“That there was one particular question, creeping underneath it all — if I couldn’t trust my “yes,” how could he?” this line !! exactly.
as I reach my late 20s I constantly have discussed with friends of how my taste in what I want in the bedroom was not designed by myself. I don’t know what it is I desire because it’s never been my choice. as you say programmed into me and pushed on me by partners. this is such an important conversation i’ve had in private but love seeing it out in the open! desire is such an interesting feeling. where does it come from? how do I know if it’s true?
You’ve put that into words so perfectly. I’m trying to figure that out myself and it’s taken me down the route of writing my honours thesis about it. 💗
"Men, I have found, are generally far more horrified at the idea of being a rapist than they are at the idea of actually having raped someone." hit me like a truck. :(
"I'm sorry you hurt me. Please don't feel bad about it." I can't tell you the amount of times I've been the first to apologize in a situation where a man has wronged me. I've gotten better about it, but I hate that I've ever done it. It's so ingrained in women to repair a hurt, even if it means negating their own hurt. Thank you for writing this Eliza.
Holy SHIT you ate this up. because as a young woman I have been told repeatedly about no and yes what we need is based on clear communication but I have NOT had deeper discussions about how sexuality and the conditioning of womanhood makes it hard to know what you even want. Not to say there is a perfect moment where you know what you want, but there is definitely additional confusion due to our cultural context. I have had moments where I felt like this is the model for sex and this is what I should want, but have felt uncomfortable and violated later on. I dont blame my partners or the media I was consuming: I myself am not fully aware of myself and I am following outdated models. Yes, I dont care that much about my body so fine you can touch it. But am I ok with that deep down? Will I feel violated if I jump into something and will I feel insecure if I patch it with "I dont care"? Lots of food for thought. Thank you.
“It was supposed to be simple: did I or did I not want it?” — i love how you highligh the intense burden you can feel around these questions. It is all SO FUCKING confusing and as someone who has had grey-area sexual experiences myself (thanks for the new term!) I resonate with this frustration. I actually wrote an essay on your song, “punch drunk,” with similar feelings surrounding this idea, especially the aspect of being so down bad for someone that you forsake your own boundaries and question if what you wanted was actually what you wanted. Like, as a 18 year old, how the hell was I supposed to navigate that? Thank you x
wow, this is beautiful. i recently had my own gray-area sexual experience for the first time, and didn’t know what to call it and therefore, didn’t really know how to process it. its hard to explain how something can be not rape but not *not* rape; that you can want something, but it still feels violating, or that patriarchy plays a role, et cetera. things i didn’t have the language for yet. so thank you for articulating that feeling.
This is familiar to me. Frankly, I just call it bad sex, or an unsuccessful experiment. Sometimes we play around and try a thing and we fuck up. That’s what happens when you play. Dogs hurt each other sometimes when they play. Someone might fall down and hurt themselves during the team building laser tag. People can hurt each other when playing football.
It’s okay. You try and fail. Or they try and fail. People are not mind readers. Also, it's okay to try new things and realize they aren't right for you.
I hurt my men during sex a bunch of times accidentally, actually.
I hurt myself many times too by enthusiastically agreeing to sex I didn’t really want.
But yeah, I personally don’t like using the word rape unless it’s very obvious. Kills the nuance for me.
And yeah, no matter who got hurt, catering to their needs should be a priority, always.
Very well said overall. It is indeed important to distinguish between the unfortunate slings and arrows of life versus actual violations of human rights and bodily integrity.
"This is to say that when the options stand opposed, “rape” versus “enthusiastic consent,” it leaves room for a great number of sexual experiences to fall between the binary, in a relatively dark place for interrogation." I really appreciate you pointing out the pitfalls of constructing a binary between rape and consent. There's a fantastic book by Emily Owens called Consent in the Presence of Force: Sexual Violence and Black Women’s Survival in Antebellum New Orleans in which she argues that the legal language of consent perpetuates sexual violence. She writes "I have found that the very language that we use to describe sexual encounter, and the legal lexicon that provides the foundation for a modern vision of good sex (and good sexual subjectivity)—consent— is not the key to sexual safety, but instead a guarantor of sexual violence" (Owens, 8). Owens does a great job of explaining how modern legal understandings of sexual violence were first constructed in cases of sexual violence against Black women by white men. The denial of consent, or the weaponization of consent against enslaved women constitutes the emergence of consent as a legal tool that functions to obscure and excuse the violence of rape. I see a lot of resonances of Owens' criticism of consent in your piece and thought I would share her work for others who are interested!
That said, the problem with Emily Owens' thesis is that it (or rather, the laypeople who interpret it) appears to attempt to generalize it to an "always and everywhere" phenomenon that ostensibly remains true to this day. Trying to apply it to the present day is infantilizing and agency-denying IMHO, and requires mental gymnastics. It is nonetheless a good argument for enthusiastic consent to be the standard, but anything more utopian than that ultimately leads to dystopia, and continues the Misogyny-Misandry Death Spiral (misogyny begets misandry begets misogyny begets misandry begets misogyny and so on).
