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18 May 2018 14:39![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonCN: nsfw, talking about sex, and also sexual violence
I've spent a bunch of time recently debating "grey area rape" with chaps on reddit, and trying to explain the concept of soft nos and the reasons why women might give soft nos to men instead of clear ones - and how most people can absolutely understand a soft no, but some selectively choose not to when it suits them.
Anyway, last night I stammered out a boundary with my partner, and he's such a champ at things like this - he asked me a couple of questions about why I felt like that and what I wanted, and told me I had to look him in the eye when I was speaking so he could read my face better, and firmly corrected all of my "maybes" to "nos" when I tried to revise my boundary to be more of a compromise. And then he asked - "can you say "no"? to me?", so I tried and it was awful. "No, I don't want to do [this activity], I don't like it". I could feel how fake it sounded in my throat, or like I was confessing to murder or something.
It's nice and I'm not complaining, but I feel kinda depressed by it too. You know? I've got someone who I trust absolutely; we talk about consent and feminism and I know he's on the level; we've always had awesome conversations in the past. The first (?) or maybe second time we had sex, I said yes to a thing I didn't want to do, and he put his hand at the back of my head and looked into my eyes for a moment and said "no", and it was life-changing I guess having someone respect me and care about my wellbeing oh so much more than I did myself. And then yesterday, he'd already responded well to me setting a boundary; he'd already gone the extra above-and-beyond of enforcing my maybes as nos, and being aware of my body language, and demonstrating he's aware of my horrible self-esteem and that I'm not always able to be assertive or clear and that he's going to take my needs seriously even when I don't. And he literally invited me to try and set a boundary more clearly.
And still. Explicitly saying the word "no" felt impossible.
So very depressing. What a world we live in.
I've spent a bunch of time recently debating "grey area rape" with chaps on reddit, and trying to explain the concept of soft nos and the reasons why women might give soft nos to men instead of clear ones - and how most people can absolutely understand a soft no, but some selectively choose not to when it suits them.
Anyway, last night I stammered out a boundary with my partner, and he's such a champ at things like this - he asked me a couple of questions about why I felt like that and what I wanted, and told me I had to look him in the eye when I was speaking so he could read my face better, and firmly corrected all of my "maybes" to "nos" when I tried to revise my boundary to be more of a compromise. And then he asked - "can you say "no"? to me?", so I tried and it was awful. "No, I don't want to do [this activity], I don't like it". I could feel how fake it sounded in my throat, or like I was confessing to murder or something.
It's nice and I'm not complaining, but I feel kinda depressed by it too. You know? I've got someone who I trust absolutely; we talk about consent and feminism and I know he's on the level; we've always had awesome conversations in the past. The first (?) or maybe second time we had sex, I said yes to a thing I didn't want to do, and he put his hand at the back of my head and looked into my eyes for a moment and said "no", and it was life-changing I guess having someone respect me and care about my wellbeing oh so much more than I did myself. And then yesterday, he'd already responded well to me setting a boundary; he'd already gone the extra above-and-beyond of enforcing my maybes as nos, and being aware of my body language, and demonstrating he's aware of my horrible self-esteem and that I'm not always able to be assertive or clear and that he's going to take my needs seriously even when I don't. And he literally invited me to try and set a boundary more clearly.
And still. Explicitly saying the word "no" felt impossible.
So very depressing. What a world we live in.
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Date: 19 May 2018 04:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 May 2018 08:15 (UTC)