pleaser is hard-but-necessary work, and because of the way we socialize girls, difficulty with saying “no” tends to be much more common among young women.
But guys have work to do also. Too many play what I call the stoplight game. Traffic signals, of course, have three colors: red for stop, yellow for caution, green for go. Good drivers are taught to stop on “red,” which functions as a “no.” But of course, even at the busiest urban intersections, no light stays red indefinitely. If you wait long enough at a stoplight, every red will become green. And when all we do is teach young men that “no means stop” when it comes to sexual boundaries, we often send them the message that if they just wait long enough (or pester, push, nag, beg, play passive-aggressive games) they’ll get the “green light” they’re so hungry for.
In both traffic and the bedroom, the most misunderstood light is yellow. Though driver’s ed classes teach that yellow means “slow down,” most of us see it as a warning to speed up to get through the intersection before the light turns red. Sexually speaking, the yellow means what it ought to mean on the road: “slow down, son.”
♦◊♦
Most of us are good at saying “no” to something or someone we don’t like. Most (sadly, not all) find it easy to flash the red light at a creepy guy who doesn’t interest them at all. But it’s tougher to say “not yet, I’m not quite ready” or “slow down” or “maybe later” to someone to whom you’re genuinely attracted. Reflecting on the sex Katie and I had so often, I realized that she often felt rushed and pressured to go to intercourse every time. She knew how to tell me when she wasn’t in the mood to do anything sexual at all, which was when she could “flash the red light.” But on those not-infrequent occasions when she wanted to make out and “fool around” but nothing more—she had no vocabulary for that. And over and over again, I took her reticence as a sign to “try harder” rather than to slow down. The blame for that rested on both of us.
Determining what another person really wants isn’t as easy as it should be. It’s further complicated by the reality that many women (and more than a few men) want to make their partners feel good—even if they don’t desire sex itself. Distinguishing between the desire to be desired, the desire to please a partner, and the desire for sex itself isn’t easy for any of us. Sometimes we need to do more than talk about what we want—we also need to clarify for ourselves and our lovers why we want it. That’s not easy, but it’s essential. We deserve that clarity.
Katie and I lived on different sides of campus; we each walked home separately from that devastating conversation in the café. I remember the guilt and the sadness I felt on that walk, but I also remember the determination I felt. I liked sex—I loved sex—but I knew I’d rather never have it again than have it with someone who was only doing it to soothe me, to please me, or because she couldn’t find the words to say “no” or “not now.” To the best of my imperfect ability, even at my most promiscuous, I have sought to live up to that promise I made to myself on the long walk home through the Berkeley streets.
I knew I hadn’t committed any crime. But the sense of sadness—tinged with disgust—at what Katie and I had conspired to allow to happen made me feel very much like an accidental rapist. Years of working with other men around issues of consent and sexuality have taught me I’m not the only one to have felt those feelings.
We all deserve better.
—Photo kainr/Flickr
About Hugo Schwyzer
Vocalyze
Well written. Thank you for sharing!
What an irresponsibly inflammatory title. Using the word rape when it really isn’t is simply irresponsible.
This can be a problem when you are having sex with someone you don’t know very well. But, if you’ve been married for any length of time, you’ve probably had sex when you didn’t really feel like it, just to please your partner. It’s actually a good thing to put your spouse’s needs and desires ahead of your own.
I agree it is using the term ‘rapist’ to taint all men and the complexities around consent.
Also the photo is of a very tender moment and now it is associated with ‘rapist’
What I found truly surprising about that story wasn’t that it happens. I think that there is probably more sex that is allowed than there is sex with enthusiastic consent. No, what is truly shocking is your emotional response. And my considerable experience conflicts with yours on this point: I believe it is a rather rare male response to a sexual partner’s confession that she allows sex she does not want..
I wonder if there isn’t a more important truth behind this story. Is there perhaps something there about what beliefs you had about sex that less common in men of our generation? Maybe there is something there about the value of believing that women have an equal capacity to desire and enjoy sex or that sexuality is a good thing? I am not sure what it is, but it is worth investigating in the hope that we can replicate that sort of a response in other people.