The original comment launched me into research about emily owens and her work (have not read the book yet but do want to). In a talk she did with the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity that is on youtube she mentions being inspired by the work of Tey Meadow who is doing research into BDSM communities and the way they work through consent. She mentioned thinking about consent as "a set of habits, essentially a set of recursive check ins, and also an expectation that harm can also happen there in that space and that repair is also inevitably a part of the process," and not "you said yes so anything is possible," which can still happen when using enthusiastic consent as the standard. I have personally been interested in BDSM for a long time for the practice around consent and the importance given to it.
My original comment is a huge generalization of Owens' complete argument -- I would add that she is more focused on the historical and present-day harm of consent as a legal term rather than an interpersonal practice. Studying a legal history of consent and applying it to the present day is somewhat easier because you can follow how consent is used in court cases over time. I would agree that making temporal connections about interpersonal practices of consent from the past to the present is messy and perhaps irresponsible, but that is not the direction of Owens' argument.
the perfect essay at a time when i needed it most. i’ve been reflecting on my (long) history of gray-area sexual experiences and feeling guilty and alone. thank you eliza, as always, for being able to put something, so succinctly, into words that i can only have anxiety attacks over.
wow, I just published my first post that was a bit spur of the moment, talking about my experience of rape and realization. the rape spurred a slew of gray area experiences that I'm still trying to parse. your words always bring such comfort, thank you for them
“If I couldn’t trust my yes, how could he?” You’re hitting on something so important and so under discussed here - feeling very seen throughout it all. I’m excited for the next installments 🤍
thank you for sharing these musings & stories - so glad more people are able to know how common these experiences (& the shame around them) are. hoping we can move towards better shared vocabulary for talking about them (bitches hate nuance!)
for anyone looking for more on this topic, girlhood by melissa febos & want me by tracy clark-flory are both excellent reads
My god this is such an important essay, thanks for the courage to say what we’ve all been thinking. I too have used men to hurt myself, thinking I want it because it’s empowering to want it, until afterwards I feel shell-shocked and sad. I guess we just keep experimenting with our own boundaries but try to do so with people who we trust to take care of us when we realise we’ve overstepped 🤷🏼♀️
“That there was one particular question, creeping underneath it all — if I couldn’t trust my “yes,” how could he?” this line !! exactly.
as I reach my late 20s I constantly have discussed with friends of how my taste in what I want in the bedroom was not designed by myself. I don’t know what it is I desire because it’s never been my choice. as you say programmed into me and pushed on me by partners. this is such an important conversation i’ve had in private but love seeing it out in the open! desire is such an interesting feeling. where does it come from? how do I know if it’s true?
You’ve put that into words so perfectly. I’m trying to figure that out myself and it’s taken me down the route of writing my honours thesis about it. 💗
"Men, I have found, are generally far more horrified at the idea of being a rapist than they are at the idea of actually having raped someone." hit me like a truck. :(
"I'm sorry you hurt me. Please don't feel bad about it." I can't tell you the amount of times I've been the first to apologize in a situation where a man has wronged me. I've gotten better about it, but I hate that I've ever done it. It's so ingrained in women to repair a hurt, even if it means negating their own hurt. Thank you for writing this Eliza.
Holy SHIT you ate this up. because as a young woman I have been told repeatedly about no and yes what we need is based on clear communication but I have NOT had deeper discussions about how sexuality and the conditioning of womanhood makes it hard to know what you even want. Not to say there is a perfect moment where you know what you want, but there is definitely additional confusion due to our cultural context. I have had moments where I felt like this is the model for sex and this is what I should want, but have felt uncomfortable and violated later on. I dont blame my partners or the media I was consuming: I myself am not fully aware of myself and I am following outdated models. Yes, I dont care that much about my body so fine you can touch it. But am I ok with that deep down? Will I feel violated if I jump into something and will I feel insecure if I patch it with "I dont care"? Lots of food for thought. Thank you.
“It was supposed to be simple: did I or did I not want it?” — i love how you highligh the intense burden you can feel around these questions. It is all SO FUCKING confusing and as someone who has had grey-area sexual experiences myself (thanks for the new term!) I resonate with this frustration. I actually wrote an essay on your song, “punch drunk,” with similar feelings surrounding this idea, especially the aspect of being so down bad for someone that you forsake your own boundaries and question if what you wanted was actually what you wanted. Like, as a 18 year old, how the hell was I supposed to navigate that? Thank you x
wow, this is beautiful. i recently had my own gray-area sexual experience for the first time, and didn’t know what to call it and therefore, didn’t really know how to process it. its hard to explain how something can be not rape but not *not* rape; that you can want something, but it still feels violating, or that patriarchy plays a role, et cetera. things i didn’t have the language for yet. so thank you for articulating that feeling.
