I've been thinking a lot about the double standards of sex lately.
Last night, while Derek and I were taking a shower, I stared off into space thinking about the reasons people have affairs. When Derek asked me what I was thinking about, I posed the question to him and he said that it's what people need to get in order. Look, you guys, my husband thinks he's a fucking cut up, and I think it's time for a divorce.
He continued by saying that affairs are not as messy as a divorce, so they seem like an easier avenue. I countered with affairs being FAR messier, and the debate went nowhere. Besides, that wasn't even what I meant, but this is only tangentially related. Affairs DO play into the double standard of consent, but whether or not I'll get there remains to be seen.
The first time I kissed a boy for reals, with all of the sexual trappings of adolescence and figuring out how much fun kissing was, was in a tree with Jimmy Reyes. I was about 13, I think Jimmy was VAGUELY older than me, it was summer time, Jimmy liked me with his penis, I did not like Jimmy with my vagina, but he was a good friend of mine, so when he asked if he could kiss me, I figured I had nothing to lose. Kissing a boy I wasn't invested in with my blossoming (read: awkward and really fucking oblivious) sexuality seemed like a very safe and logical foray into sex. If I was terrible at it, well, Jimmy had no fucking basis for comparison, now did he? If he was terrible at it, I could make fun of him. See? Safe.
The big take away here is he ASKED. Jimmy asked if he could kiss me, I said yes, we kissed, it was one hundred percent legit. I don't even remember if the kiss was any good (though I think it was, because I VAGUELY remember trying to come up with reasons that Jimmy and I should, you know, keep kissing...in trees, or other exotic locations. Like ditches), but I do remember him asking, and I remember not thinking that was weird or anything. I didn't think it was nice, either. I had no idea WHAT to think about it, because I had never been kissed before in a serious way. I think the first time I kissed a boy, I was in kindergarten, his name was Brad, and we used to call each other on the phone and scream. Literally scream into the phone, because children are fucking bizarre and intensely crazy. That could just be me and Brad, but uh....I'd rather make sweeping generalizations than label myself alone as bizarre and intensely crazy. Having no baseline for how kissing was to be approached, Jimmy asking me to smooch was neither nice nor odd, it just was what happened.
When Richard, the tree I was "dating", wanted to kiss me, he didn't ask, he just went for it. With disastrous consequences. I was scared to kiss Richard, and the bias of memory wants to say him asking for permission to kiss me would have made me feel safer, though I can't be sure. I tell my son a lot about the power of ICK (thank you, Dame Emma Thompson!!!), and I wonder sometimes if I wasn't feeling fear, I was feeling ICK over Richard and I kissing. I can't ever know for sure. I can say that Richard and I did eventually kiss, a few times (Please feel free to revisit my retrospective on kissing Richard, because there is not enough time for me to talk here again about the levels of weird and gross kissing him was), and it wasn't like I wanted to say NO, I just didn't really want to say YES, but I didn't want to be labeled a prude (that, my friends, is the ENTIRE FUCKING BASIS of my career as a promiscuous tartlet. I have come to enjoy being a wanton slag, but if my fear of men not wanting me if I didn't immediately open my legs hadn't been so real, who knows what kind of lady I'd be today?), so I kissed Richard because it was there as an activity.
I don't remember who I kissed next, but I know it was a lot of people. A lot of men kissed me without asking, and you guys....I thought nothing of it. The one time I had been asked permission for someone to touch my body sexually drifted from my memory, and I was lucky enough to be in positions where every single time someone kissed me, I wanted them to. It took....uh....three years for someone to ask me if they could kiss me, and I really fucking tanked it.
