Saturday, November 2, 2013

Here's To Your Entitlement


HEATHER MAHER

“No, I don’t want to see you tomorrow!” came the screech from your mouth, as you slammed the door of my Subaru — with impressive force, I might add. “I wanted to hang out tonight!” I smiled at myself in the rearview mirror as I realized my predictions of your extreme levels of entitlement were true.  We had had sex a few times a few months ago and now you finally expressed your inability to accept that I simply didn’t care to have sex with you again. To you, sex is something women owe you, something you deserve to have because of how slick and cunning and handsome and rich you are. Until I came into your life, you were always successful in your conquests. Consent, in its full meaning, was nothing on which you were ever inclined to teach yourself. I ask myself now, how much of that notion is a conscious decision, and how much is simply what you’ve been taught by a society that does not hold such values or respect in sexual relationships.

As a child and as a teenager there were never conversations in my religious household about the issues of consensual sex. Did your parents talk about it with you? Other than warnings about not letting anyone touch my private parts, and to tell a trusted adult if someone ever did violate my body, sex was simply something I was not going to experience until marriage. The general consensus from discussions with my friends who hail from a variety of backgrounds is that their families rarely talked to them about consent or sex positivity. I found this to be especially true with boys.

Perhaps your problem is that mainstream media teaches impossible standards of acceptability when it comes to sexual intimacy. Women in particular are expected to “put out” while still maintaining a virginal image.  We’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. Even when we express that we don’t want to continue a sexual relationship, those wishes are often ignored. Why would you think that ignoring those wishes leads to any real legal consequence? Because most of the time, there are none. 

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 54 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police and 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail. Even in publicized trials about photo documented sexual assault, the survivors are still questioned about the validity of the incident and are blamed for their trauma because they were drunk or dressed “slutty”. Where is the public discussion about what it means to have consensual sex every step of the way in every sexual situation? 

Practicing good consent means asking if it’s okay to touch your partner, asking if its alright to keep moving forward toward intercourse, being observant of their physical reaction to you and taking the time to pause and asking if what you are doing feels good and if they want it to continue. No one owes you any part of his or her body at any time, for any reason. Consent is respecting that just because someone had sex with you before, does not mean that they are obligated to have sex with you again. They can say yes today and no tomorrow. 

Consent is about respecting another person’s body and caring for their emotional well being. 

It is acknowledging that physical intimacy with another is a privilege that we get to partake in together as humans.
I may never know exactly what was going through your head that day you pitched a fit outside of my car. I don’t care enough about you to bother finding out. What I do care about is the next woman you have the honor of fucking. I care about how you approach her, how you talk to her, and how much respect you show her. Who you have sex with doesn’t matter. When you have sex doesn’t matter. Where and why you have sex doesn’t really matter either. What matters, is that you understand you are not entitled to anything from her. I didn’t get to slam a door in your face, but I hope you get my point. 

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