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No Means No — But You Have to Actually Say “No”
In Jonah Goldberg’s most recent Remnant podcast, he discusses, among other things, the #metoo movement and the Aziz Ansari case with his guest, Kristen Soltis Anderson. Jonah and his guest are both smart people, but I thought their analysis a little weak and wanted to comment on it.
I think about the plight of women (and yes, that’s how I think of it) quite a bit, and more so since the sexual abuse/harassment/regret movement began. The movement rolls too many kinds of misbehavior together, and that makes rational discussion about it difficult. I think it’s useful to break it down a little.
There are rapists, the men who overpower women, use drugs or alcohol or physical intimidation or authority to compel women to do things they don’t want to do. They’re criminals and should be dealt with as such. Similarly, there are the men who use the threat of serious loss — of employment or position — to coerce women. Their legal status is more ambiguous, but their moral culpability is comparable to the rapists’: they are exploiting women against their will.
Then there are the men who are trading on their prominence and influence, convincing women to surrender something in exchange for a promise, spoken or otherwise, to advance the woman’s interests. This is a more problematic group, in that the relationship is consensual, however tawdry we may find it. There’s a difference between being threatened with the loss of employment, on the one hand, and hoping to improve your chances of getting a coveted position not yet yours, on the other.
These are the cases that have been the substance of the #metoo movement. Ricochet’s ever-eloquent Midge has posted this well written and thought-provoking piece on the subject of these two types of men, using a compelling analogy in the process.
My interest is in the third group of men, a group that constitutes the vast majority. They’re neither monsters nor wealthy manipulators. They’re just men. Unfortunately, that alone is enough to pose a problem for women.
So, about that podcast and Ms. Anderson’s observations. At the 1:00:35 mark, while talking about the Ansari case, she says this:
If we’re looking for something in this, here’s something for which we can blame the patriarchy, it’s this idea that a woman in that situation, even if she has taken all of her clothes off, should not have the right to go “you know what, I change my mind, suddenly this is not working for me anymore and I’m going to go.”
And here’s my first objection. What kind of “right” are we talking about? Does any woman doubt that she has the legal right to put her clothes on and walk out? Why are we using the language of “rights” here?
Ms. Anderson continues:
There is this conditioning that women get, which is that if you’re already in that situation, well, you don’t want to be a tease, right? You don’t wanna, I mean gosh, that’d be really horrible if you did that.
How does the “patriarchy” teach this? How is this conditioning performed? What, exactly, are we talking about here? It’s possible there is such a message being delivered by the “patriarchy,” though I doubt it. But if so, and if anyone can explain it to me, I’ll listen.
She goes on:
That is something that, if we could eradicate that view and get women to a place where they feel like they can utter the words “no, absolutely not, I’m leaving” instead of feeling like they have to rely on these nonverbal signals because they don’t quite know that they want to say it, because they don’t want to be the bad guy, they’d really rather the guy just kinda get the message and figure it out and leave her alone…. My hope is that, the bad guy here is this idea that women should feel that they can’t make a decision to walk away from a sexual encounter.
As best I can tease that apart, what she’s saying is that it isn’t that women can’t say no, but rather that they don’t want to disappoint.
And that makes perfectly good sense. Of course, they feel guilty. By the time a woman finds herself in the situation described in the Ansari account, the man quite naturally has certain hopes and expectation. If she says “no,” he is going be disappointed — far more than he would have been had she said “no” before things had gone as far as they did.
Ms. Anderson concludes:
I’m not necessarily blaming the victim in this situation. I’m blaming the conditioning that led her to think she could not say “no” more forcefully.
She can say “no” more forcefully. What she can’t do is eat her cake and have it too. She can’t get into a sexually charged situation and then expect an excited man to listen for subtle cues that, however much her actions are saying yes, her secret wish is that she would say “no.” And she also doesn’t have the luxury of saying “no” and not expecting to create disappointment — and, perhaps, come across as confused or teasing.
