Not no means no

sabaai · 2013-05-04T13:29:27+00:00

I think shifting to “not yes means no” makes sense for a few reasons:

1.) While lack of an explicit yes does not always mean no, there are many scenarios in which lack of a yes does mean no and does constitute rape. For example, an unconscious person is unable to say no, but having sex with them in that state is still rape. Another example is that through coercion the fear of further physical harm could prevent a person from explicitly saying no, out of pure fear and/or in an attempt to reduce the violence of the attack. So, the point is that the idea that lack of a yes means no is better in that it applies to more possible scenarios wherein rape does occur.

2.) On a legal level the basic definition of rape tends to be sex without consent, so if anything seeking explicit consent helps protect yourself, especially when there are instances when “rape” occurs because of apparent miscommunication.

3.) Encouraging people to seek explicit consent emphasizes the importance of sex being consensual, and the importance of respecting the people one is intimately involved with.

ghebert001 · 2013-05-04T20:25:18+00:00

If you're afraid to say no because you think he's going to rape you or beat you anyway, then at least saying no makes it real. Saying no means he knows he is proceeding with a clear lack of consent. Saying no means you did everything you could at the time.

epithymbria · 2013-05-04T12:32:22+00:00

I can definitely understand how hooking up with a girl for the first time and figuring out exactly what she wants can be a tricky thing, but how hard is it to just pause for a moment and ask if she is into it (whatever it is)? And if you have even the slightest uncertainty about whether or not a girl really wants to be with you, aren't you a rotten guy if you just keep going?

Taking these considerations doesn't cost you anything, and it saves you the trouble of wondering whether or not the girl leaves the place thinking she was abused in some way or the other.

At the same time women/girls are generally attracted to assertive males, so I get why you would want to stick with that sense of confidence that is the reason why they'd want to sleep with you in the first place. As a girl who's only had sex in relationship situations I can't really speak for all my "sisters" out there, but I know that they think it is difficult to say "no" for -some- reason.

You gotta ask yourself - is getting laid really so important that you are willing to risk hurt feelings or risk being seen as a rapist? Just take a moment to make sure she is in on it, and everything is fine and dandy. :)

rightsbot · 2013-05-04T07:16:17+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

2013-05-05T01:29:19+00:00

Lots of people have derailed this discussion, and assuming OP meant something in the context of rape (ie if you're afraid of being killed, you won't say no). Well, I hate to break it to most people here but... most men are not rapists or murderers so that context is kind of silly.

The context that it was being asked is between two people hooking up for say a one night stand. Or what about couples who have been together for a decade? Most of our communication is non-verbal so it seems silly to expect the only communication between two potential fuck buddies to be purely verbal.

Anyways. To answer the question, the reason why it has changed is simple. Feminism needs to inflate the numbers of rape and near-rape experiences. This is how they stay relevant, by creating a culture of fear in young, impressionable women so they can spread their ideology.

Samurai007_ · 2013-05-05T06:46:59+00:00

Next step: "Yes means no."

literallyschmiteraly · 2013-05-04T15:17:56+00:00

The brigade is here.

Collective82 · 2013-05-04T11:41:23+00:00

Please for the love of god can we stop these discussions about rape - we are becoming, as a species, too sensitive and wary of actually having sex that it is getting ludicrous.

If a person is raped, go to the police and file a charge, end of .... can the rest of us just get on with having one if the most fun past times in existence without bring morality into the bedroom.

fia_bui · 2013-05-04T11:08:38+00:00

If silence always means no then buyer's regret can more easily be included in the ever expanding definition of rape.

Of course it's possible that "Not yes means no," but it's also possible that it's a very enthusiastic "yes" or it's "a no which looks like a yes" or just about anything else.

In an ideal world everyone would communicate openly and verbally, but in the world we have right here and right now most sexual partners don't "yes" constantly with every progression of a sexual act. We have a right to expect that, if we are acting contrary to our partner's wishes that they'll tell us about it like an adult. We also have a duty to our own wellbeing to tell our partners if somethings up.

xxjosephchristxx · 2013-05-04T20:29:25+00:00

There's a pretty popular movement towards "yes means yes". In my experience it's more popular than "not yes means no". Part of the idea is to re-frame conversations about consent to be more sex positive and less ambiguous. In order to have an honest/not awkward conversation about boundaries it's important to remove stigma about what individuals may or may not want.

"We can build a culture that values knowing what you want and having the mind to ask if it’s also what your partner wants."