I met Gary at a bus stop, like ya do. I remember EXACTLY what I was wearing, because....ugh. Because I was wearing corduroys in earnest with a long sleeved, skin tight rugby shirt in various shades of pink, with fucking gold, sparkly Vans. To say I was a fashion icon would be selling me short, obviously. Gary was wearing a grey t-shirt with jorts (JORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTS. Fucking JORTS OH MY GOD JORTS), and the kind of sunglasses that are mostly worn by fans of Entourage and date rape. He took off his sunglasses to talk to me, he was polite and engaging and really cute, so I gave him my number, he called me later, and the next day, we had a little date. He took the bus to my house (I assume), brought me a little bouquet of flowering weeds, and we went out to Sushi 21 behind my apartment, then took a walk around the area I lived. We walked to this big, open rock space about a mile down the street from my house (I called it my lucky spot, both because I ALWAYS scored with dudes if I took them there, and also because I fucking suck and am gross and am so part of the problem, and ew, lucky spot? I fucking weep for myself at that age), and while we were walking back, Gary stopped me and said, "Do you think it would be alright if I kissed you?"
Here's where I dropped the ball.
Instead of appreciating that Gary saw me as a person with her own feelings and desires that should be respected enough to be asked for permission to engage her body in a sexual manner, I labeled Gary as a coward. I legitimately did that. I vocalized it, too. One of my best friends and I were writing a handbook of sorts about the men we dated. We called it The Guyde, because we think we're the cleverest (to be quite frank, the title still makes me laugh), and we boiled men down to about ten types, five for each of us. This is not an unpopular way to figure people out: OKCupid did the same thing, but with FAR funnier results. I wrote about Gary in The Guyde, and I think I called him The Travelling Salesman. It took me a little bit of time to remember where we had stashed The Guyde so I could quote myself in here, but I tracked it down. I'm glad I did, because it turns out, I didn't recall the details as accurately as I thought I had. Here is what I wrote about Gary asking permission to kiss me:
"Still playing the gentleman I percieved him to be, Gary asked me how I'd react if he kissed me right then and there. I was trying to play suave, so I said I would decline since I didn't have any gum to freshen my breath. In retrospect, it made me sound hygeine defficient, not deathly cool and collected. In one deft movement, he handed me a piece of Winterfresh. A move I hadn't been expecting. He let me chew it for a few minutes, and as I rambled on about losing my favorite earring, he kissed me."
Couple of things:
I have somehow remembered telling Gary off for asking me if it was ok to kiss him, and I don't know why. The ONLY thing I can think of is that somewhere in my head, I thought tearing him down for being a gentleman made me look good, and him look foolish. The woman I am now hates the woman I was then for that idea. This plays really well into how I personally see the rift in where we're at as a society with enthusiastic consent. More on that later.
Second thing, I re-read The Guyde, and I could barely fucking contain my laughter. Some of it is earnestly funny, but the rest of it is so fucking awful that the only thing I can do is laugh. My horrible attempts at comedy make me cringe, and also make me terrified for how I'll feel about this blog in seventeen years (that's how old The Guyde is, and I haven't read it since 2005, with my last entry being The Hopeless(ly lame) Romantic, about a young man named Ronan that I REALLY fucking dealt a raw set to, and I still carry a small amount of guilt for how I treated him). Some of the snippets still strike me as funny, because I remember how real they were when they happened. For instance, if we follow the story about Gary, we get this gem:
" This is where the traveling salesman starts to slip up. Their kisses morph depending on the woman, and I must have been a terrible woman."
This still makes me laugh. I assume it's because it's a personal anecdote, and also because I think I'm fucking hysterical, but I'd also like to think it's because it's a genuinely funny remark. Time will tell, I suppose. Time = my husband.
Gary DID ask to kiss me, I tried to be cool and failed, and then he didn't ask again, he just....did the damn thing. I didn't tell him no. I had wanted him to kiss me, and that's what I've been skirting the whole time.
There's an intensely electric buzz in the air before you know someone that you want to fuck is going to kiss you for the first time. Body language changes, the air is thick, every god damn second melts into forever, and the tension is palpable. I LOVE those moments. They're terrifying and exciting and sexual and intense and delicious. Utterly, utterly delicious. Those moments are compounded when I don't just want to fuck someone, but I want to be real with someone and keep them around. I can't describe those moments at all, even with my best and most flowery of metaphor ridden prose. Those are the absolute best moments of my life; the most alive I've ever felt. The most in touch with my humanity and how deeply troubling it is to want to be vulnerable and sexual and intimate with another human being who may not feel the same way as you do, even though they're going to kiss you for the first time any fucking minute and you have to hold on to the ground through your feet as hard as you fucking can, but also what if it's terrible, where does the spark go and what do you do with your disappointment then? While I have had no shortage of excitement over a kiss that was about to happen, only four have been of that highest echelon: Allen, David, Dan, and Derek. In that order (consecutive order, not order of importance. I should clarify).
