I think consent culture and female socialization keep running up against each other and interfering with each other. A lot of women (myself included) have such a hard time saying no to anything at all, or breaking a social script, or going against what everyone else is doing... I find it hard to even say a straight "no" to a store cashier when they ask me if I want a rewards card (I always say "not today" like I'm going to go home and seriously contemplate the pros and cons of an Old Navy credit card or whatever).
I have two contradictory impulses when it comes handling uncomfortable situations. One impulse is to assert what I actually want. The other impulse is to smooth everything over and not rock the boat - and because this impulse has been ingrained so deeply in me, it usually wins. We've layered a cultural expectation that women will assert themselves in sexually charged situations on top of an older, stronger, unspoken cultural rule that women should be polite and accommodating. It's like trying to mix oil and water, and I think it's a major contributor to clashes like Febos describes in her article.
And that older, stronger, unspoken cultural rule often exists to 'protect us' from violence. Even now there are so many stories of women asserting themselves and facing horrific consequences. Kate Manne wrote a book "Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny" that digs deep into the way our culture solidifies this "be nice or else" internalized logic in ways big and small.
It’s interesting that covid has clarified the boundaries for some people. For me, I feel like it’s only magnified the murkiness of social interaction. Do you hug? Do you elbow bump? Do you wear a mask? Do you talk about vaccinations or avoid the subject? It’s made hanging out with friends so stressful. I guess it would be easier if one is the same “tribe” as one’s friends, but for not-so-partisan people like me, covid has made boundaries more fluid and stressful, not clearer and more of a relief.
Just yesterday I went on the first walk of the "lots of vaccination" era where I could no longer expect to comfortably remain on the sidewalk. The groups of 3–5 friends who insist on walking in horizontal lines without making room for anyone to pass by are back, baby, and life in a college town is just as annoying as it was before. How quaint! And I felt a little petty making this observation, but reading this, it really is amazing how much safer I've felt walking around this year. Just having that personal space is something I came to take for granted. I miss it already!
One difference between NFP and other forms of pregnancy prevention is that contraception allows intercourse 365 days a year. Obviously for a lot of women that's a plus not a minus. But in private conversation, I've been interested to see how many women--in what they describe as very sexually happy and healthy marriages--nevertheless count periods in which they won't be asked if they want to have sex as a plus. They are often apologetic in tone when they say this, because they don't want it to sound like their husbands are pushy or that they don't enjoy sex. They're quick to say that neither of those are true! But they find saying yes and no tiring in some way. It's isn't even conveying yes or no, it's deciding yes or no in the first place.
Personally, I found saying yes or no while using NFP far more stressful. When the signs weren’t clear or I was feeling anxious, when it was the first day of Phase 3 and I felt like I owed it to my husband to say yes, when I felt bad because of cramps but knew it was the last day for a while - the stakes always seemed high. Funny thing was, I later found out that it stressed out my husband in exactly the same way! In our attempts to be sacrificial and accommodating towards each other we inadvertently had a lot of uncomfortable sex that neither of us really wanted all that much.
The necessity for limit-setting has entered my life most dramatically during the pandemic. Because of the clumsy response to this calamity from the national government, knowing what the rules are and following them—and for that matter, even knowing if any exist from the perspectives of some—has been tremendously contentious. And so, I face a dilemma any time I go out, which is rarely, as to whether I will confront the inevitable unmasked others out there. I don’t. Yet when the plumber comes to fix a leak, I do insist he keep his mask up over his nose. I have not eaten at a restaurant since last year, but I anticipate a few limits I may need to require. Last week, my brother invited us to dinner. Almost everyone was vaccinated, but not all. Had I known that ahead of time, would I have gone? Hmm ...that would have been a tough “no” to deliver. I am grateful that I am not navigating the dating scene as well at this time. Must be quite challenging!
Yes, in some ways, the pandemic has made negotiating limits *everyone's* jobs. No one knows for sure what the defaults are, so they can't coast on shared assumptions.