The short answer, FWC, is that at 19 I was empathetic and proud. The empathy made it possible to connect with Katie’s pain. And I’d already had sex I didn’t want but pretended to want at this point (with men.) I also had the pride that said I only want to be with someone sexually when they want me as much as I want ‘em. The idea of having sex with someone who’d rather be somewhere else made me feel, frankly, undesirable and creepy. And I’d rather be sexually frustrated than be an insensitive entitled creep. That’s not just decency, it’s ego — the sense that I’m worth better, worth being wanted, and that it’s worth waiting to be wanted. So something about the intersection of compassion and narcissism? Not sure…
I think you are quite empathetic and compassionate, and yet perhaps still quite a bit narcissistic. I think others notice it too, the way you project your experiences and feelings onto other men, and have made something of a caricature of women in your zeal to protect them. Even in your telling stories of the women you’ve wronged, or think you have wronged, in the end it’s all about you. You can see it in this recounting – rather than explore why Katie felt she couldn’t say “no” you made it about you, how crappy you felt, how the responsibility was all yours. That doesn’t seem to have changed much in the more recent stories you tell, stories where you’ve attempted to make amends, stories about your relationship with your wife. In the end it all comes back to the main story, a story of a deeply flawed Hugo who has done terrible bad things, and who hasn’t quite escaped the specter of his past. It’s an interesting story, but I think it does a disservice when it becomes entangled in feminist advocacy.
There is a story to tell here, a story about women and how they internalized cultural expectations to be people pleasers, how that leads to some women not feeling they can say “no” to sex. There’s a story about men, about how they’ve been told that “no means no,” and how even following that maxim is muddled with the idea of a spectrum of consent. That story isn’t about Hugo, and I’m afraid when you incorporate anecdotes from your past your need to flail the old Hugo only serves to distract from the essence of the story that others can relate to.
“I am not sure what it is, but it is worth investigating in the hope that we can replicate that sort of a response in other people.”
Huh? The response was that he dumped her, made her feel very guilty to the point of tears and felt horrible himself. Seems like the worst possible response. Who benefited? At least with an entitled jerk the relationship would have continued. And I am pretty sure that Hugo’s girlfriend will avoid ever bringing this up again with any future boyfriend. After all she brought it up and she got dumped.
Well, there’s homicide and then there’s murder. Murder falls under the umbrella of homicide. Some homicides can be excused or accidental. But we don’t say that every case where a person’s actions result in the death of another person constitutes murder. Self-defense, vehicular homicide, rough play gone wrong, etc.
The same distinction fits other types of crime. Assault, various forms of larceny.
So why the hell, Hugo, is not taking an affirmative and enthusiastic “yes” as a cue for coitus called rape? Has feminist demagoguery become so rigid that it can’t entertain a definitional spectrum? Hugo, if your goal is to add to the discussion and to improve young men’s behavior, you might want to think in terms of not vilifying and alienating them by lumping them in with rapists.
You weren’t a rapist when you didn’t read her mind; you were an eager kid who didn’t know that sometimes women have sex even if they don’t really want to.
Sadly, as always, his goal evidently IS to vilify men; in this case by trying mightily to call men who can’t read minds rapists.
there are certain words that those of Marxist leanings center around – fascist, rapist, racist, bigot, and Nazi come to mind. These words’ emotional impact does all of the heavy lifting and gets in the way of the set of behaviors and attitudes that the word attempts to define.
Vilify, demonize, and marginalize. That’s the ticket.
“the unambiguous presence of desire” doesn’t exist, because its impossible to know whats inside somebody’s head without them telling you. When your a child your parents teach you to use your words to express yourself and not randomly cry and scream unintelligibly because human beings aren’t mind readers Frankly, sex is an adult activity, if your not adult enough to answer definitively when another adult asks you for sex then you really aren’t adult enough to HAVE sex. Consent is one thing, rape is another, but if your partner is going to initiate a question of sexual interaction and then wait for you to GUESS the right answer then they are behaving like a child, and children don’t get laid, they get left in time out till they can figure out how to communicate like a grown up.
This is a great comment. And goes to my point that sex ed in this country is embarrassing. We teach kids a few things about their bodies but we really throw them to the wolves in terms of issues on communication, consent, body language, question asking, checking in during an act.
Sounds like what happened to Hugo and Katie was a lot of physical miscommunication due in part to a very new relationship, a lot of cultural baggage (good girls don’t talk about sex), and plain old uneducated youth. The real loss here for me is that they weren’t able to brush off and move forward with renewed vigor and communication. Just a whole lot of guilt they didn’t really deserve.
As for the impression that a man’s drive is dominant over a woman’s need for safety/comfort. Yeah, this happens a lot, even in mature sexual encounters.