Did any of them ask me for permission to kiss me? Not a one. Much like Gary, they all leaned in and just did the damn thing, and that was one thousand percent ok with me. I wanted them to. To me, and perhaps to them (I don't know, I can't speak for them), the permission didn't need to be granted verbally. Body language, facial cues, this shit all signaled that I was way into the impending physicality, so why bother asking for permission when it's far more accepted that just going for it is how first kisses are done? There's no sweep in stopping the moment to fumble your words and ask someone to kiss them. Where's the sexual buzz in that? Where's the drama? Where's the fun? Where's the allowability for your mouths to stop just shy of themselves to smile for a split second before kissing? It's motherfucking nowhere.
Except it is.
It is unfair to Justin that he received an insanely long text about how little he respected my body, how little care he showed for my personal space, how little he picked up on any of the thousands of cues I was rocketing down on him that I didn't want to be physical while Allen, David, Dan, and Derek get to live in a little corner of my brain labeled "WORLD'S BEST FIRST KISSES", because the only fucking difference between my interaction with Justin and my interactions with those four men is that I WANTED them to kiss me. Yes, that is a huge difference, but the principle of all five males' behaviors is EXACTLY the fucking same.
Knowing that, how responsible am I for perpetuating the idea that men don't need to ask permission? Strike that, let me not be heteronormative here: how responsible am I for perpetuating the idea that people don't need to ask permission before kissing someone for the first time? So. Fucking. Responsible. I've been wrestling with the idea of fault since my interaction with Justin a few weeks ago. I definitely, definitely DEFINITELY fucking believe that he is one thousand percent in the wrong for how he behaved. If we are all acting on the idea that one person takes on all of the action to begin sexual engagement, and we base a partner's willingness on body language and physical cues, this is STILL Justin's problem. I tossed rejection left and fucking right, and he ignored it. If that was malicious is something I'll never know, but he still ignored my cues and kept heading down the assumed road to Plow Town.
How much of the burden rests on my shoulders, though? This has kept me up at night, literally. Should I have vocalized my displeasure at the idea of being physical with Justin? The answer is yes, but it's more complicated than yes. It's also no. I don't know if other people have this fear, but my primary motivator for utilizing distance rather than vocalizing a lack of desire for physicality stems from an awkward span of time turning into a hateful span of time. Had I told Justin "Um, look, dude, this isn't that kind of chill sesh. Tone down the 'mones and let's day drink and watch True Detective, because it's REALLY good, and nothing sexual will happen because I am seriously not interested in your wiener", there's every possibility that he could turn right around and say, "WOAH, calm down, Drea, I just wanted to hang out, don't be so god damn presumptuous, I'm not interested." Would I feel like an asshole if I did that? Yeah. I may pretend my ego is rock solid, but it really isn't. Could it also have offended him so much that he just didn't want to hang with me anymore, had his intentions been purely platonic? Absolutely.
About eight years ago, I met my friend Ian on OkCupid. Ian was really fucking cool, Ian was attractive, but being around Ian I got a definitive bestie vibe, not a "someone I want to fuck" vibe. Joke's on me, Ian and I fucked for a little while, and BONUS, he TOTALLY got my consent first, but this was a couple years after we first met. The second time Ian and I hung out, he had come to have lunch with me while I was at work. We were just talking, and I said something about how our relationship would never be sexual, I just wanted him to know that. The look on his face was really surprised, and I don't know if it was rejection, or shock at my audacity, but I've ALWAYS felt strange about vocalizing to a man that we're not going to be lovers in the nighttime ever since. It rings as highly presumptuous to me, and I've since adopted the tactic of crossing that bridge when I come to it.
