Sunday, March 16, 2008

"No."

Alan and I were having sex with me on top, and he reached his hand down to rub my clit.

I'm a mutant; I don't like clit stimulation. I'm okay with general crotch-area stimulation that rubs my clit indirectly, but a firm finger directly on the money button is just... too much. I think it's comparable to the way men feel about their cocks right after orgasm: it's intolerably hypersensitive.

So I said "stop that," and tried to push his hand away. He actually pushed against me kept it there, kept rubbing me in that horrible uncomfortable way even as I said again "no, stop, it's too much."

"It's not too much. You like it!"

"Please stop. I really don't like it." I physically yanked his hand out of my crotch and he finally gave up. We kept having sex, of course, and the rest of it was very nice, and I got off like five times and he didn't at all, so nyahhh.

Still I'm annoyed. It's roughly the millionth time a guy has told me "no, no, I swear you like this" when I said I didn't. The funny part is that it's almost always something ostensibly done for my pleasure--guys never want to force me to give blowjobs or anything, they want to force me into uncomfortable fingering and cunnilingus and vibrator play. If I could only get over my initial reluctance to receive pleasure, they think, they'd bring me such bliss.

I know I'm a little idiosyncratic in the way I work, and I don't blame Alan for touching me the wrong way, but I do blame him for not listening to "no."

Do other women say it insincerely? Is that my problem? Are there girls out there going "no, no, yes" or using "no" to mean "oh, that's just too naughty, tee hee"? Because if so, those girls suck and they're ruining men for those of us who know what we don't like and are just trying to communicate that.

Or if women don't do that, where do guys get this idea? Is it the media or something? There's usually some way to blame the media.

It's hardly a big deal, it was a tiny little finger move and a momentary misunderstanding. It just bothers me that a guy like Alan needs any convincing, under any circumstances, that "no" means "no."


(Benny, always happy to be on the worse side of any comparison, once actually fucked me against a "no," and not in scene or anything--we were just hanging out naked in bed and he got on me and I wasn't really ready and said so and he started anyway. Again, it was mere moments until things got sorted out, but... I could swear I was audible the first time, goddammit.)

10 comments:

  1. Actually, I don't think you're particularly weird for that. A lot of women don't enjoy it.

    And seriously, no means no means no means no means...how clearly does this need to be spelled out? I think the problem is that (some) guys have this idea that they know what feels good and that women are just too repressed to enjoy themselves.

    My problem, on the other hand, is that I have this powerful reflex to kick whenever something like that happens. Has made for some awkward sex.

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  2. Aebhel - Yeah, and I kind of wonder about other women (the "typical woman" with low sex drive and high vanity is kind of a theoretical construct to me, but I'm pretty sure they exist somewhere) and maybe they are too repressed to enjoy themselves and that's where guys get these ideas.

    Never actually kicked Brandon. I've flailingly kicked and punched Jon innumerable times (that's what happens when I said not to tickle me, bastard!) but due to his brick-shithouse build it never really bothered him.

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  3. I myself am not big on the clit stimulation. I can tolerate it for a while, but I think it sends me over the edge way too fast and I don't get to enjoy it as long as actual penetration. I know exactly what you mean about the intolerable hypersensitivity thing though... I think that's how it is for me too.

    My boyfriend is (I think...) better with the "not forcing something I don't like" though. I think with him he knows I don't like it, the same way I know that he'd get pretty pissed if I tried to do anything involving his butt - so I don't.

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  4. "A firm finger directly on the money button" is often too much stimulation even for women who like clitoral stimulation. (Heck, I can even do that to myself if I'm too inattentive.) So your mutant status is still up in the air.

    The "not listening to no" part is problematic enough - I say "problematic" rather than something stronger, because I can think of a lot of scenarios in which it isn't a straightforward violation; f'ex, if my partner is doing more than one thing, s/he may have no idea which of those things I'm saying "no" about. That you tried to push his hand away pretty much eliminates that sort of confusion, though.

    But what really makes steam come out of my ears is "I don't like it." "Yes, you do." That one's not just about sexual agency, it's about agency, period - and I get just as pissed off when it occurs in a non-sexual context. That's not just a denial of my right to choose what activities I engage in, it's a denial of my ability to make an informed choice.

    Do other women say "no" insincerely? It seems regrettably likely. If girls are still being told by their mothers and their friends that it's necessary to downplay their intelligence because men find it unattractive (and they are), they're most likely still being told that putting up a show of reluctance is necessary to not being considered "easy". Or whatever that's morphed into via the progress we have made regarding female sexuality.

