Person A: Hey, want to come over tonight?
Person B: You know, I'd love to, but I'm so exhausted from work, I really need to get some sleep.
or Person A: Hey, want to come over tonight? Person B: No.
People of all genders really don't like saying "no" to things directly. Grasping this important cultural concept is one step on the path of learning how to communicate effectively about consent. But in my book, it's really not as important to understand why people hate saying "no" directly, as it is to understand that people hate saying "no" directly. It's necessary to understand that because it means that pushing someone until they say "no" can mean pushing them further than they wanted to go.
I believe that the most important role of social criticism -- including sex-positive feminism -- is not to tell people what to do. If you have sex that appears to be in line with ridiculous and oppressive stereotypes, I really do not care as long as everyone involved is consenting and having fun. I reserve the right to occasionally have consensual sex where a gentleman friend beats me up before fucking me, and I reserve the right to enjoy it.
But I want to offer sex-positive feminist analyses in order to help people understand themselves and their desires... and also understand their partners and their desires. I think that many people have sex they don't like, sex that's in line with ridiculous and oppressive stereotypes, because they haven't been exposed to anything they like better. I think many people have sex they don't like because they don't feel like they can look for something different -- they think it's the best they can get. I think many people have sex they don't like because they think it's what their partner wants -- and I think those people are frequently wrong, and I think most partners would genuinely prefer that everyone be having fun.
Which is why I try to deconstruct sexual norms and stereotypes. Which is why I encourage people to look for what they like. Which is why I always emphasize talking about it.
8) Awesome, respectful, joyful, mutual sex means approaching sex as collaborative rather than adversarial. Aside from solo sex (i.e. masturbation), sex always involves another person. And at its best, it's about having a good time with other people -- understanding their reality, accepting it, playing with it. The best metaphors I've ever heard for sex were all about collaborative art, like a musical jam performance. Here's a bit from Thomas MacAulay Millar's totally brilliant essay "Towards a Performance Model of Sex" (please do read the whole thing someday):
The negotiation is the creative process of building something from a set of available elements. Musicians have to choose, explicitly or implicitly, what they are going to play: genre, song, key and interpretation. The palette available to them is their entire skill set -- all the instruments they have and know how to play, their entire repertoire, their imagination and their skills -- and the product will depend on the pieces each individual
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018485