I'm guilty of kissing men JUST to either have something to do (ugh. More men than I can count have been ways to pass the time, despite my low interest in them), OR to escape a situation that felt threatening to me. I know a lot of people struggle to believe the idea that someone could be physical with someone to keep themselves out of harm's way even though they really don't want to do it, but it's a real thing. I've done it, I have friends that have done it; we are not anomalous, we are legion, mother fuckers.
I didn't fight back when I was raped. I said no a lot, and as he got increasingly violent, I shut my mouth and limply did what he wanted. My absolute fear that this man would fucking kill me if I fought back won, so I didn't. I don't constitute the times where I've gone along sexually to escape a scary interaction with a man as rape, though they skirt the line of sexual assault in my eyes. I don't negatively view the men who have kissed me instead of asking if they can. The spirit of all of these activities stems from people being taught that someone you want to be physical with will appreciate it more if you just GO FOR IT rather than getting enthusiastic consent, and I am part of the problem there.
I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I'm in a relationship where my husband and I can kiss each other without having to ask for permission, and the few times I've said no during sex, he's heard me and we've stopped. The permission phase isn't OVER, but there's an understanding of each other where we know there's no need to ask, we just need to hear the "no" and heed it when it comes. But...what if I were to, say, have an affair? Or what if my marriage doesn't work out, and I start dating again? What woman will I be in interactions like those?
I teach my son about enthusiastic consent. That he needs to be aware of the right others have to their boundaries, and if you're going to be physical with someone, you absolutely HAVE to know, without a doubt, that it is 100% ok to touch them, or kiss them. I believe in what I'm teaching him fervently, I want him to be a good person, and I want him to be respectful and attentive to the needs of whomever he rubs groins with.
Would I require this, though? If I were to find myself cruising for someone new, and I was really into them and they were really into me and I felt that incredible chemistry tickling its way through time and bursting into my head like a lightning bolt, and I silently knew we both wanted to be in each other's mouths....would I expect them to ask me if it was ok? I'd like to think I would. I can imagine that moment being exponentially hotter, broken up with tense requests and anxious hands and heavy breathing, and while I don't chase romance anymore and haven't in two decades, I recognize the romance in the idea that someone sees you as a person with bodily autonomy that is to be respected and treated as an equal, with dignity enough to make sure you want what they want because anything less than a hot and heavy YES just would not be sexy. I see that. But I also still see what I, from the safety of my marriage, consider an antiquated, but hot just the same, method of just taking what you want from your new hopeful partner and counting on them wanting what you want, and dissolving into each other silently, because you both just knew that your bodies had to be touching, as still being a sexy and viable approach, as well. I read that sentence out loud three times, and I know it's clunky, but I said what I said and I'm not sorry about how I said it.
I AM sorry about the sentiment, though. I hate that I still think that's kind of sexy, with the appeal hinging on the sexual viability of the other person in the scenario.
I know I am part of the problem, and I do now know how to get out of this hideous fucking hypocrisy wheel.
This is not to say that I accept blame for Justin. I will grant him that he is not a mind reader, and I should not have been anything other than forthcoming about my non-existent desire to fuck him. I did kind of lead him on, even though I never explicitly stated YES WE ARE DOING THIS...I lead him on by not explicitly stating that he needed to fucking tamp down his notion that we were going to fuck JUST because we had fucked before, or I had mentioned his penis on my podcast, or we were still friendly, when he would float ideas of us being sexual. I relied on my unwillingness to engage him sexually via text as being the sole signal that honestly, his language was tiring and I'm a human woman with a brain that's worth being friends with instead of just seeing as a body that's worth dumping semen on or into, when I should have just flatly said no. I played a part in him thinking something would happen, and while having an expectation of ANYBODY'S body and how they're going to use it with you is fucked up and dangerous, it's not like I don't blame myself for how he got there. I could have done far more to make it clear that my vagina was not open for his business. I thought he'd understood, but I was being naive.
I wonder about who I am now, outside of my marriage. I get to rely on my marriage for a lot of the preaching I do about feminist ideals as they apply to the bodily autonomy of others, and I will be honest: I am scared about what the microscope of being single would reveal about who I am outside of principle.