“Don’t tease him.” “He’ll get to a point of no return.” I mean, come on, if things are going groovy and your partner freezes up, stops moving, her breath changes….the thing to do is to pause, check in and go from there, but there are a lot of kids out there who a) don’t pay attention to body language period and b) just want to get to the goal and she didn’t say no with words right?
What that adds up to, if not rape, is really really bad sex. It leads to men thinking that women don’t really enjoy it and it leads women to feel pretty cynically about a man’s sex drive.
Anyway, if you can’t talk about it? Say the words? Stay relatively connected before and during the act, then maybe wait until you can.
I strongly suspect this piece lacks nuance (big surprise given its author).
I have previously been told, by multiple partners, that they actually enjoy “playing hard to get” from time to time, and that by giving up “too easily” I am ruining it for the both of us.
My girlfriend explains it by saying “Sometimes I want to be seduced, and seduction takes work. Sometimes I’d rather you get me into the mood instead of just waiting until I get there myself.”
Aside from past partners, friends of mine (male and female) have shared similar experiences.
Yet this article would seem to file all of this under the heading of “accidental rape.”
That just seems silly. Sure, often times “no means no,” but you’re lying to yourself if you believe no woman (or person, for that matter) likes seeing a man (or their partner generally) work for it (on occassion, obviously not every single time or there are other problems).
Nearly all romantic films are built around men’s refusal to take the “no” as real no. That’s what they teach men to do. Because women love men, who don’t give up trying.
Nice guys take first “no” as real, which leads usually to celibacy.
Except, if I say no I really mean it. I have sex with someone if, and only if, I feel safe with him and think our connection has long term potential. Otherwise, it’s not happening. The assumption that women love men who don’t give up trying is idiotic. Except for once, when I was young, tipsy and stupid I have managed to never have sex with someone who kept pressuring me. Unfortunately, I’ve done other things under pressure, but never sex. And what I did do was not voluntary and therefore not okay.
I think the term ‘rapist’ is over-dramatic and misandrist – I explain why at GMP here:
http://goodmenproject.com/gender-sexuality/rape-culture-and-other-feminist-myths/comment-page-1/#comment-52367
The thing is Hugo, we have all had bad sexual experiences and we could all write about them in dramatic ways. But that’s life. It is not a reason to make men even more anxious than they are about how they relate to women, or to suggest all men are potential rapists.
that was a good piece.
It’s not just a “bad sexual experience”, it’s a situation where a woman felt intimidated and had sex when she didn’t want to. this happens to many women and it can have long lasting effects, feelings of shame and guilt and confusion. It’s important to make a big deal about it so that we can all take note that there’s more to getting consent than simply not saying no, or not saying no strongly enough.
I am a gay man but I can identify with some of what Hugo is saying. I am ashamed to say that I have occasionally pushed the envelope and put my own desire ahead of sensitivity to the other guy’s feelings. I have also been in the position of not wanting sex, just to be held. And I have had rape fantasies (both active and passive), but I understand that a fantasy is just that–a fantasy. It is important to watch out for signals that sex is less than consensual. Sometimes they are clear, sometimes less so–but they are always there, unless we are too blinded by passion, or wilfully blind, to see them.
But Paul some people want to act out their rape fantasies. I have practised S and M sex and though consent is important there, the fact I enjoy being ‘taken’ has meant I have had some sexual relationships where consent has been a grey area. We do not all have meetings to negotiate our desires before having sex.
I hope you’re using safe words/ actions Riot. For your own well being
If you just want to be held, you should say something like, oh I don’t know…. *I just want to be held.*
This post, while I’m sure well intentioned, is unduly sensational and also irresponsible.
Except, it’s not easy for everyone to speak up. Sometimes, generally do to past experiences, someone freezes and is suddenly too freaked out to say no. And this doesn’t just happen to women. This is why I don’t have sex with a man unless we’re close enough to actually communicate about these things.
The photo and title are misleading, I’ll agree. Soft core fantasy fodder.
When I was younger and less experienced I also wound up having I didn’t really want to have. Some of it was fun half way through, some was over quickly and didn’t do much harm to me at all, save to remind me how boring the boy was. I know men who’ve been in the same position. That’s a far cry from raping someone or being raped, in my opinion.