Ask First: Gender-Neutral Sexual Assault Prevention Poster

"Folks in sex-positive circles talk about “enthusiastic consent” as a good standard to keep everyone safe from violation of their sexual boundaries. It’s a nice idea, but personally, I use “good consent” instead."

ignatiusloyola · 2013-05-04T14:19:11+00:00

Within the feminist ideology, when something doesn't work it simply means that the patriarchy is too strong - it does not mean that the ideological interpretations of the world are ineffective at producing results.

When "no means no" campaigns failed to create the change they were intended to do, the only possible result allowed by the ideology is that it didn't go far enough. Thus, they abandoned the idea of denying consent being the barrier between sex and rape, and adopted the idea that the default answer is "no".

To a certain extent, this should make sense. The default answer to "can I grab your ass" should be "no". A person should have a certain expectation of bodily autonomy, so that they shouldn't have to tell a person to not do something after they have already done it. (And this goes both ways between the genders.)

On the other hand, enthusiastic consent creates problems for implied consent situations. Many people of both genders have expressed a desire to be able to have sexual relations without overtly talking about it. "Can I kiss you? Can I touch your breast? Can I cup your ass? Can I take off your shirt?" etc. Obviously this is reductio ad absurdum in the current form of the laws. But a law based on enthusiastic consent will necessarily encounter a court case in which a person did not give enthusiastic consent for a specific sexual act, while giving consent for all the other sex acts, and the debate will become whether that was considered rape/sexual assault. Suddenly, we will be faced with whether we want to turn someone into a sex criminal for not getting enthusiastic consent prior to each individual sexual act.

ttt1776 · 2013-05-04T21:57:36+00:00

Everyone knows that that you can not have sex with out a contract detailing everything you wish to do and that this contract becomes null and void if she changes her mind at any point.

PerniciousOne · 2013-05-04T21:57:58+00:00

This is how feminists are changing the laws of seduction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5SGHoiH8H8

Grapeban · 2013-05-04T10:19:00+00:00

so shes willing to be raped instead because of what MIGHT happen if she shows unwillingness?

Uh, yeah, that's exactly it. If you're scared of being hit, abandoned, being more violently raped, killed, abused, etc. then you do just go along with it, I feel many people would.

2013-05-05T03:55:52+00:00

I think the idea is that silence cannot be used in lieu of actual consent.

The idea that verbal consent is something which should be exchanged isn't particularly hard, nor is the idea consent particularly complicated unless you are just looking for ways to get around it, which is fucked.

deeptimeswimmer · 2013-05-07T23:40:07+00:00

The new slogan has one purpose: to widen the scope of feminism's greatest weapon - the rape charge.

Feminists know full well that a rape charge is often used as a weapon of last resort, in sexual situations. The problem is, women could only use it when referring to a specific incident.

Now, with the new definition of "enthusiastic consent" and retro-active "removal of consent," women have the ability to lay the hammer down on almost any man who had the presumption of having a sexual relationship.

This of course, leads to a reduction of mens quality of life. Which is PRECISELY what they wanted.

literallyschmiteraly · 2013-05-04T12:29:43+00:00

Now it's becoming "not enthusiastic yes means no". So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Edit for typo

CrossHook · 2013-05-04T12:03:34+00:00

Yes means no.

n0t1337 · 2013-05-04T13:25:24+00:00

So to me the idea of enthusiastic consent breaks down into a couple of separate and contradictory notions. The first of which is that we should be more communicative about our desires in bed, rather than just going with the flow, hoping that our partners are mind readers. I'm all for this. I think that we should talk about what we want out of sex both before and during the act. Sitting there passively only breeds resentment in both parties. So if we're about to get it on, and you tell me how you want it to go down, I think that's excellent.

The other idea however, seems significantly less awesome, and this is the idea that we should be constantly inquiring what our partners want, and only having sex when they've consented enthusiastically. So this idea is dumb on a couple of different levels. The first of which is that at best it's arbitrary, and at worst it creates a race to the bottom. Every feminist I've spoken with seems pretty clear that consent to one sex act isn't consent to another, so there's a difference between oral and vaginal sex, and even between different positions. If I'm forced to re-ask for permission each time we change it up, first that seems a bit cumbersome, but also, it seems hard to draw the line. It would seem to me that kissing you on the cheek isn't the same as kissing you on the mouth, so I should make sure you're cool with that first. And that's definitely not the same as putting my mouth on your breasteses or nether regions, so I'll ask a couple more times about that. What about your neckline or your shoulder? I'm not sure what level it is, but at some level, you're going to be forced to say that sex is sufficiently nuanced that seeking explicit verbal permission for every single increase in intimacy isn't viable.