This is familiar to me. Frankly, I just call it bad sex, or an unsuccessful experiment. Sometimes we play around and try a thing and we fuck up. That’s what happens when you play. Dogs hurt each other sometimes when they play. Someone might fall down and hurt themselves during the team building laser tag. People can hurt each other when playing football.
It’s okay. You try and fail. Or they try and fail. People are not mind readers. Also, it's okay to try new things and realize they aren't right for you.
I hurt my men during sex a bunch of times accidentally, actually.
I hurt myself many times too by enthusiastically agreeing to sex I didn’t really want.
But yeah, I personally don’t like using the word rape unless it’s very obvious. Kills the nuance for me.
And yeah, no matter who got hurt, catering to their needs should be a priority, always.
Very fair and reasonable comment ♥️
Very well said overall. It is indeed important to distinguish between the unfortunate slings and arrows of life versus actual violations of human rights and bodily integrity.
"This is to say that when the options stand opposed, “rape” versus “enthusiastic consent,” it leaves room for a great number of sexual experiences to fall between the binary, in a relatively dark place for interrogation." I really appreciate you pointing out the pitfalls of constructing a binary between rape and consent. There's a fantastic book by Emily Owens called Consent in the Presence of Force: Sexual Violence and Black Women’s Survival in Antebellum New Orleans in which she argues that the legal language of consent perpetuates sexual violence. She writes "I have found that the very language that we use to describe sexual encounter, and the legal lexicon that provides the foundation for a modern vision of good sex (and good sexual subjectivity)—consent— is not the key to sexual safety, but instead a guarantor of sexual violence" (Owens, 8). Owens does a great job of explaining how modern legal understandings of sexual violence were first constructed in cases of sexual violence against Black women by white men. The denial of consent, or the weaponization of consent against enslaved women constitutes the emergence of consent as a legal tool that functions to obscure and excuse the violence of rape. I see a lot of resonances of Owens' criticism of consent in your piece and thought I would share her work for others who are interested!
That said, the problem with Emily Owens' thesis is that it (or rather, the laypeople who interpret it) appears to attempt to generalize it to an "always and everywhere" phenomenon that ostensibly remains true to this day. Trying to apply it to the present day is infantilizing and agency-denying IMHO, and requires mental gymnastics. It is nonetheless a good argument for enthusiastic consent to be the standard, but anything more utopian than that ultimately leads to dystopia, and continues the Misogyny-Misandry Death Spiral (misogyny begets misandry begets misogyny begets misandry begets misogyny and so on).
The original comment launched me into research about emily owens and her work (have not read the book yet but do want to). In a talk she did with the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity that is on youtube she mentions being inspired by the work of Tey Meadow who is doing research into BDSM communities and the way they work through consent. She mentioned thinking about consent as "a set of habits, essentially a set of recursive check ins, and also an expectation that harm can also happen there in that space and that repair is also inevitably a part of the process," and not "you said yes so anything is possible," which can still happen when using enthusiastic consent as the standard. I have personally been interested in BDSM for a long time for the practice around consent and the importance given to it.
My original comment is a huge generalization of Owens' complete argument -- I would add that she is more focused on the historical and present-day harm of consent as a legal term rather than an interpersonal practice. Studying a legal history of consent and applying it to the present day is somewhat easier because you can follow how consent is used in court cases over time. I would agree that making temporal connections about interpersonal practices of consent from the past to the present is messy and perhaps irresponsible, but that is not the direction of Owens' argument.
It is true that the devil is in the details.
Showing teen boys porn of women getting choked is sexual assault of the teen boy.
Indeed, let's try NOT conflating sex with violence for a change! Eros and Thanatos are supposed to be opposites, after all.
the perfect essay at a time when i needed it most. i’ve been reflecting on my (long) history of gray-area sexual experiences and feeling guilty and alone. thank you eliza, as always, for being able to put something, so succinctly, into words that i can only have anxiety attacks over.
wow, I just published my first post that was a bit spur of the moment, talking about my experience of rape and realization. the rape spurred a slew of gray area experiences that I'm still trying to parse. your words always bring such comfort, thank you for them
“If I couldn’t trust my yes, how could he?” You’re hitting on something so important and so under discussed here - feeling very seen throughout it all. I’m excited for the next installments 🤍
You blow me away, Eliza!!! Incredible work, so poignant
thank you for sharing these musings & stories - so glad more people are able to know how common these experiences (& the shame around them) are. hoping we can move towards better shared vocabulary for talking about them (bitches hate nuance!)
for anyone looking for more on this topic, girlhood by melissa febos & want me by tracy clark-flory are both excellent reads
I came to the comments to suggest Girlhood as well!!
Wow.
My god this is such an important essay, thanks for the courage to say what we’ve all been thinking. I too have used men to hurt myself, thinking I want it because it’s empowering to want it, until afterwards I feel shell-shocked and sad. I guess we just keep experimenting with our own boundaries but try to do so with people who we trust to take care of us when we realise we’ve overstepped 🤷🏼♀️