First, I just want to say how thrilled I am that after two years of sign-up and login troubles, I've finally succeeded! I've been a lurker for a while, itching to comment on the brilliant Feministing posts but unable to do so, and now I've made it through and what better time than now, when there's a community blog where I can say hello to all you beautiful ladies (and pro-woman dudes)?
The reason I'm writing tonight, even though I'm only a third of the way through the book and even though I'm coming home after thirteen hours in the law building and pretty darned tired, is that I'm just bursting to talk about my experience with Yes Means Yes , which I know you all know and love by now. I'm not someone schooled in feminist literature or women's studies at all. For a long time, I assumed that there wasn't much I could learn from books about feminism or female sexuality. At very first glance the topic seemed very interesting, but when I thought about reading a book on the subject I thought "well what else could there possibly be to learn?" "What don't I know already about women's rights or my sexuality?" As it turns out, a heck of a lot.
A while ago, I read Felice Newman's amazing The Whole Lesbian Sex Book . I was sure that there was nothing I could learn from a lesbian sex manual. How much can there be? Touch, lick, rub, okay, you're running out of options. As it turns out, the book was absolutely amazing, and I learned all sorts of new things about sexuality and how to approach sexuality. So far, Yes Means Yes has been the same experience for me, multiplied. This is going to sound ridiculous, coming from a twenty-three year old who's done a fair amount of reading and research on gender and sexuality issues, but I've never personally known the meaning of "empowerment." I've never felt personally empowered. Reading the first few essays in this book, including Margaret Cho's foreword, I finally understand what it means to feel empowered.
My approach to books about women and our sexuality has always been something like this. I know it all already. It's not that I don't know whatever's in those books, it's just that I'm doing it all wrong! Especially with sexuality, that's been my assumption. I know, intellectually, that I'm supposed to speak up and talk about my wants and needs, but I'm not doing it. My bad. I know that I need to be confident, and I break down. That's my fault! I'm an extremely open person, no such thing as sexual TMI, I even write erotica, and yet I become a timid, shy little girl when it comes to making a move or talking about sex in person with a lover. There's something wrong, and I need to fix it.
Where does this blame come from? This book turned on a lightbulb for me, one that I'm actually ashamed of because it should be completely obvious. I don't know why I didn't completely get this before, but I think I'm starting to. It's this culture of rape, and this culture of female sexuality, all wrapped up together in convoluted ways. The fundamental assumption I carry that if I only take the initiative, improve myself, etc., the sex would be better, doesn't just come from somewhere inside me. It comes from a culture that expects certain things of women.
I now identify proudly and happily as a lesbian, but from age sixteen to age twenty-one I identified as bisexual. I never had a particularly horrible sexual experience, and I've never really given myself permission to place any responsibility on my past partners for the mediocre experiences I did have. When I was eleven, a fifteen-year-old boy used my immaturity and desire to have a boyfriend to get to a few "bases" with me. I just didn't get why when I thought about kissing, I imagined tongues and all of that, but when he said "kiss me," I instinctively bussed his cheek. When he did manage to grab and kiss me for real, I was repulsed, and annoyed with myself. When he got his hand up under my shirt and touched my breast, I was embarrassed, the principal feeling I felt about that experience for a very long time. Fortunately it didn't go past that.
When I was seventeen, I dated a girl for six months, and it was a great "starter" relationship. I've never thought of that relationship as involving any negative physical elements until tonight, but now that I look back with this new lens, it occurs to me that her constant need for PDA that made me uncomfortable, or her surprise birthday present to me of taking off her top in a locked bedroom with her parents in the house (they didn't know she was gay), or her sticking her hand in my lap in the back row of the movie theatre were all things that I didn't want but also that she should have talked to me about. One of the best things about the book for me is that it broadens my understanding of consent. I'm not shifting the blame entirely, but I am putting it on both of us.
The same goes for my college boyfriend. I've always had trouble putting any blame on him because he's such a nice guy. Not a Nice Guy™, but honestly, a really sweet, caring gentleman. He always asked, often several times, before doing something new. He was constantly asking me if I was enjoying myself. Sometimes I lied, sometimes I didn't. We were both virgins when we started dating, and were together for a year and a half. He wasn't particularly sexual as a person, and I am. I'm quite sexually open, but put the two of us in a bedroom and it was like you'd spread my lips with super glue. Once we opened that can of worms, though, he wanted to do it fairly often, and it was always mediocre for me.
I kept telling him that orgasm wasn't essential, and I believed that it wasn't. I felt some sensation from intercourse that was pleasant, along with the pain, and that was nice. He never kissed me anywhere other than on the mouth the entire time we dated, and he never touched me anywhere, though after about six months of having sex I finally got up the courage to ask him to put his fingers… you know… there. I managed to get off, even though he did it wrong. But it was my, fault, right? He asked. I didn't speak up. My fault.