The second reason is because it's not a legally defensible definition of consent. We can't consent to future events, it's just not possible. If I say that I consent to being punched by you 3 days from now, but then 2 days from now decide that I'm no longer willing to be punched by you, than the consent I gave earlier is null and void. If 3 days is too long, is 3 hours? 3 minutes? 30 seconds? Ultimately, I could be mid thrust and if you decide you're not cool with it, the consent you gave earlier is now meaningless, and I should stop. That's the way it should be of course, but the only way for me to know that you've stopped being cool with it mid thrust is either for you to tell me that you're not cool with it at that point in time, or for me to ask you literally every second if you're still down with what I'm doing. And of course, if we want to be inclusive and gender neutral, both parties have to be constantly asking the other if they're okay with what's going down.

(Which of course, leads me to say that these discussions are almost never gender neutral. They're almost always phrased in terms of the female as the bothered but passive partner, incapable of speaking up when something's happening that she doesn't want, and the man as the insatiable fellow who isn't sufficiently concerned with how comfortable his partner is. While I realize that this is the dominant narrative for a reason, as a guy with trust issues who rarely likes being touched even in non-sexual contexts, I will say that it makes me a little concerned.)

The next reason that the idea of enthusiastic consent is just wildly inconsistent with the ideas we have about consenting to non-sexual things. There's a lot of things I don't consent to enthusiastically. If my car breaks down and I take it into the shop, and I have to hand the man in the overalls a lot of money to make my car go again, I'm not stoked about this. I would be stoked if he would do it for free, but that's not remotely realistic, so I have a conundrum where I have to either pay him or not have a working car. This leaves me conflicted and I don't like it, but I still have to make a decision and take responsibility for it.

Ultimately, if you're in a long term relationship, you've probably consented to sex without being particularly enthusiastic about it. If I get home from work and just want to cuddle and watch netflix, but you're horny from being cooped up in the house during your day off, and we have sex, that doesn't seem very rapey. If we adopt the mantle that the only valid consent is enthusiastic consent, then we're using the same word to describe "Having sex when you'd rather be cuddling because you want to make your partner happy." and "Being assaulted and having your clothes ripped off and being fucked against your will by a stranger with a knife to your throat in a dark alley."

If the same word can mean both of those things, then we have a couple of options. The first of which is that I just stop caring about rape. Rape is now a crime that happens to every victim of marriage, and most of those people are happy and healthy and wouldn't have it any other way. It robs the word of all meaning. So our second option is to introduce some qualifiers on the word rape to differentiate between "Consented but wasn't super enthused about it rape" and "Knife stranger dark alley rape." We've seen this go incredibly poorly; a surprising number of Republican politicians caught a lot of flack for this sort of thing, with phrases like, "legitimate rape" and so forth.

(If you're planning on making the argument about how enthusiastic consent is needed because of things like the Steubenville case, where a girl is blacked out, here's the part where I tell you that's silly. The idea of implicit consent is perfectly serviceable. It's easy to differentiate between people who can meaningfully withdraw consent, and those who can't because they're passed out drunk, or 8. No guy walks up to a passed out girl at a party and starts taking her pants off while saying to himself "Oh she's going to be so happy I did this to her, she'll probably send me a thank you card." They're children with their hands in the cookie jar; they know it's wrong to steal cookies, but they do it anyway, 'cause they're douchenozzles.)

TL;DR: Saying that women need to be constantly asked if they're okay with the sex they're having because they're incapable of using their big girl words is incredibly infantilizing. If you're not mature enough to clearly communicate when you do and don't want to have sex, you aren't mature enough to be having sex.

Modron · 2013-05-04T08:51:19+00:00

The best way to respond is to act the same way on principle. If a woman makes some kind of a move on me, though it doesn't bother me I'll possibly report it. I'll definitely report it if I know she's a feminist.

VoteAnimal2012 · 2013-05-04T14:25:16+00:00

Maybe because a woman's default position towards men shouldn't be "sex" and she should have to show interest before you fuck her.

What about girls drunk off their assess?

Title	Not no means no
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	10
Comments	181
Date	May 4, 2013 7:14 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/1do2wh/not-no-means-no/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/not-no-means-no.1611972 https://theredarchive.com/post/1611972

Comments