    I agree that it sucks, and I've been bitching about it ruining men's communication skills for years. But it sucks worse than that; women who use "no" to mean "I'm a Good Girl(tm) so I'm not supposed to say 'yes'" or "talk me into it" are setting the stage for rapes in which the guy honestly isn't sure if it was rape. (Not letting the guys off the hook on that - nothing preventing them from taking the Good Girl at her word and stopping.) I very much doubt that women who play coy passive-aggressive word games are as common as some anti-feminists claim they are, but they do exist.

    I ramble, in a way that I should save for my own blog; this is stuff right at the core of why I'm a feminist and what sort of feminist I am.

    Back to the immediate issue, I'm inclined to think that asking Brandon (in non-sexual circumstances and not in a defensiveness-triggering way), "I'm wondering why...." Could be a conviction that you're just "reluctant to receive pleasure", or that he'll be the Magic Man who will do it Just Right where all others have failed, or something, but there's no way to know what he was thinking short of asking.

    Sunflower

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  5. My first (kiss/sex/wife) got upset with me quite a bit.

    "Why'd you stop?"

    You said 'no' (or 'stop').

    "But I didn't mean it."

    Doesn't matter. It's a bad idea for any part of your brain to think it's okay for your partner to keep going after you've said 'no'.

    The only exception to this, was once when I was playing around with another girlfriend years later. She was upset at me until we talked about it, but I guess I broke my own rule. Since she was giggling when she said 'stop!' I thought she didn't really mean it.

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  6. I can't answer all of those, but yes, women say "no" insincerely. A lot. Some of them get really annoyed when you take them at their word, too. That's why men have so many "read her mind" jokes.

    One of the nice things about being married to a woman for awhile is that you learn the patterns of which things she says "no" to when she doesn't really mean it. This means you get into less trouble.

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  7. I don't think it's so much insincerity as it is a process by which women say "no" or "stop" or more likely "wait" when they mean "Not yet... I want to think about this for a minute..." and then when he pushes, she either decides that she has thought about it enough, or that she feels good and doesn't want to think about it after all, and the scene continues.

    Unfortunately this does set a bad precedent for men who see this as part of some "game" that women are playing, rather than realizing that they missed an opportunity to really talk to their partner about her needs and desires.

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    1. Some of this is EXACTLY on for me. I do have a high libido, but occasionally, I feel like I'm too tired for sex and I'll turn my boyfriend down. When I first realize he is communicating he wants the sexy times, I'm not sure if I'm too tired or not. I don't want to get us all hot and bothered only to realize I just want to go to sleep, but if I DO feel up to sex, I don't want to pass up the opportunity. What now? I've gotten much better at verbalizing a "maybe, let me think," but initially I was bewildered as to what to say. I didn't mean no, but I didn't mean yes, so yikes! If someone never gets the chance to grow like I did, they'd still be stuck in the territory of saying yes or no when they meant maybe.

      What are the consequences of not learning "maybe?" Personally, if I said yes then realized I was not up for it, it was more of a let down for both of us. I didn't like leaving him turned on while I dozed off. For some people, their partners might not recognize that a yes can change to a no (serious red flag, but also seemingly too common). If, on the other hand, I said no then changed my mind, it put me in the camp that Bex just described. Typically, my mind changed without any additional pressure: he would have taken matters into his own hand (pun totally intended), and I would decide to join in. But if it's accompanied by repeated pushing from the guy, then he learns that no means yes if I push enough times, which is a dangerous place to be.

      We talk a lot about yes/no, which is absolutely important. But I think "maybe" really needs to be explored more: how to respect receiving a maybe and whatever decision follows, how to communicate the need for more time to think, and so on. There's a lot of pressure to not say the exact word "no", and it muddies the water around a maybe.

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  8. Every sexual encounter I've ever had has resulted from a guy being aggressively persistent. I would say no, they would ignore me and keep with the fumbling and the groping, I would still say no, and they would persist, with wheedling type voices, and "come onnnnn baby" and more fumbling, until I simply stopped saying no and didn't say anything at all, and they did whatever the hell they wanted.

    It became an awkward, "I said no, what do I do now? Do I hit them? Isn't that rude?" situation for me and I hated confrontation and I didn't want to be rude. I didn't want to have sex, either, but since the polite "no" didn't do anything, I considered myself out of options unless I wanted to be terribly gauche and make a scene.

    I now know that this was the wrong thing to do (on both sides, I think), and that I should be able to say no and not be ignored, and that it's not all my fault and that a guy shouldn't have to be slapped to realise that you're not on board.

    Still, in my experience the sad fact has been that saying "no" does nothing whatsoever, and since I'm still not great at confrontation, this has led to me avoiding being alone with men in general.

    Weirdly, I feel like the only time my wishes are particularly considered is within the BDSM scene, I suppose because consent is a big issue there.

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  9. This is why I establish, and emphasize, safe words early in any relationship. That way when the half-giggled "no" is actually a no, she can just say the safe word and I'm sure that I won't be asked, "why'd you stop?"

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