It’s no excuses for grown men that can’t recognize when they making women uncomfortable, like you’re not always gonna get a hard “No” for a variety of reasons, but it’s up to you to recognize and respect any nonverbal form of communication, otherwise you risk putting someone else (and yourself) in a dangerous situation, and at that point, you’re in the wrong.
What if the guy is autistic and can’t read non-verbal cues?
My issue with this is that consent is required, so even if you can’t read non-verbal cues due to some sort of neurodivergence, you didn’t receive a hard yes, so you have to assume that’s a no. I really don’t want to conflate autistic people with predators who choose to be predators, and even autism doesn’t excuse being a predator
Also I’m autistic and often miss non-verbal cues- so instead I’ve always tried to make sure to y’know, ask and reassure my partner that a no is safe and will be respected. We’re capable of awareness in these situations. Stop bringing us up in these defenses, especially when so many autistic people are on the victim end of this shit.
Fucking this. ^^^ I’m gonna be honest with you. As a autistic woman, I’m getting *real fucking tired* of autistic men saying this. Autistic men need to stop using this shit as their excuse for harassing women, especially since so often their primary victims are autistic women.
one of the ways i know this culture has a massive issue with consent
is the sheer amount of people I’ve known that just lie & tell people they’re deathly allergic to foods they dislike
because otherwise people will hound them, mock them, coax them, harass them, try to force them to eat it, or even trick them into eating it, and they will never hear the end of it
your coworkers will bake it into a fucking pie, call it something else, and wait til your birthday, gather everyone and their first cousins to sit around in a circle waiting for you to put a forkful into your mouth and then point rhythmically at you in a chanting, glaring, sweating, unholy circle like SWISS CHARD SWISS CHARD YOU JUST ATE SWISS CHARD HA HA HA SWISS CHARD NOW YOU LIKE SWISS CHARD
Because forcing someone into a situation where they don’t feel safe declining putting something into their body they’d rather not be there is totes 100% wholesome American fun
And this is something so known that it’s infinitely easier to just lie and tell people that you’ll die if you eat that food…which actually doesn’t always stop it from happening
On a similar but unrelated note, I’ve actually had this happen before with doctors and medication. I’m allergic to Sulpha, which is an antibiotic along the lines of penicillin. Now I’m not super duper terrible allergic, but my throat with swell up, get itchy, and my neck will get super stiff. So I’m college I had a mild bacteria infection in my hoo-ha, so I visit the local med-ex clinic. Finally get in to see the doctor. “It says here you’re allergic to Sulpha?” “Yes” he continues to question me about it, like he didn’t really believe me, “what happens” blah blah blah. Barely questions me about the infection, which I’m THERE FOR, and sends me on my way with a prescription that, unbeknownst to me, contained Sulpha. He didn’t even tell me. Neither did my pharmacist. I wasn’t feeling terrible and my hubby and I had a road trip planned that day to the middle of nowhere to the woods to take pictures. I take my medicine. About 10 minutes later I start coughing, feeling itchy, throat tight. Now I was thinking back to how the doctor had questioned my allergy, and I was growing suspicious. Google the ingredients for the medicine. Sure enough, it’s Sulpha based. We have a half hour to go before we get anywhere near a gas station or civilization so that I could get some Benadryl to at least bring the swelling down. Now, keep in mind that the reason I know I’m allergic to this stuff was when I was getting my hep c shot when I was a kid. I was out for days and I remember what an absolute horrible feeling it was. But I had no idea if they’re given me prescription medication then to combat the allergies, and here me is now, sitting in the car with nothing, my throat quickly swelling up, not sure if I’m about to fucking die because some asshole doctor didn’t believe me about my fucking allergy and wanted to give me fucking Sulpha based fucking medication because fuck you.
Anyway, we got to a gas station just in time for me to start coughing up blood in the bathroom while my hubby buys benedryl, which thank God they had and at the time I wasnt even sure if it would work. Which it did. Thankfully.
Anyway. I’ve had a hard time trusting doctors ever since then.
That doctor gave me no warning, no “this has what you’re allergic to so be careful and monitor your reactions,” I did not give my consent to have my allergies put to the test, nothing. I could have fucking died because some doctor was too lazy to find an alternative for me and didn’t believe me.
Anyway, this shit happens even when it’s not food allergies, and this whole “are you sure” “but have you tried it” culture needs to fucking stop. No means no. An allergy is an allergy. You don’t have the right to “test” it, or to sneak someone food they explicitly didn’t ask for or even said they’re allergic to, it’s not your job to sniff out whether or not someone’s lying, it’s not your job to introduce them to things they don’t like. Just accept some people don’t like certain things, some people are allergic to certain things, some people may have different dietary requirements than you.
It’s really just an extension of the whole “sniffing out fakes” culture that says, oh, you’re not in a wheelchair, you don’t deserve that handicap spot, etc. Etc. Just believe people and realize that no means no
“Plenty of gay guys in HS get bullied, play video games, & get rejected for dates. And yet we don’t hear about them going on killing sprees after getting turned down by a boy they like.