I’ve also had, as a mature adult, sex that I didn’t mind having, because I knew my partner needed soothing, love attention etc what have you. My partner too has “taken care of me” in various ways even if he wasn’t really into it. And also, both of us has said firm no’s to the other. I don’t think sex always has to be a mutual perfect union. So long as people are communicating the why, the how, and accepting an actual no, I think sex can be utilized in a wide range of communication forms.
I’m glad you have empathy Hugo. More people need empathy. But you guys were damn young and unless we start really teaching kids in their early teens (hell consent as a concept can be taught to toddlers), about empathy, consent, sexual literacy and communication, we’ll have lots and lots of 19 year old fumblings as you described your time with Katie. Part of the problem is that we don’t teach kids much of anything about sex ed, barely the basics of the plumbing depending on the state. We teach children the nuances of pretty much everything else. Not this.
As for your concept of sexual legalism, “Call it male sexual legalism, the first rule of which is “All that is not expressly prohibited is assumed to be permitted.” That legalism can turn many men into accidental rapists.” Twisty Faster at I Blame The Patriarchy has been talking about that for years. Women live in a default state of “yes” where consent is assumed unless she says no and fights like a demon. The default for both sexes (in terms of bodily integrity) in her opinion should be “No.”
Men and women both need to learn to communicate thoroughly in bed.
And actually, out of bed. That communication should ideally begin while all the clothes are on.
Hugo – you raise some important questions for those of us who dwell in the massive middle of the bell curve of sexual experience/expression. There is a social contract worked out between people who are sexually involved, whether it is spoken or not. Honoring that contract is tough when it comes to interpretation of nuanced language, whether it’s words or body language. Your article provides a framework for thinking about that. I appreciate your studied perspective.
The problem though is that he’s talking about it without working on the terms of discourse. “Rape” is a loaded word that conjures of images of evil men doing evil things. So Hugo may have grounds to broach the topic – I think that young men can learn a lot about social signals and about managing their sexuality. But as you open up the channels of discourse you also have to get a little more precise with the language. They should move in tandem. More detail calls for finer points.
Agreed. This article really touches on the differences of communication, consent and the proper definition of rape. He’s really lumped it all in together. The other thing that gets lost is what might have been her side … Taking care of a partners needs first. Which can be part of a healthy relationship dynamic.
from a perspective of a woman who has had this encounter, i am impressed at Hugo for owning up to what he believes he was responsible for. unfortunately for me, at 16 i gave in to sex with a guy i was dating and didnt even like. i felt very trapped because as we had been making out, i felt as if i had led him on. saying no didnt feel like it was an option, and to this day that is a horrid experience that haunts me. now, i am not saying that i was raped, i didnt speak up and that was my fault. i have never accused the guy of rape or said anything to him about it at all.
my point is, you could call it whatever but the experience is traumatic for women and men owning up to it takes courage– and i appreciate that.
I’m glad you’re not calling it rape because it wasn’t rape. You need to own up and take responsibility for your life. The man doesn’t have to apologize or be ashamed of anything. You consented and now you’re trying to muddy the waters by saying you didn’t want it. You may not be aware of it, Rachel, but men don’t read minds.
Rachel, I’m sorry that your early experience was a bad one. Given that it still bothers you, have you ever considered counseling to help you move past it?
“I liked sex—I loved sex—but I knew I’d rather never have it again than have it with someone who was only doing it to soothe me, to please me, or because she couldn’t find the words to say “no” or “not now.”
Hugo, I wish more men saw it this way. I know that hindsight is 20/20, and it is hard to get this message to young men. Our incredibly exploitative media messaging about women and their bodies and their sexuality unfortunately sets men up to believe women all want it all the time. After all, look at all the billboards and magazine covers and movies of teenage girls with parted lips, tousled hair, heaving breasts, and come-hither stares. That tells men, “we are sexual objects, we are here on this earth to pleasure you, and we all want it all the time.” Male CEO’s create all these media messages and sell a lot of products. They also sell a lot of bullshit to men and women about how they should relate to each other. Men should acquire sex from permanently horny women, and women should subject themselves to it in order to be sexy, hot, and have value. Media literacy is not a part of the experience of all of these college kids. They have *all* been exploited.
respectfully…
I have never known any guys who believe women want sex all the time. I have met:
1. a few guys who believe women never or rarely want sex and only use it as a tool for manipulation. I personally think these guys are pretty nuts.
2. guys who wished the women they are involved with wanted it more often.
3. guys who are very happy with their partners level of desire. (I include myself in this bucket)
4. one guy who wished his partner wanted it less often.