Oh goodness, can we talk about pregnant-belly-touching here? One time a kid grabbed my belly and his mother immediately told him he must never touch a pregnant woman without asking, so he asked. And I said yes automatically even though I didn't want to be touched at all.
For me, perversely, being asked explicitly makes it *harder* to say no, because I feel like, oh, this person is polite and respectful, so why wouldn't I say yes? I once danced like four songs in a row with a guy who made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, but he kept asking me if I felt comfortable, so I kept saying I was fine, because if he was asking, he must not be a creep, so why should I feel that way?
Ah, you are absolutely right about how politeness makes it feel like there is a higher threshold to say no. It is easier to block someone's rude hand than to feel like you're (verbally) slapping away a polite one.
I definitely had people ask! And, for my part, I was excited by it. I was so happy to be pregnant and I liked that it felt like my joy swept other people up, too. But I tried to stick to saying something like, "Yes" and not "Of course" so as to not muddy the water for others.
I was in Rome for a conference while I was pregnant and there _no one_ asked, they just went for it!
I think that a big effect that constantly being an enforcer of limits has had on me is that I have become much more aggressive, even towards people where I have no prior that they aren't asking in good faith. This makes me feel badass when I catch a man's arm in midair as he's trying to put it around me, but a little mean when I bluntly respond "No" if someone asks me to smile, or a stranger asks if they can give me a nickname (for some reason I get this one a lot, I guess "Magdalen" is too many syllables for some people).
While becoming more aggressive isn't always good, I think that my relative desensitization towards being firm even when it borders on impolite has allowed me to stick up for others when I need to. An example I can think of is firmly saying no to panhandlers when I can tell they are making a friend uncomfortable with their insistence.
It's a little harder to meditate on what I lose by being more aggressive--perhaps missed connections or friendships, perhaps simply my own innocence. That's definitely something I will be thinking on more because of your question.
"Part of the problem, Febos observes, is that patriarchy has burrowed so deeply into our brains that its oppressions feel natural, freely chosen, rather than coerced. “We learn to adopt a story about ourselves—what our value is, what beauty is, what is harmful and what is normal,” she writes. “This training of our minds can lead to the exile of many parts of the self.”"
I love this because it gets right to the heart of your question of morality. A simple 'yes means yes' concept of consent is flat, simple, and rejects the complexities at work. It reminds me of arguments made by libertarians (and neo-liberals) that a worker consents to their working conditions in the free market. But it is a coerced consent. And the coercion is at its core horrific, a devaluing of life and an evil use of another person as a means rather than treating them as an ends in themselves.
That said, is the issue the preeminence of "consent" in either case? I don't think so. We have so far to go to teach our sons and daughters about consent and about how their bodies are their own - and a lot of great people are doing that work and backing it up with rigorous research. The Dutch model is my favorite working case study at the moment, with comprehensive age appropriate sex ed starting at four and emphasizing loving and caring relationships. In at least one study, most Dutch teens said their first sexual experience was 'wanted and fun'. That's in contrast to nearly 70% of Americans saying they wished they had waited.
To go back to your question about consent being the marker of morality - to me, consent means recognizing your value and the value of others. It is a complicated concept that falls flat only if you take it out of context or misuse it. It encompasses the end-in-yourself worthiness of others as equal to your own. In a society where we treat most workers as miserably as we do, and glorify those who use others' bodies and minds as a means to their own wealth creation, it's no surprise we don't understand the power and weight consent should carry.
Martha - I was really thinking about "saying no" in the context of taking on work!
I tutor (mostly high school) students, and a couple years back, I saw the way that another tutor (on an online group of tutors) was anxiously "bending over backward" trying to perfectly please students/clients/families. In the background - unspoken - I imagined I heard, "I am worried that I won't be able to find another client to replace them / I might need their recommendation / I don't want this to end on a bad note" ...and I saw myself several years before!
EVEN now, if I've met with a student for just one session, I'm hesitant to say, "This is not working." I seldom let myself think, "Spending 30 hours tutoring this student throughout their course would put less value into the world [or be less aligned with my goals, etc.] than spending those 30 hours tutoring a different [hypothetical] young person [who I am likely to connect with within the next 1-2 months]."