It’s an impossible situation. That is, it’s a situation which, once a reluctant woman finds herself in it, offers no resolution that isn’t going to disappoint someone and cause some bad feelings.
It is my suspicion that far more women find themselves in situations like this than in the more threatening situations described earlier, the ones involving rapists and exploitative men. I think it’s the inevitable product of imagined sexual equality. The sexes aren’t equal, not in this respect: they’re not even similar. Men often are powerful, women often are vulnerable, and the false narrative of sexual liberation has, too often, made women easy victims.
The obsolete standards of propriety that once characterized social interactions between men and women empowered women. It gave them an easy way to decline advances and helped them avoid getting into situations from which the only way out was embarrassment and disappointment.
I believe it is in the nature of men to want sex and to overlook any but unambiguous objections in its pursuit. I believe it is in the nature of women to want to be seduced and to yield to and enjoy the early stages of sexual pursuit. Social guidelines once made the pursuit possible for both sexes, while giving women a socially acceptable means of managing the process.
That “conditioning” Ms. Anderson worries about, the thing that prevents women from saying “no,” is actually the absence of the social barriers that have historically protected women. The answer, as unlikely as it is to be achieved, is to recreate those barriers.
That means re-establishing the idea that women are, once again, prizes to be won by men.
Published in Culture
Perhaps heterosexuality is a choice for women, but it really doesn’t seem to be that way for men.
Wrt being born homosexual but having to come out to be gay – I think there’s something to that. Though it’s not as shallow as deciding on a particular lifestyle (leather man or twink….hmmmmm…..).
I realize you asking this question of @henryracette, but here’s my two cents :) Women who are not good at “defensive womaning” often come across as having low self worth. They seem to question themselves a great deal-the fact that they don’t want something to happen is apparently not a good enough reason in their minds for it to not happen, and even when it is, they worry inordinately about hurting the guy’s feelings, being a tease, etc…. it seems as though they don’t feel that they have a right to expect anything from men. It seems as though they are more worried about whether the man will like them than they are about whether or not they like the man. All of these factors contribute to the fact that these women have a hard time standing up for themselves.
In the old days, men were expected to prove themselves in various ways: paying for dates, for example. Now, many will say that this isn’t fair, but requiring men to pay for dates screens out many bad actors; it may also kind of sort of instill an entitlement complex in some women, but in general that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It sounds as though some young women these days need to have more of an entitlement complex; it seems as though they don’t think they are entitled to anything. They also have a very strange view of men: they think they have to be super nice all the time or else men won’t like them? They are worried about hurting the feelings of the guy who is groping them without invitation? Are you kidding?
As for slapping men, I don’t support that, but I wouldn’t support a man who was slapped bringing assault charges either. When I was younger, a man who charged another man with assault would have been laughed off the planet; I never dreamed of a man charging a woman with assault, unless it’s part of some nasty divorce or something, but just because she slapped you? No. One of my husband’s ex girlfriends once thrust a fork into his face in front of a bunch of people because she was angry with him; he just sat there and laughed. That’s how men are supposed to react to that kind of stuff; if nobody is seriously hurt, just let it go.
I would also add that the cultural forces which have apparently resulted in some young women having a hard time standing up for themselves have never been conservative in nature: feminists are the ones who say it’s unfair for men to pay for dates; feminists also object to men who want to protect them, such as by walking them to their car after dark. Feminists have done everything in their power to destroy the concept of chivalry, so to blame conservatives for this, or “the patriarchy” is to not understand what has gone on.
This is a good answer. Although, what I think it’s saying is more like, “Women should prize themselves more,” which is somewhat different from thinking of women as “prizes to be won by men.”
That is rather refreshing to hear. We’re so often focused on the way today’s young women act too entitled, and on the evils of those telling women to act any more entitled, that it can be easy to believe young women’s problem couldn’t possibly be too small a sense of entitlement in any sphere, even if the pickles young women are getting themselves into suggest differently.