If anything I think our society reinforces the idea that women want less sex than men and that men must “work” for the sex they get. The old gatekeeper thing. If there is widespread truth to this or not- I don’t really know. It doesnt hold true in my relationship with my wife.
“Guys think women want it all the time” ??? What men are YOU talking to? If anything the dominant culture teaches that MEN want sex all the time. Did it never occur to any of you that maybe your male partners were feeling pressured into having sex?
“Don’t you find me attractive??”
“Whats the matter? Is ‘it’ not working?”
“Are you gay or something?”
Thanks for perpetuating the faulty logic that a man is responsible for a woman’s desire or lack thereof. She accepted responsibility for failing to communicate and yet you took that from her and placed it on yourself. Why? Where you went wrong was not in pursuing sex, which is natural, but in shouldering the guilt, which is not. It is something that has been instilled in you from when you were a wee little lad and would be best dispensed with.
Rumour, are you saying that men have no responsibility in the equation? What Hugo owned was his part of it. When he felt Katie’s hesitation, he cuold have stopped and asked about it. That kind of sensitivity and caring may be an interuption to the sexual explosion building inside a man, but it is not an interuption to the wave of initimacy that is building within a woman. It could serve to heighten the wave.
Men have no responsibility here. She consented. If she didn’t and he went ahead, it would be rape.
Think about that, Dude. Men have no responsibility here? Really? Where have you ever been involved in anything that was free of responsibility – well, since childhood. The reality is, both men and women have equal shares of responsibility in a situation like this. Hugo claimed his. It sounds like Katie claimed hers in blaming herself for it.
Of course men have “responsibility” here…but not blame. And whenever you introduce the word “rapist” you immediately conjure up the specter of blame.
I’m almost 100 percent sure I’ve been in Hugo’s position when I was younger—I’m sure I’ve had sex with women gave consent but would rather have not. This doesn’t bother me too much. Sure, I would’ve preferred she be 100 percent into it. But the simple truth is that I can’t read minds, and I went with the information I had at the time. When I look back on the possibility, I know I did everything I could to make sure the encounter was welcome & consensual. I don’t feel guilt or shame because I didn’t do anything to be ashamed of and part of the problem with this article is that Hugo is projecting his feelings and motives onto all other men (which he frequently does).
The solution here isn’t to talk about the “responsibilites” of men. It’s to get women to speak their minds. I might even go so far as to say the behavior of men in this particular situation isn’t even worth of discussion.
That is a staggering last statement you just made. It’s the kind of statement that perpetuates the perception that men “don’t get it”.
Nice to know you can be counted on for a substantive rebuttal.
No.
Everything except wait for a “yes”.
What is so exceptional about not touching another person’s genitals unless they say the word “yes” or “please touch” or place your hand there? Nothing exceptional at all. But you didn’t do that. And you think it would be unreasonable to expect you to.
Because not pushing yourself unto someone and waiting is a horrible horrible thing but knowing you did an intimate thing that often feels violating and traumatizing to a woman is eh, fine.
“What is so exceptional about not touching another person’s genitals unless they say the word “yes” or “please touch” or place your hand there? Nothing exceptional at all. But you didn’t do that. And you think it would be unreasonable to expect you to.”
Its the other way around. Its reasonable to expect women to say these things. But we live in an unreasonable world where women don’t want to. They expect us to make moves and initiate. So we do. Don’t blame us for living up to women’s expectations. Waiting for women to initiate is like pushing on a rope. It just doesn’t work.
What is truly unreasonable is that we are being blamed for doing exactly what most women expect and want us to do.
I am saying absolutely and unequivocally that in a situation such as this a man bears no responsibility if the woman he is having sex with doesn’t really want to, but says nothing. If you disagree with that … you have a problem.
It is this kind of irresponsible article that furthers the culture of false rape allegations and will ultimately land men in jail.
Imagine the scenario … see the poor little dear sitting in the police station stating that she was raped. “Well, I went along with it, but I didn’t want to.” “No, I never verbally communicated that I didn’t want to, but he just should should have known.” “See even other men agree with me … here is an article from The Good Men Project … and here Hugo and Roger state that he should have known.” “Now … I want him punished for what he has done to me!”
Fast forward to the hearing. The women on the jury can all remember a time when they had sex, didn’t want to, but went ahead with it anyway. Guilty! A few men on the jury, dealing with their own guilt and self-loathing and irresistable urge to please woman. Guilty!
