No Means No, Obviously

That's how language based communication works, words have meanings, and when you say them you evoke that meaning. I read a very interesting article about "playing hard to get," but I disagree with a significant proportion of it. I have to admit I appreciate her extolling people, specifically women but I think it applies to men, not to play hard to get. Although I have yet to meet someone who even remotely seemed to be playing hard to get, that may be because when I am rebuffed romantically I almost always just let the issue lie, and in the couple of cases where I haven't I have more revisited the subject at a later date in hopes that her opinion has changed; in short, when it comes to romance, I try to convince people to change their minds by being awesome, because I am awesome, rather than trying to persuade them to change their minds verbally.

Anyway, while I have yet to meet someone who displays evidence of playing "hard to get," I have to agree that the trope widely exists through our cultural stories. Men are told that to "get the girl" one must put forth some romantic effort. While I disagree with the author that this is inherently undesirable, I do heartily concur with her that it seems to play into rape culture.

However, where I categorically disagree with the author is where she asserts that maybe means no. Of course, I am similarly opposed to the assumption that maybe means yes, for similar reasons, yes, no, and maybe are all separate words with wildly different meanings! Maybe means maybe! And here lies the refuge of people who want to play hard to get, maybe should clearly indicate that one is not acquiescing to the proposed activity, whether it be dancing, dating, or sex, but one is willing to consider it. If one does not wish to consider it further, there is a proper word for that, "no," and it is then the moral obligation of the rebuffed to accept that.

I am not often asked out, and people straight up ask me for sex even less frequently, but people often ask me if I will to go to dance activities. If I want to and am able to go I answer, "yes," because yes I will go. If I have a conflicting obligation or just don't want to go (the latter is rather uncommon) I answer, "no," because no I will not go. If I kind of want to go, but am feeling overwhelmed and kind of don't want to go, then I might answer, "maybe," or, "I don't know... [insert lame excuse here]." At these times I completely welcome people trying to convince me to go, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it helps me make up my mind. I don't think that I am "playing hard to get," per se, but if someone wants to play hard to get, let them use maybe! It is the correct word to use, "maybe" can mean, "maybe, if you work hard enough," which is what someone playing hard to get seems to implicitly mean.

Maybe shouldn't contribute to rape culture. Maybe leaves the door open to be convinced, but the door can still be closed. Maybe doesn't mean you cannot eventually say no (on a side note, that male friend she mentions complaining about people not being willing to agree with him eventually, creepy!!!). But that should be obvious, because you know what, yes doesn't even mean you cannot eventually say no! Let me expound on that, because it is of some importance, even if someone says yes to sex, if they change their mind, or you start hurting them, or they just get creeped out for some reason and change their mind to no, then that is a no! If you have sex with someone expressing a desire not to have sex with you, even if they explicitly expressed a desire to have sex with you at some earlier point, that is rape! If you decide not to have sex with someone who really did want to have sex with you, but felt they had to say "no" due to cultural considerations you missed having sex with someone who can't honestly express themselves and he/she missed out on having sex with an awesome person who is respectful of her/his desires. Guess which way I think you should err... Hint, which I don't think you should need, no means no!

While I don't think it is harmful to err on the side of no if you get a maybe, whereas it is definitely harmful to err on the side of yes, I don't think it is morally required to pretend that maybe doesn't have it's own, unique, and communicatively valuable, meaning. If you want to play hard to get, I invite you to use 'maybe's, or other such non-committal responses. And, most importantly, for this to work we have to realize that non-committal quite literally means without commitment, one way or the other, so if it becomes a no, then it is a no, end of discussion.

For The Ladiez

I am unsure what spelling should be used to denote the somewhat sleazy tone of voice wherein the 's' is ladies is replaced by a more 'z' sound. Should it be "ladiez," "ladyz," or perhaps "ladiezzz"? Anyway, there is some statistical evidence that Wednesday evening belongs to you ladies out there, so I hope you have a good one. This blog post is also dedicated to the wonderful women with whom I am priviledged to interact, especially those of you who read my blog!

One of my favorite things about Facebook is how often links to interesting, thought provoking articles appear in my newsfeed. A while back I found one to an article encouraging women to view the emancipation resulting from the Women's Movement as more than simply a license to engage in sexual liaisons as freely as society has traditionally let men. As I often advocate that, although I believe that men and women should be held to equivalent standards, I do not believe we should automatically assume that where they differ we should get rid of the existing standard for women and replace it by the existing standard for men, this article is somewhat in line with my own beliefs. For evidence of this, click on the "gender roles" tag this post has then read almost any of the other articles that I felt also deserved this tag.

That said, I am enough of a liberal to believe that if people want to participate in some sort of all-around consensual sexual behavior then they should be able to, baring preexisting commitments to the contrary. Of course, I am enough of a conservative to also believe that our society places an undue amount of pressure on people to participate in such behaviors and ends up artificially normalizing them and stigmatizing perfectly valid sexual choices such as abstinence before marriage and monogamy. Anyway, here is the article to which the rest of my post refers, I suggest you read it if you wish to understand what follows, which is almost exactly the text of an overly-large Facebook comment I made on the link.

While I agree with what seems to be the overall premise, that liberating women should not be equivocated with making them sexually available, there are some points I'd like to see addressed.