I wish I was. Obviously, not all young women are the same, and some are untroubled by hurting others’ feelings when the situation calls for it (or even when it does not). But it seems inevitable there’d be a fair few “less entitled” girls who wouldn’t know better unless schooled, either by the guidance of elders or harsh experience.
Still, I think that Margot, the protagonist of “Cat Person”, thought of herself as a prize to be won, and that was part of her problem. As I said elsewhere,
Margot’s self-image as a prize Robert was blessed to win seems to be what kept her from putting a stop to a foolish sexual encounter.
Besides the fact that a man who believed he had “earned his prize” might be less inclined to take “no” for an answer, “Cat Person” suggests that women seeing themselves as a sexual prize for men could lead women “bestowing” themselves unwisely, simply to gratify their own conceit of being men’s “prize”. Maybe women should prize themselves, but not think of themselves as “prizes to be won by men”.
I think that’s true.
I’ll try to be very clear. I think sometimes too many words muddy the water, and I don’t think this is complicated. (All statements should be read as general observations true of most, though obviously not all, men and women.)
I don’t believe any of that is taught behavior. I think it springs from our biological nature. To keep male sexual impulses in some kind of check, societies have created various mechanisms geared toward making women less available. The one that has worked in the west for much of our history was the idea of a woman’s honor, the idea that she was something more refined, more vulnerable, and more valuable than a man, and that a man had to demonstrate worthiness to possess her. That demonstration might be little more than being a reliable boyfriend for a year or two and advancing slowly through the stages of courtship.
Telling women to value themselves is good, wise, essential, and appropriate. We should all do that. But it isn’t enough. Women also need society’s help, in the form of a support structure that reinforces the idea that women are more noble beings than are men.
Because a woman can’t put herself on a pedestal.
But we aren’t more noble beings than men. You could call me a misogynist for saying that, but it’s true.
So far, the one sensible idea I see in here is a notion of female honor, and tying that female honor to sexual reticence. Women are more vulnerable than men in important respects, so it makes sense for the notion of female honor to reflect that. Because women are more vulnerable, it makes sense for them to screen men carefully, to be sexually reticent, to consider their sexual reticence a part of their honor. And while we can call the screening process a test of male “worthiness”, it’s not the same as envisioning women’s role as “prizes to be won by men”.
I think you are getting a little bit hung up on a few words and missing the larger point. I don’t think that women are by definition more noble than men either, but everything else Henry says makes a great deal of sense to me. I don’t quite understand the distinction you make between women prizing themselves and seeing themselves as prizes to be won by men.
Yes, women should screen men carefully and do everything else you suggest, but it will be extremely difficult or impossible for them to do that without some kind of cultural support. It isn’t enough for a woman to prize herself; it isn’t even possible for a woman to prize herself unless she is first prized by her parents, family, friends, etc….A woman who is surrounded on all sides by people who do not support her in staying chaste is going to find it far more difficult to remain chaste: a woman who cannot or will not accept that some men or more worthy than others may not even grasp why should remain chaste. Many of the young women in the me too movement seem to match that description. I understand why they are angry, but it’s liberals they should be angry with, not conservatives.
(I think you and I will probably continue to disagree about this. That’s okay: I’m more interested in being understood than being agreed with.)
I think we have to credit women with a quality that distinguishes them from men in a positive way. I’ll call it “nobility,” but “honor” works as well. What’s important is that it be something that’s simple, that can be ritualized and embedded as a traditional cultural value, that elevates women, acknowledges their special value and vulnerability.
I think — I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, so feel free to correct me — that you’re focused on teaching individual women to value themselves and assert themselves. While I like that, I think it’s inadequate, and that it must be coupled with a cultural shift that makes it easier for women to say no. Otherwise, I think most women are not strong enough to do it on their own.
Well put. Thank you.
Thank you, @henryracette :)
“When lovely woman stoops to folly
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?”
–Goldsmith, ca 1760
….its all in the above lines, really: the idea that sex is a victory for him, but a defeat for her; that each individual woman (singular) will inevitably find out that all men (plural) are untrustworthy; that she will be left with regrets after he has tidied his britches and strutted back to his regiment or club.