This is about misogyny & a society that tells men they are entitled to women’s bodies.”
Start teaching consent when they’re little. There’s even children’s books that teach about bodily autonomy. My daughter has a book called No means No, and it’s a useful way to reinforce what I’m already teaching both my daughter and my son. That their bodies belomg to them. That someone else’s body isn’t theirs to do woth as they please. We ask before we tickle. We ask before we hug or kiss. And if someone says stop, we work on recognizing that and stopping.
I was just answering an ask about how to teach a four year old boundaries. This isn’t hard.
Start early people. I have 10 year old boys and girls at work who ask why it isn’t okay to touch other people without asking. Umm, they really should have learned that well before 5th grade.
And no, “But they _________” is not a justification to touch anyone anywhere. I don’t care if they touched your stuff. I don’t care if they accidentally touched you. I don’t care if they intentionally touched you, you don’t touch them. Retaliation is wrong. We can handle it in better ways.
Only after days of mulling over these stories and thinking about how every woman has one did I think back to the time I wanted to have sex with my ex and he wanted to play his guitar and call it a night. “I just feel like relaxing tonight,” he told me as I ran my hands over him. With my hopes crushed and my ego bruised, I strategized: I would take off my clothes and lie on the floor naked until he’d feel too guilty to refuse. It worked. I convinced myself I had turned him on, but in the morning, he told me he’d done it for the reason I’d secretly anticipated: He didn’t want me to feel bad.
And then, only after that, did I think back to the time my first boyfriend expressed reluctance to have sex with his parents in the next room, and I said “I’ll be quiet” and got on top of him. Or the time he said he didn’t want to have sex while I was on my period and I (dishonestly) convinced him it wouldn’t get messy. To be honest, I don’t remember the details of these encounters, like what specifically he said or whether he eventually said “okay.” But that just goes to show I wasn’t paying attention.
And only now, as I’m writing this, am I thinking back to the time my current partner said he was too tired for sex, and then I touched his penis until he changed his mind — but did he really change his mind, or did he just want to appease me?
Yes, I see myself in Grace. But I also see myself in Aziz.
When the conversation around the #MeToo hashtag moved from morally unambiguous sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein to self-described feminists like Aziz Ansari, some took the opportunity to discuss how rape culture is so ever-present, nearly every woman has been violated, and even “good men” have violated women. But more and more, I’m realizing it goes even further than that: Nearly everyone of every gender has the potential to be both the violator and the violated.
this problem isn’t that men “misread” signals (and even verbal statements), it’s that men are unwilling to accept what’s being communicated, because it’d mean they won’t get what they want–and they value getting what they want more than they value their partner’s comfort, safety, and desires. this is a matter of will and values masquerading as a matter of knowledge and communication. men’s “confusion” is their justification for continuing with what they want to do (and society will accept it too!), so there’s always a motivation to be “confused.” that’s the problem.
Joseph Shapiro and an investigative team at NPR have just released an in-depth series on disability and sexual assault that took nearly a year of work. “Abused and Betrayed” unfolds in a series of features exploring various aspects of the sexual assault epidemic in the developmental disability community — from exclusion in sexual education to rape in institutions.
Part of me is glad that this series exists. Shapiro has a long history of involvement in disability reporting and culture — his book No Pity is a must-read — and sexual abuse in disability communities is an issue that rarely receives public attention.
But, to my knowledge, no one who worked on this investigation is disabled, which is extremely disappointing. The lack of visibility for disabled reporters is a serious failure for newsroom diversity that has real consequences — we can tell stories nondisabled people can’t, and consider issues nondisabled reporters and editors tend to miss.
In “She Can’t Tell Us What’s Wrong,” (warning: this article is very graphic) the team looked at cases where communication issues hinder disabled people’s ability to report abuse. In many cases, this also presents challenges for sex education and personal empowerment. A disabled person may not realize that abusive behavior is, in fact, abusive, with some reports of abuse relying on witnesses who observe something going wrong.
That was certainly the case when a staff member at an institution walked into a patient’s room and saw a member of the staff “with his pants down.”*
In rape reporting, there are certain conventions people follow. Many publications will not use rape survivors’ last names, for example, and may at times change the first name as well. They may take other steps to shield a survivor’s identity out of respect for the fact that rape is an intensely personal, violating crime. A special duty of care is required in places where the ability to consent may be compromised.
And so I was startled when NPR opted to redact this rape survivor’s last name, but then provide extremely specific identifying details about her. Her sister is named in full, and the feature includes numerous photographs. The name of the institution is also included, and so is identifying information about the specific room the victim lives in. The detailed reporting on her case suggests that, while she knows some sign language, she lacks the ability to communicate explicit consent to have her story told in such detail.
While the rape survivor welcomed the NPR crew, it’s not clear whether she fully understood what they were doing, or the ramifications. Did she know that an intimate and traumatizing incident in her life would be broadcast nationwide? Would she have consented if she understood that? This decision was made for her by her sister, in a familiar patronizing pattern.