Now the poor young man is led into his cell where he will spend years of his life … not being “accidentally” raped.
Ding ding ding!!!!
We have a winner!
Careful out there lads. It’s a battlefield!
Rumour, get your facts straight. I did not say he should have known. I said that both bare equally responsibility. Your argument is built on the assumption that men are too stupid or too insensitive to understand anything other than words. In either case, that is an utter cop out. It is an abdication of responsibility. I don’t pretend to understand the power dynamics that women deal with in sexual relationships, but I do know this, I believe sex to be a mutual engagement. And as such, I believe that both men and women are obligated to assume responsibility for understanding where the balance of power lies. If the two are not mature enough to do that, they have no business having sex.
You claim that the man, in the situation that Hugo described, has no responsibility. I called that into question. I find yours to be a lazy, irresponsible, selfish and childish argument.
I have had this experience myself, and like Hugo, when I learned of it, it really devastated me. I am glad to say I salvaged the relationship by laying ground rules. One of which being “if you don’t want it, say ‘no’, and I’ll go relieve myself and be done with it.”
I wanted to point out one thing that bothers me in this piece and its responses so far: where is the accountability for the woman here?
“No” means “no”, and men get that. In fact for most guys, while it is hardly an “off switch” for his hardon, it kills all desire for copulation. Nothing is more viscerally repugnant than the idea that we could be branded a rapist. And women know this.
I reiterate: Women know this. If they do not want sex, they know they can say “no” at any time. They are adult human beings with a free will and a tool at their disposal. The feminist movement took great pains to create this tool, and give women the accountability and freedom to use it. If they choose not to, and the encounter escalates, as an adult with the right to choose, they are just as culpable as the men who have sex with them.
The excuse given for this behaviour boils down to this: they don’t want to say “no” because they feel that it would harm the relationship and hurt the man’s feelings. But that is, as has been said, a requisite of being an adult enough to be in a sexual relationship: being able to say “no” to someone you care about. You can has out your differences later when feelings are cooled.
This is a self-esteem issue, and a maturity issue… funny how often those two go hand in hand.
And what about the man? Can he be said to be fully consenting in this case? Would any man willingly have sex if he knew it was hurting a woman’s feelings? Has his trust and sexuality not also been violated? And if the woman involved doesn’t think he is mature enough to handle her saying “no” should she be having sex with him in the first place?
This article has fallen into the trap of forgetting that women are accountable for their actions. The argument treats women as passive agents who cannot choose for themselves, and excuses them from being adults. By holding the men accountable alone for the sexual encounter, aren’t we really ignoring the very core of Womens’ rights.
As for the term “rape” used here. I am very bothered by it. It is demonizing male sexuality. This is the same sweeping attitudes that create false statistics like the idea that 1/4 college students are rape victims and 1/3 women will be a victim of sexual assault in your lifetimes. If you define rape this loosely, sure they will be: and you can call it a “rape culture”, but is it honest? And would there ever be any hope for men to be anything but? And for that matter, doesn’t it trivialize rape?
Finally, sometimes sex has to happen in a relationship. Marriages, for example, will fall apart if it doesn’t happen. There are issues of consent so tangled up in that it is almost indecipherable. Sometimes that means to keep a relationship going, like you vowed (again as an accountable adult with free will) to do, you have to bite the bullet and have lukewarm sex, or you let the marriage die. That is true for men and women.
Excellent response.
And just as an aside, you’ve never seen an article from Hugo Schwyzer talking about the responsibilites women have, or asking them to be accountable for anything at all, because that article doesn’t exist.
HUGO:
Maybe, I realized, sometimes even a quiet “OK” could be a “no” in disguise.
…..
I begged Katie not to apologize; the responsibility was all mine, I insisted.
———-
To call such a situation ‘accidental RAPE’ is very much misleading. What has this to do with ‘rape’?
Women are equally responsible for their decisions, there is an OK and there is a NO. If this OK is ‘quiet’ or if this NO is ‘in disguise’ is totally irrelevant.
Why should the man be accountable alone to GUESS correctly or wrongly, if her quiet OK is NO, or if her NO (in disguise) is maybe OK?
If you guess wrongly what is in her mind, this is ‘accidental rape’?
Hugo, sorry, but this is nonsense.
I guess the lesson here is that unless a woman is screaming “fuck me” in a very, very convincing manner … it may be rape and you should stop.
Next stop … all sex between a man and a woman is rape.