Why , though, is it still axiomatic that women have more to lose than men in sexual encounters? Of course they did, back in the days when virginity was prized, back in the days when each encounter might mean a pregnancy–but all that hasn’t been true for over a generation now.
“Nice girls don’t “— when was the last time anybody mentioned that, except to riducule it? But it must still be racketing in young women’s ears, because evidently they often feel they’ve just resignedly tolerated some sexual encounter to avoid social embarrassment, like the heroine of the Cat Person story, who thinks that to back out would be like sending back a dish at a restaurant (really? that’s the rudest action she can imagine?) –and then later, they agonize that they have something of their niceness resigned. They gave it up to an unworthy suitor.
Plus ça change….
There are many many men who are not like this at all. Signals get crossed, to be sure, and are not always easy to read (especially in the heat of passion), but many men would be horribly humiliated, or else deeply ashamed of themselves, to find out that their tryst with a woman was not desired or welcomed at the time (ex post facto regrets are a separate issue). Any decent guy who is in pursuit of more than mere sex, but an actual continuous relationship with a woman, will, even in the heat of passion, be solicitous of her needs, wants, and moods.
My impression is that, empirically speaking, we are observing that men and women have a different distribution of reactions to casual sex. This seems to underlie the entire “rape culture” narrative.
Many women, especially on campus, consent to casual sex and then regret it, feeling cheapened, degraded, and used. This is psychological, not just physical. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective (it also makes sense from a perspective of divine creation).
I think that casual sex results in serious psychological problems for men also, but the problems are different. I think the feminists are actually correct that casual sex leads to the objectification of women, making it more difficult for the man to have a proper intimate relationship later on.
Of course, there are individual exceptions to this on both the male and female side, as with most (if not all) personality traits. I admit that my information on this issue is anecdotal, and it would be helpful to see some good empirical research on the issue.
No, I am for cultural shifts making it easier for women to say “no”.
That said, in a world of effective contraception, how much cultural shift can we reasonably expect, and what are naive young women to do before such cultural shift as can still be accomplished is accomplished?
Moreover, is every cultural shift facilitating “no” worth it? For example, would we want to return to sex-segregated schools and workplaces not just being an option (I think free people ought to be free to make them an option for those who want it), but the only respectable option?
In the world we live in now, young women who want the old-fashioned treatment will have to learn to assert themselves. We cannot wave a wand and change society overnight, but we can offer individual young women lessons in effective resistance before not having mustered effective resistance in time teaches them why having learned those lessons in advance would have been helpful. (Women being physically weaker than men, often the most effective resistance is simply being situationally aware and knowing to bug out before resistance becomes necessary – but good luck learning to be situationally aware through any method other than harsh experience if no-one is willing to explicitly teach you!) And in our small social groups, we still have some power over norms.
Whenever a girl’s sexual innocence is chiefly in her own hands (for example, she’s not confined to purdah or spending her teen years educated / locked away in a convent), maintaining that innocence can be expected to take some bravery. A touch of killer instinct. Wiliness if not low cunning. What Tocqueville called “virility”. If a girl wants to maintain her innocence, or maybe doesn’t yet know that’s what she wants, but she’d be happier that way, I don’t see a way out of “virilizing” girls a little. Not to make them indistinguishable from men, or unpleasantly unfeminine, but encouraging a mettle where sex is concerned that we seem perfectly willing to encourage in girls where sex is not concerned.
In today’s environment, the girls with the most sexual mettle often seem to be the ones who need it least – the “bad girls”, who really aren’t so fussed by regrettable sex, anyhow. It’s the “good girls” (such as they are these days) who seem to miss out most on developing sexual mettle, perhaps because we now treat mettle as something impossible to develop without sexual experience. Well, tell the Amazons and the various virgin goddesses and saints that. Virgins with mettle used to be a thing.