The piece also explored the case of a woman whose sexual assault was revealed when she tested positive for a sexually transmitted infection. Again, NPR shows her photograph, names her family, discloses the specific infection she was diagnosed with, names and shows her aides. Again, her capacity for consent was not explored, and the voices of her family members are centered in her story.
Infantilization and desexualization are troubling themes throughout the series; one family member compares an adult victim to a “child,” expressing shock that she would be targeted for sexual assault. The nondisabled public is horrified at the thought of sexual abuse that involves adults who are “like children,” as though this is somehow “worse” than sexual abuse in general. Turning disabled people into metaphorical children doesn’t stop abuse, though; if anything, it increases vulnerability to assault.
Readers and listeners come away with a strong sense that disabled people aren’t sexual and don’t have agency. Their family members, meanwhile, are given considerable authority — and the series doesn’t delve into the history of caregiver abuse committed by family members.
This kind of storytelling troubles me because it taps into a long, dark history of focusing on the voices of parents and family members while excluding disabled people from their own narratives. Commentary from disabled people was reserved for the end of the series, in a single set of first-person interviews. This is one result of allowing nondisabled people to dominate the media landscape; they tell stories about us without us rather than centering disabled voices.
When the idea that family should be the voices in the conversation is normalized, it makes it much harder to push back on abuse of power. One would expect a series about abuse to empower people, not reiterate the social structures that contribute to abuse. It is very uncomfortable to admit that nondisabled people and reporters should be stepping back to provide room for disabled voices in storytelling. But it is a conversation we need to have.
These sexual assault survivors have difficulty communicating their stories in a way that’s accessible to nondisabled people. But does that mean their stories should be told for them in such graphic detail? Reporting like this often justifies such sharing on the grounds that this is the only way to get listeners, viewers, or readers to “pay attention” — by humanizing an epidemic of sexual assault that would otherwise be dry statistics or vague nonspecifics. Does that justification make it okay?
Like many disabled people, I’ve had my stories told for me, without my consent, “for the greater good.” The sense of profound personal violation that results does not make up for the supposed social benefit.
As a journalist, this is an issue I think about: Would this action bother me, if I was on the receiving end? Or has someone who’s been in a similar position told me it was violating and upsetting? Because if so, that’s an indicator that I need to find another way to tell the story.
There’s a way to report on this serious epidemic in our community that respects privacy and autonomy, as for example in a later installment in the series where victim privacy is respected. Why couldn’t the same have been done across the board?
It’s actually sadly ironic that this happened to my sister one time? We were at my mom’s friend’s house, and my sister asked for pepper, and my mom’s friend put pepper on her plate and then just….. kept putting pepper on it until it was completely covered, even though my sister and his wife kept telling him to stop.
“If someone does not explicitly and enthusiastically say yes and very clearly express consent to sexual relations of any kind, then the answer is always NO” isn’t a difficult fucking concept and yet here we are with a lot of you fuckos insisting otherwise.
Hesitant and saying yes after being repeatedly pressured? It means no, you fuck.
Silence? Yep, you guessed it, that means no.
Going still and being unresponsive physically and/or verbally when you try something? It. Means. NO.
Intoxicated, inebriated, or in any other way shape or form not coherent and clear headed? Automatic no. You cannot consent to something in that state of mind.
Saying yes but clearly uncomfortable or upset? It means no, stop what you’re doing.
Says yes and halfway through what you’re doing says no/becomes unresponsive/shows visible signs of being uncomfortable or upset? It means no, stop immediately, not “continue until I’m finished because they said yes at first”.
Y’all need to get this shit through your thick skulls because I’m 100% done of the victim blaming, self-entitled, bullshit mentality I keep seeing.
Here’s the dirty little secret about this though: there is no such thing as withholding sex because there is no situation in which you owe another human being sex. Ever. Your body is 100% your own and you get to consent or not consent to other people doing things to or with your body for whatever the hell reason you would like. This includes because you’re pissed off at the person, because they did something you didn’t like, because you just don’t fucking feel like it, because you’re tired, because you don’t feel attractive, because you’d rather read a book…any of the above. And not wanting to have sex with someone because you have negative feelings towards them at a given moment is not in fact punishment. It’s actually a very natural human feeling not to want to be physically intimate with someone when you’re annoyed/angry/hurt/sad with them. Oddly enough letting someone be close to your body when you don’t feel emotionally close to them doesn’t always feel great (if that’s your thing then go for it, but for those who don’t like it then there is no fucking reason to apologize).
But the idea that you can pull some sort of power play in a relationship by not giving the other person something which you don’t owe to them in the first place makes no sense. It would be like telling your partner that you’re going to punish them by not baking them chocolate chip cookies every day: sure, maybe they would like those cookies but in no way are you obligated to bake them cookies anyway, so they should probably be just fine getting along without it. The idea that you should feel as if the only way you can express that you’re angry or upset or unhappy in your relationship is by taking ownership over your body in a way that is so basic it should never have been a question is somewhat disgusting. If your partner has you so convinced that you owe them sex, no wonder you feel a little angry or vindictive towards them.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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