Now I'm not quite so sure. I should have spoken up more, but I think that our culture could benefit from men who feel more inclined to keep asking, and to understand sudden shyness or silence from a normally very talkative person to be a danger sign. Before him, I was completely boisterous, but with him I was a wallflower. I became weak and girlish, and when I came out to him as bisexual about halfway through our relationship (I assumed he knew implicitly) we both cried. He wanted me to change to straight, and I refused, but I did a lot of placating. Over time, though I never had wanted children and always wanted to live all over the world, I started to consider staying in the state and having his kids. After all, he was a Nice Guy! I knew I could do much worse, and I didn't want to hurt him. Once, about a year in, I asked him after about half an hour of stuttering and curling my body up into a ball if he might be willing to you know put his tongue you know down there you know? His answer, which I will never forget, was "I'm sorry, I'm not really interested in that." I had assumed that as soon as I got up the courage, he would say yes, or at least maybe, or I'll try it. I probably shouldn't blame him for that, because guys shouldn't be required to do what they don't like any more than girls should be, but it was a really painful moment for me, and when we had intercourse that night I felt dead inside. Once we had sex towards the end of the relationship and I asked myself "is this what rape feels like?" I chided myself for a really stupid mental question – of course not, he loves me, he'd never want to hurt me. But maybe, though it wasn't rape, I wasn't so stupid after all. Maybe that's just part of the feminist understanding of consent.
I'm starting to understand that I'm not alone, and that we're all – male and female – taught to be silent about these things. I'm starting to understand that it isn't my fault that I can't open my big mouth in bed. I've always fantasized about filling out a checklist with a partner. When I was young, I imagined those lists of things you like in bed in the teen magazines, and when I got older it became more along the lines of a BDSM checklist as suggested in the book. Wouldn't that be freaking amazing, if we could actually have a list of what our partner wanted? If we could write down the things we can't say out loud?
Maybe some of you are already there, and I'm so happy for you, you have no idea. I don't know whether I'll get there, but I hope so. I will say that my standards have gone up a lot since that college relationship. I haven't had a relationship since then, though I haven't been celibate either. My feeling these days is that if I can't find a confident woman who's willing to push a little and likes to be open about sexuality, who's happy with a slightly shy lesbian submissive with a big 'ole brain who cares very deeply about honesty and trust, then I'm happiest being single. But I did, not too long ago, have what I can confidently call good sex for the first time. I'm embarassed admitting this - I feel like a child, and what does that say about our culture? But I do believe that it can only get better from here.
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thanks for this. i feel like a lot of young women (i'm 23 too) who may or may not identify as feminists still feel like they have a pretty good grasp of sexuality and women's rights. what i learned as i went through college and now the two years i've been out is...the more I know, the more I find out i don't know! it's all so complicated, complex, and alternately frustrating and empowering. but i hope people--especially my generation and the generations to come--never stop wanting to learn more, to push envelopes that are restricting, and to seek answers to unfair questions.
empowerment is so rad!
Exactly! It's sad that we're not really encouraged to look into these things, but I'm glad I have and I'm glad you have too. Empowerment, rock on!
Is this book being sold at barnes and noble?
Thanks for writing this, it was very relateable for me. It's good to know that we've had some similar experiences and realizations. I'm glad you were finally able to post (I've still never been able to)!
I hope you figure out how to soon! And it's always nice to learn that I'm not alone :-) Thanks for reading.
I found this really illuminating. I'm a heterosexual male (pro-woman dude!) and I've frequently found myself on both sides of that awkward, sexual openness divide you speak of, even in relationships with other self-identified feminists.
I'm interested in what else the community has to say on this subject and I'm excited to check out yes means yes. thanks for the post!
Wonderful post! This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been dating someone for the first time, and it's been strange for me to see how moving past "no means no" isn't as straight forward as I thought it would be. I've had experiences with guys who didn't really listen when I said no, and kept pressing to do things I didn't want, and I was floored when I realized my current boyfriend wasn't like that. But we got to a point where he would ask to do something, and I would choke. I didn't want to say no, but I was afraid to let myself say yes, I do want you to put your hands there, or whatever. Would I be a slut? What if Something Bad happened? It would be my fault for saying yes! I've found that embracing my sexuality not only means knowing my boundaries and saying no when they're reached, but allowing myself to say yes when I know it's what I want, and it's definitely something I still need to work on.
It's not a stupid question at all. I vividly remember lying in a hotel bed with the boy I lost my virginity to wondering the same thing. We'd been sleeping together for a while and going out for even longer, and he'd taken me on holiday for my 17th birthday. I felt like I owed him. I said yes, but I don't think we ever slept together again. Years later we're best friends, but I've never told him how I felt about sex.
I still have big problems, not helped by my contraceptive implant killing my libido
(or at least I hope it's the implant - I'm silently terrified that it might have died all by itself). I'm 21, have had sex with 20 men and a couple of women, and I'm not sure if I've ever had an orgasm. And that's the first time I've ever told anybody that. I think I need to get a copy of Yes Means Yes, does anyone know if it's available in the UK?
If you can't find it at your local bookstore, they have it on Amazon.
Another really good book is called "I love female orgasm" or "I
This book is really good on giving the facts, talking about consent, and encouraging exploration on sexuality.
Also, Powell's, a unionized bookstore that gives discounts to people in certain unions, has it. Buying it there would be a way better progressive move than buying it at Amazon!
Fantastic article, you really point to something that is virtually undiscussed today but still expected of all women. We are expected to know exactly what we want and also DEMAND it, be able to express oneself when really does this come "naturally?" Like you say, it's a socio-cultural phenomenon, and I am grateful that you have the courage and capacity to reveal such a constant, un-challenged aspect of our daily life. Thank you