No, that’s not what’s in the poem. “Stoops to folly” doesn’t describe sex. It describes sex with a man who hasn’t earned it, who hasn’t demonstrated the love and respect required.
In other words, it describes what happens when women are not seen as something to be won through effort and demonstrated commitment.
Of course. And there are many many women who enjoy casual sex and don’t have regrets about it.
But not most young men or women.
I think we’re converging.
I agree that the culture can’t be changed quickly. I’m not at all sure that it can be changed at all.
When speaking of my daughter, what you describe is exactly what I do: raise her to be confident, assertive, independent, and proud of herself. I hope that works for my daughter. She’ll go off to college this year, and I wish the culture supported her, but I don’t believe it does.
Everyone should encourage their daughters to be strong and assertive.
I also think everyone should try to communicate to their daughters that they are not sexually equal to men, that they are vulnerable, and that alcohol is dangerous. My self-confident little overachiever thinks she is ready to take on the world. I wish I shared her confidence; I hope she makes choices wiser than her years, and comes through the next decade relatively unscathed.
Honestly, I don’t know if the cost of effectively protecting women from men — the social expectations I describe — are worth the social costs they’d create for women. I think they are, because I think women are paying a very high cost today for the fiction of sexual equality, and that they’d enjoy once again being valued as more than instant sexual partners. But I don’t expect the culture to change, not soon, and not in a good way, and so we’re left with parents doing the best they can to prepare their young men and women for a pretty messed up hook-up culture.
Better, I think, would be to put the ladies back up on the pedestals, and make the guys work harder to persuade them to step down.
Even better yet, have the men step up to share the pedestal of admiration and respect.
It’s old fashioned thought, but maybe there was truth in the idea that men’s desire for women tempered the overall behavior of men toward civility.
Of course that only works when women hold men to behaviors of respect and restraint, by exhibiting them.
It seems to me that too many women have given up ther long-held power to “civilize men” by adopting behaviors that can hardly be defined as respectful and restrained.
I’d like to point out that within the large culture that we discuss, there are still many who embrace and uphold aspects of a sub-culture that supports healthy and safe interaction between women and me. This thread is an example.
Just because that healthy culture is not popular, does not mean it is not good or desirable.
The more our young people know that living and choosing this healthy culture will be challenged, the more likely they will be to weather the storms.
I would not overlook this.
Genuine admiration for men is no substitute for being prepared for when men do behave badly, but many people are basically cooperative and well-meaning (men included) and will elevate their behavior in the presence of someone who warmly admires and rewards the elevation.
While some men would only take advantage of being put on a pedestal, a great many wouldn’t, and respect for the person whose heart your messing with in a romantic entanglement also encourages sexual prudence: Most people will eventually be looking for a spouse, and will have to take leave of any lovers not destined to be their spouse. You’re more reluctant to start something that will probably end badly with people you respect, people whose humanity you won’t forget if things don’t work out.
One reason I think we shouldn’t overplay the “Well, guys just can’t help being sex fiends!” card: it’s good for girls to be wary of the average difference in sex drive between the sexes, but not to the point of dehumanizing men, of no longer expecting men to act like the human beings they, in fact, are.
uh, that is still sex.
I don’t agree. The lovely woman is the only actor in this poem. She “stooped”; she was not tripped.
This is a cycle we’ve been through many times before. In 1922, between the wars, the flapper era, T.S. Eliot famously referenced Goldsmiths’s lines:
“She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.”
Between the wars and during WW II, young women had mobility, economic and sexual freedom. They had to, to keep everything running at home. The young men returned, the women married them and retired to restrictive domesticity. That’s where Betty Friedan found them. Etc., etc., etc.
O yes romance is nice! We forgot how nice romance is! Nonetheless, big girl panties will come back into style, just like bell bottomed pants did. (As, I hope, will the gallantry you display, @henryracette !) Today’s #metoo girls can’t handle the promiscuity which the previous generation saw as a glorious liberation. They aren’t the first, and they won’t be the last, though they imagine they will.