Reminds me of the Louis C.K. bit.
Why can’t we have a standard of No means No, Yes means Yes, and don’t say “Yes” when you mean “No?” (Unless you’ve agreed beforehand and have a safeword)
“I begged Katie not to apologize; the responsibility was all mine, I insisted.”
Wow, what utter nonsense. Also the comment is very demeaning to women. Women can act passionately but a man must read her mind or read subtle clues that may indicate she means “no”–if you don’t you are a rapist.
I think a lot of guys have been told by their partner don’t want to have sex as much as the man, including me. I told her “if you don’t tell me what you want or don’t want, I can’t help you.” I heard a mom telling her whimpering child the same thing other day. Women are children.
This is definitely not a rape by any means, but a total misunderstanding. However, I do want to point out that not saying anything at all doesn’t mean ‘yes.’ She did say ‘ok,’ which is where the miscommunication lies because how could anyone assume otherwise? However, if she didn’t say anything at all, that doesn’t give anyone permission to assume she said ‘yes.’
What are the definitions of a ‘quiet OK’ and a ‘NO in disguise’?
This is NOT a total misunderstanding, this woman was creating a dangerous ‘grey zone’ –
men should expect and receive a clear answer regarding consent and not some reaction they should ‘guess about what it could mean’.
If a woman says OK (quiet or in whatever form) and after she regrets that, then it was OK and it is NOT HIS responsibility.
Women are not children.
Women too, and not only men, are responsible for their own decision, and yes, even in such a situation – OK means OK and not ‘maybe’ and not ‘no’.
Folks, it’s helpful if we stop thinking about nonconsensual sex as a rape/not rape binary. It’s a spectrum of consent with mutually enthusiastic sex at one end and completely nonconsensual violent rape at the other. The middle area is where the trouble — and the “accidental” rapes — happen.
But who is responsible for those ‘accidental rapes’?
That’s not in the middle… the responsible person who created this situation is the woman.
She said OK. – And expected the man to GUESS, that she means NO?
To call this ‘accidental rape’ (RAPE!) is totally wrong.
This is why it’s grey. It’s both parties responsibilities to continue to check in, reassess all is good. Both. Can’t be any other way.
And some of them might be accidental rapes where a girl is actively freaked the fuck out, says no, etc and the fellow doesn’t care. This examle, unless you are withholding information to prove otherwise, doesn’t seem like rape at all. It seems like clueless bad sex with two young people who aren’t really communicating. Women are not taught that they can and should communicate about sex.
Good girls don’t, right? So women wind up in this really weird position, especially young women where on the one hand they are taught they have all this agency in the world (schools, college, jobs) and on the other they are still holding on to old old stories about what “good” girls do and don’t do.
I imagine that 20 years ago or so, things were even more so.
Yeah, you didn’t check in. Neither did she. She did open up and you apologized and both of you could have learned how to move on to much better sex. You didn’t at that time. But rape? I don’t think this seems like rape.
Not sure why this comment is on moderation, but I don’t think it’s egregious. Anyway, I don’t think you did anything worth beating yourself up over. Its more….how do we fix the systems in place that keep kids this fumbling.
For real, why is this one comment up for modding and none of the others are. Really weird.
Its moderated so they can screen out any comments they don’t like. After revisiting this page my comment and a number of others have mysteriously vanished.
Well, that seems silly in this case. It was a kind comment. Though I did use a bad word. Maybe I’ll go back and edit and see if it comes back. There are numerous comments saying similar things. I dislike the phrase and the sensationalizing of the piece.
Julie, if your comment has multiple links it would end up in moderation.
No, Hugo, it IS binary, it’s rape or it’s not.
Let’s say we’re playing soccer, and I go for the ball, and I accidentally kick you in the nuts.
Is that sexual assault? No, it’s soccer. Shit happens, and you better be wearing your cup. The key here is not consent of the woman, for that consent is implied by continuing to participate in intimacy.
In intimacy, the equivalent of a cup is good communication skills, which don’t have to be verbal.
At any point in the intimate encounter, Katie could have gotten up off the bed or couch or floor, and excused herself from the situation, left the room without even saying a word. Hence, by exiting removing her consent.
In soccer, if you don’t want to get kicked in the nuts, you leave the playing field. Or you prevent the damage from the encounter by wearing your cup.