I may not "mesh with" all of where you go here, but... I can definitely agree that in a context of work, "yes" often means, "yes, but only because I don't think I can get anything better." (and if people in a moderately-specialized field like education think this, how much MORE in employment where one seems "replacible"?)
I guess I find it easier to reason about & discuss examples involving employment! When I imagine the experience of "settling" for a HUMAN who I see as "not great" in a romantic relationship... I think it would be something more emotionally-raw and strike more deeply at the core of my being. (But then, I'm more familiar with womens' stories of relationship-yuck than with workers' stories of employment-yuck!)
I have my complaints and awkward memories as the woman, but kids are even worse off. My kids feared unknown people, when they were little and they would cry. Unknown can even be a mother in law, if she diesn't visit often. I was persuaded by the rest of the family to hold back, but later burst into ugly conflict which caused the uproar and several phone calls between family members. Also, totally unfamiliar people asked to hold my babies in their arms. I once was stupid enough to agree, and was furious, that the lady went on to kissing my baby, which was not discussed before and it is a question of hygiene as well. Other time I was reasonable to decline, but it was kind off desperate: "Please, no, really no !" Supposedly, people in Middle East snatch kids from mother's arms and cuddle them all the time. That must be a living hell for kids like mine were.
I love moments like that when I realize, "Oh! So THAT'S who I got that from." Love it when something brings up good memories of formational stuff from my past and I discover EVEN MORE gifts I got from specific people, groups, or sub-cultures than I'd yet noticed! :)
> "I also practiced in an environment where there were more male instructors and students than the typical yoga class, but it wasn't a dynamic of only women setting boundaries for men, either." <-- This is neat!
I think consent culture and female socialization keep running up against each other and interfering with each other. A lot of women (myself included) have such a hard time saying no to anything at all, or breaking a social script, or going against what everyone else is doing... I find it hard to even say a straight "no" to a store cashier when they ask me if I want a rewards card (I always say "not today" like I'm going to go home and seriously contemplate the pros and cons of an Old Navy credit card or whatever).
I have two contradictory impulses when it comes handling uncomfortable situations. One impulse is to assert what I actually want. The other impulse is to smooth everything over and not rock the boat - and because this impulse has been ingrained so deeply in me, it usually wins. We've layered a cultural expectation that women will assert themselves in sexually charged situations on top of an older, stronger, unspoken cultural rule that women should be polite and accommodating. It's like trying to mix oil and water, and I think it's a major contributor to clashes like Febos describes in her article.
And that older, stronger, unspoken cultural rule often exists to 'protect us' from violence. Even now there are so many stories of women asserting themselves and facing horrific consequences. Kate Manne wrote a book "Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny" that digs deep into the way our culture solidifies this "be nice or else" internalized logic in ways big and small.
It’s interesting that covid has clarified the boundaries for some people. For me, I feel like it’s only magnified the murkiness of social interaction. Do you hug? Do you elbow bump? Do you wear a mask? Do you talk about vaccinations or avoid the subject? It’s made hanging out with friends so stressful. I guess it would be easier if one is the same “tribe” as one’s friends, but for not-so-partisan people like me, covid has made boundaries more fluid and stressful, not clearer and more of a relief.
Just yesterday I went on the first walk of the "lots of vaccination" era where I could no longer expect to comfortably remain on the sidewalk. The groups of 3–5 friends who insist on walking in horizontal lines without making room for anyone to pass by are back, baby, and life in a college town is just as annoying as it was before. How quaint! And I felt a little petty making this observation, but reading this, it really is amazing how much safer I've felt walking around this year. Just having that personal space is something I came to take for granted. I miss it already!
One difference between NFP and other forms of pregnancy prevention is that contraception allows intercourse 365 days a year. Obviously for a lot of women that's a plus not a minus. But in private conversation, I've been interested to see how many women--in what they describe as very sexually happy and healthy marriages--nevertheless count periods in which they won't be asked if they want to have sex as a plus. They are often apologetic in tone when they say this, because they don't want it to sound like their husbands are pushy or that they don't enjoy sex. They're quick to say that neither of those are true! But they find saying yes and no tiring in some way. It's isn't even conveying yes or no, it's deciding yes or no in the first place.