Indeed. But this is where the casual sex movement has injured both sexes. People are not being treated with equal respect and humanity. The sexual act occurs (however many times) and then people are discarded.
There is less respect for one another in relationships these days.
An example: a man I was dating once described his exes in terrible, terrible ways. These were women that he had once admired and put upon a pedestal. He maligned them in all sorts of ways. I won’t even describe them here.
The fact is, I am quite certain that after our relationship (which supposedly was respectful, etc, etc) he said similar about me. It is a real-life example of how the lack of respect has poisoned interactions between the sexes and how people are used and discarded. Lovers are not revered after the fact: they are maligned if discussed at all, and tossed aside.
There needs to be more respect for the sexual act and for the people involved. This is one reason why it being reserved for marriage was a good idea. Marriage ensured a certain level of outward respect.
One of the things that has most impressed me about my husband is that he only ever talks about his exes in positive or neutral terms; he has never said one bad thing about any of them. He was talking about a long ago ex girlfriend once, and I asked a nosy question about her: he just smiled, and said, “That’s none of your business.” I love him for that.
Way back when, when I was a teenager, I was given invaluable advice by one of my male friends: complaining about your exes, and how badly they supposedly treated you, or whatever, is the quickest way to drive a man away. It’s also a good way to drive women away.
That is largely true about a number of things. I’ve been burned by my blabbermouth. I’m very open about my opinions about exes and other things, particularly if their behavior warrants some social consequences.
That said, I also know that it does not work well in relationships. People will always wonder what you’re going to say about them and how easy it will be for them to say nasty things.
me too :) This is one good thing about going to a therapist: you can say whatever you want, you can vent, and you can do so knowing that it will never leave the room. I started going to a psychotherapist when I was 21, and it became clear to me that my female friends as much as I loved them could not be trusted to keep their mouths shut. It allowed me to verbalize my thoughts and work things through without betraying anyone. There’s a lot bad about the psychological establishment, but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water: being able to talk with someone who is sworn to secrecy can be invaluable.
Oh, I have no desire for my exes extraordinary bad behavior to remain secret. Many of them have received social accolades because I have kept things relatively silent.
Please see the aforementioned broken stair analogy.
These people have been able to continue their smarmy, obnoxious, spiritually abusive ways largely because I’ve tried to respect the relationship by not sullying their good name. But sometimes people’s names should be sullied. #metoo and social ostracism is good. It is good to name the baddies and to shame them.
But it needs to go both ways. Accusers should be willing to put their faces out there and put their good name on the line. It sucks, but there it is. Social violations require social justice and punishment. People who misbehave should be pariahs and should suffer for it.
It sounds like you have had some very bad experiences with men, and I am so sorry about that. I have been very fortunate; I didn’t get married until I was older, and dated a lot of men when I was younger, but none of them behaved badly. Some of them failed to call me back; some of them dumped me, and at the time it may have seemed to me that they were behaving badly, but they weren’t. Obviously, if sexual assault has occurred, then other people, including first and foremost the police, must be told, but I never experienced anything that I would describe as extraordinary bad behavior: when I was very young, my friends and I spent an inordinate amount of time whining about men who rejected us: we felt strongly that was extraordinary bad behavior, but we were very young and very immature.
I wasn’t going to a psychologist to deal with any kind of trauma; I just needed to talk about life in general and the people I knew, I was trying to make sense of things, and I didn’t want my musings to become fodder for gossip.
That’s actually a side-effect of winning the prize of a woman’s intimacy. By the time a man has done that, he’s also earned the admiration and respect you mention.
But the pedestal — the social conventions that elevate women — are a necessary prerequisite. Because man don’t have a natural desire for that. Men are naturally inclined to chase women: we enjoy the chase and we don’t particularly mind hearing no. So, unless some external standard is applied, we’re happy to have the women down here where we can reach them easily, rather than up where we have to make a real effort to qualify for their affection.
Not every man, not every woman. But it’s the nature of men and women. You need only talk to college students today to get a sense of it.