1) Comparing sex trafficking to one-night stands seems analogous to comparing slavery with working the register at McDonalds, and is a little disturbing.

2) The article sets up women as historical, "moral gatekeepers of society," then continues, "[n]ow, many of us are raped, sexually abused, or endlessly harassed by the time we reach our early 20's." Setting women up as moral gatekeepers seems patently ridiculous, and hearkens back to a tradition of blaming mistresses and prostitutes for wrecking marriages by being available to tempt the appetites of men, who are apparently unable to control their desires, for some reason. In short, it ignores the ability of men to make their own moral decisions, which is both insulting to men, and unrealistically harsh to women. After all, the prostitute is not the one to have taken vows of marriage. Furthermore, the second part of the sentence implies that since women have been freed to make their own decisions regarding their sexuality, the world has become more dangerous for them. This simply seems disingenuous, I would venture to say that if crimes against women are more prevalent nowadays mostly because it is a recent development that they have been recognized as crimes against women. Historically things like domestic violence and even rape have been viewed as perfectly ok in certain contexts. Ironically, the increased awareness of these forms of brutalization may actually be BECAUSE women now have the ability to act as moral gatekeepers, not of some ideological societal conscience, but they are finally moral gatekeepers of their own well being. That said, I recognize that this article is addressing a primary audience of women, so extoling moral accountability in men may not be the highest on its agenda. However, it seems reasonable that it should encourage women to value moral accountability in the men with whom they interact. For example, instead of emphasizing the importance of women saying "no" to the many sexual advances that they receive, might not the article encourage women to associate with men who respect the initial "no" and do not repeatedly make sexual advances?

3) Finally, the article seems to imply that birth control leads to abortions. Let me make clear that this is statistically unsupported. Societies where contraception and abortions both show increases are societies where the average family size is experiencing a decrease. Or, to put it another way, if people are trying to get smaller families some of them use contraception and others use abortions. If fertility (average family size) is constant, then increases in contraception use lead to decreases in abortion rates. Birth control is not perfect, but if people are going to have sex, and there is strong statistical evidence that lots of people do make that choice, then it is far far better that they choose to use birth control. When people decry the "ineffectiveness" of birth control it seems to be an invitation for people who might have otherwise had relatively safe sex to forgo using contraceptives and this is a very bad decision to be encouraging.

Slut Walk

Random thought: A young person is someone with the luxury of believing they know enough to form what is essentially an indisputably correct opinion. An old person is someone with the luxury of believing they know enough to form what is essentially an indisputably correct opinion and the young people have no idea how arrogant they are to believe the same.

Enough with the heavy topics and the mopey introspection, let's talk about Sluts! After a Toronto police officer advised students to, "avoid dressing like sluts," in order to avoid being sexually assaulted, the social protest phenomena known as Slut Walk was born. Simply put, Slut Walks are organized in order to provide people who believe that what a woman is wearing has no bearing on her being sexually assaulted a public platform to share their opinion. Here's an article on the subject, if you are interested in further reading, it is simply the article I read most recently, not my choice of an exhaustive resource.

The Slut Walk immediately brings up two important and interesting topics, victim blaming, gendered double standards for sexuality, and activism. I'll address them in that order.

While some might argue that what you are wearing has no causal relationship to your likelihood of being raped, and I know that there is good anecdotal evidence for this claim, it seems even easier to argue that there is no reason wardrobe ought have any bearing on sexual assault. As long as one's garb is within the legal limits on decency, I see no reason for it to be mentioned in a court of law. What someone is wearing CERTAINLY does not justify sexually assaulting them. Furthermore, if we consider institutionalizing the message that dressing in a certain manner is likely to incur sexual assault, it seems as though we are perpetuating the domination of women through sexual violence, namely dictating to them the clothing that are safe to wear.

As someone possessed of a rather conservative personal, as opposed to political, morality, I cannot say that I unreservedly celebrate the label slut. However, I certainly do believe it should have the same normative value as the word "stud." If we glorify male sexuality and simultaneously vilify female sexuality, we set an unjust double standard. To be sure, I would prefer that both "stud" and "slut" referred to behavior not socially celebrated, but I definitely think they ought have the same normative content, and I don't particularly like vilifying anyone. Those loyal, long time readers (to whom I am very grateful) may recognize this thought structure from my post last October (ok, November) on Halloween costumes. Surprise, we have not achieved gender equity in the past six months!

Like I noted, I am not entirely copacetic with the message of a Slut Walk. Consequentially I might not choose to show up for such an event should one end up organized near my area. Let's be honest though, show up alone to voluntarily immerse myself in a crowd, doesn't sound like something I'd do even to get more Firefly episodes. However, the Slut Walks have an important core message with which I deeply believe, and furthermore provide people with an option for activism. It is good for there to be multiple venues for activism, from proud Sluts and Slut allies walking the streets, to nerdy bloggers hiding in their basements. Speaking of activism opportunities, Jamie Keiles over at Teenagerie is co-coordinating Chicago's Slut Walk (is it just me, or does "slattern look like it is spelled with a pi?), and her blog is a great resource for discussion on things of gender/activist interest.

Finally, I have a new follower, and since that made me very happy I thought I should mention it, so hello! Their profile picture is Dr Who, so it is even more fantastic!