Personally, I found saying yes or no while using NFP far more stressful. When the signs weren’t clear or I was feeling anxious, when it was the first day of Phase 3 and I felt like I owed it to my husband to say yes, when I felt bad because of cramps but knew it was the last day for a while - the stakes always seemed high. Funny thing was, I later found out that it stressed out my husband in exactly the same way! In our attempts to be sacrificial and accommodating towards each other we inadvertently had a lot of uncomfortable sex that neither of us really wanted all that much.
I think NFP *does* involve constant decision making and discernment. It's just that the decisions aren't exclusively about each other's needs/desires.
The necessity for limit-setting has entered my life most dramatically during the pandemic. Because of the clumsy response to this calamity from the national government, knowing what the rules are and following them—and for that matter, even knowing if any exist from the perspectives of some—has been tremendously contentious. And so, I face a dilemma any time I go out, which is rarely, as to whether I will confront the inevitable unmasked others out there. I don’t. Yet when the plumber comes to fix a leak, I do insist he keep his mask up over his nose. I have not eaten at a restaurant since last year, but I anticipate a few limits I may need to require. Last week, my brother invited us to dinner. Almost everyone was vaccinated, but not all. Had I known that ahead of time, would I have gone? Hmm ...that would have been a tough “no” to deliver. I am grateful that I am not navigating the dating scene as well at this time. Must be quite challenging!
Yes, in some ways, the pandemic has made negotiating limits *everyone's* jobs. No one knows for sure what the defaults are, so they can't coast on shared assumptions.
Oh goodness, can we talk about pregnant-belly-touching here? One time a kid grabbed my belly and his mother immediately told him he must never touch a pregnant woman without asking, so he asked. And I said yes automatically even though I didn't want to be touched at all.
For me, perversely, being asked explicitly makes it *harder* to say no, because I feel like, oh, this person is polite and respectful, so why wouldn't I say yes? I once danced like four songs in a row with a guy who made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, but he kept asking me if I felt comfortable, so I kept saying I was fine, because if he was asking, he must not be a creep, so why should I feel that way?
Ah, you are absolutely right about how politeness makes it feel like there is a higher threshold to say no. It is easier to block someone's rude hand than to feel like you're (verbally) slapping away a polite one.
Is this a new thing? My pregnancies were experienced in the 90's and was never touched, nor do I remember anyone asking to touch my belly.
I don't remember that either, from pregnancies in 1959 and 1960.
I definitely had people ask! And, for my part, I was excited by it. I was so happy to be pregnant and I liked that it felt like my joy swept other people up, too. But I tried to stick to saying something like, "Yes" and not "Of course" so as to not muddy the water for others.
I was in Rome for a conference while I was pregnant and there _no one_ asked, they just went for it!
I think that a big effect that constantly being an enforcer of limits has had on me is that I have become much more aggressive, even towards people where I have no prior that they aren't asking in good faith. This makes me feel badass when I catch a man's arm in midair as he's trying to put it around me, but a little mean when I bluntly respond "No" if someone asks me to smile, or a stranger asks if they can give me a nickname (for some reason I get this one a lot, I guess "Magdalen" is too many syllables for some people).
While becoming more aggressive isn't always good, I think that my relative desensitization towards being firm even when it borders on impolite has allowed me to stick up for others when I need to. An example I can think of is firmly saying no to panhandlers when I can tell they are making a friend uncomfortable with their insistence.
It's a little harder to meditate on what I lose by being more aggressive--perhaps missed connections or friendships, perhaps simply my own innocence. That's definitely something I will be thinking on more because of your question.
Yes, I hate approaching interactions from a defensive or suspicious footing.