This terminology, “Accidental Rape” is ridiculous. It would never hold up legally, you’re spouting nonsense. You are denigrating actual rape victims by cheapening the term, using it casually. It’s both misandrist and misogynist. Get over it, it’s not rape. It’s not even in the ballpark.
Wear your cup, Hugo. Just saying.
“Accidental rape” is an oxymoron. Crimes require “mens rea” – knowledge that one is committing a crime. If I see chair on the sidewalk that looks like someone is throwing out, and put it in my car, I’m not stealing, even if the owner left it there accidentally and still wants it. It is a mistake.
In Hugo’s world women are never responsible for anything. Even for something as basic as communicating consent to sex. It is always up to the man to read her mind.
This of course is part of a new wave of feminism. Feminism in my mother’s time was all about female power and equality. Feminists didn’t want to be seen as fragile victims. My mother was and is that kind of feminist.
The new feminism is back to basics: Women are back to being fragile flowers. They no longer have agency. And like children are incapable of taking responsibility for anything. Ironically Hugo’s view is that it is up to men to decide, paternalistically, if a woman really wants sex or not, since she can’t be counted on to express herself.
Then why did you even use the word “rape” at all, Hugo?
Here is the definition of a word that we’ll have to create: “an act in which one young person has sex with another young person while tacitly consenting but without being entirely in the spirt of sex.” And an alternative definition, “sex in which an affirmative response – ‘Yes’, ‘OK’, or physical cues – masks an underlying desire not to have sex.”
Lazily, you call this “accidental rape”. There is neither nothing accidental nor rape-like about it. It is miscommunication. Call it “sex desire asymmetry”. Or a phrase: the asymmetry of sexual desire.
Don’t expect any balanced logic behind here. He used the word “rape” here to vilify and demonize men, by any means necessary. As always.
What if there is no “yes” no “OK” and no “physical clues” – as is most often a case in this kind of situation. There is also no physical violence or push back from the woman and no “no” and no screaming. How is that consent? But 80% of the comments here are saying that’s consent and the woman’s responsibility.
So, if there’s making out, culminating in sexual intercourse, that’s not consent in your book? Do they each have to sign a consent form? You’re not being reasonable.
“Folks, it’s helpful if we stop thinking about nonconsensual sex as a rape/not rape binary. It’s a spectrum of consent with mutually enthusiastic sex at one end and completely nonconsensual violent rape at the other. The middle area is where the trouble — and the “accidental” rapes — happen.
I agree with the jist of this statement, but it’s the last several words that trip things up. If we’re not to look at rape/not rape as a simplistic binary, then why use the term “accidental rape” to describe the scenario you describe? I think what gets people’s back up about this issue is the use of the word “rape” to describe anything short of the best practices in sexual communication. This goes back to the infamous “Antioch Rules”, which were a clumsy, authoritarian, and legalistic attempt to impliment the practice of enthusiastic consent by institutional decree, and has cast a long and not particularly good shadow over the idea ever since then.
But when it comes right down to it, even if a simple “lack of no” were “good enough”, is that all you would want with a partner? Or do you want to know that they’re being pleased and how to please them? If that’s the case, then simple ascent is not enough. Of course, I’m also a sexual pluralist enough to have no problem with sex acts done simply for the sake of pleasing a partner, but there’s a difference between doing that as a gift versus doing it as an obligation, and that needs to be understood by both partners.
Sexual pluralism. I love that!
But you are still calling them ‘rapes’ hugo -’accidental rape’ . I think it is a misleading phrase.
Hugo – if you continue to use the word rape, whether modified by “accidental” or not, you’re going to continue to get push back on this.
I dare say most everyone commenting would agree that there is a spectrum of consent. However there is usually a much brighter line for rape. Rape happens when a sex partner has not given consent, has given consent under duress, or is incapable of giving consent. If a sex partner has freely given consent but didn’t really mean it, that’s not rape, that’s misleading your sex partner.
People give non-enthusiastic consent all the time and for various reasons. If you’re not suggesting that a partner who does not divine the true motives behind that consent is an “accidental rapist” then you’ve done a poor job communicating that (about as poor a job as “Katie” did in communicating her non-consent). If, on the other hand, you are saying that failure to divine the motives behind the consent (Clarisse Thorne had an article here about how it’s sometimes easer to pretend enthusiastic consent even) then I bet you will continue to find few takers to your argument.
Agreeing that “enthusiastic consent” should be the goal, regret by one partner does not translate to rape by the other, whether you modify it with “accidental” or not.