I read this beautiful book review/essay by Katy Waldman on this subject (and Febos' latest book) and highly recommend it: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/why-we-mourn-girlhood
It includes this quote which I loved:
"Part of the problem, Febos observes, is that patriarchy has burrowed so deeply into our brains that its oppressions feel natural, freely chosen, rather than coerced. “We learn to adopt a story about ourselves—what our value is, what beauty is, what is harmful and what is normal,” she writes. “This training of our minds can lead to the exile of many parts of the self.”"
I love this because it gets right to the heart of your question of morality. A simple 'yes means yes' concept of consent is flat, simple, and rejects the complexities at work. It reminds me of arguments made by libertarians (and neo-liberals) that a worker consents to their working conditions in the free market. But it is a coerced consent. And the coercion is at its core horrific, a devaluing of life and an evil use of another person as a means rather than treating them as an ends in themselves.
That said, is the issue the preeminence of "consent" in either case? I don't think so. We have so far to go to teach our sons and daughters about consent and about how their bodies are their own - and a lot of great people are doing that work and backing it up with rigorous research. The Dutch model is my favorite working case study at the moment, with comprehensive age appropriate sex ed starting at four and emphasizing loving and caring relationships. In at least one study, most Dutch teens said their first sexual experience was 'wanted and fun'. That's in contrast to nearly 70% of Americans saying they wished they had waited.
To go back to your question about consent being the marker of morality - to me, consent means recognizing your value and the value of others. It is a complicated concept that falls flat only if you take it out of context or misuse it. It encompasses the end-in-yourself worthiness of others as equal to your own. In a society where we treat most workers as miserably as we do, and glorify those who use others' bodies and minds as a means to their own wealth creation, it's no surprise we don't understand the power and weight consent should carry.
Martha - I was really thinking about "saying no" in the context of taking on work!
I tutor (mostly high school) students, and a couple years back, I saw the way that another tutor (on an online group of tutors) was anxiously "bending over backward" trying to perfectly please students/clients/families. In the background - unspoken - I imagined I heard, "I am worried that I won't be able to find another client to replace them / I might need their recommendation / I don't want this to end on a bad note" ...and I saw myself several years before!
EVEN now, if I've met with a student for just one session, I'm hesitant to say, "This is not working." I seldom let myself think, "Spending 30 hours tutoring this student throughout their course would put less value into the world [or be less aligned with my goals, etc.] than spending those 30 hours tutoring a different [hypothetical] young person [who I am likely to connect with within the next 1-2 months]."
I may not "mesh with" all of where you go here, but... I can definitely agree that in a context of work, "yes" often means, "yes, but only because I don't think I can get anything better." (and if people in a moderately-specialized field like education think this, how much MORE in employment where one seems "replacible"?)
Oh, wow - absolutely.
I guess I find it easier to reason about & discuss examples involving employment! When I imagine the experience of "settling" for a HUMAN who I see as "not great" in a romantic relationship... I think it would be something more emotionally-raw and strike more deeply at the core of my being. (But then, I'm more familiar with womens' stories of relationship-yuck than with workers' stories of employment-yuck!)
I have my complaints and awkward memories as the woman, but kids are even worse off. My kids feared unknown people, when they were little and they would cry. Unknown can even be a mother in law, if she diesn't visit often. I was persuaded by the rest of the family to hold back, but later burst into ugly conflict which caused the uproar and several phone calls between family members. Also, totally unfamiliar people asked to hold my babies in their arms. I once was stupid enough to agree, and was furious, that the lady went on to kissing my baby, which was not discussed before and it is a question of hygiene as well. Other time I was reasonable to decline, but it was kind off desperate: "Please, no, really no !" Supposedly, people in Middle East snatch kids from mother's arms and cuddle them all the time. That must be a living hell for kids like mine were.
I love moments like that when I realize, "Oh! So THAT'S who I got that from." Love it when something brings up good memories of formational stuff from my past and I discover EVEN MORE gifts I got from specific people, groups, or sub-cultures than I'd yet noticed! :)
> "I also practiced in an environment where there were more male instructors and students than the typical yoga class, but it wasn't a dynamic of only women setting boundaries for men, either." <-- This is neat!