By Jamie
In the news recently, a prominent (and at one time revered) American entertainer and comedian is getting jail time for drugging and sexually assaulting women; his wife insists the accusers are lying. Elsewhere, a squad of NFL cheerleaders is taken out of the country, their passports are collected, and they are forced to pose for semi-explicit photographs while high-level team supporters watch. Internationally, the Nobel Prize in Literature may be cancelled this year due to the bad behavior of a male panel member and likely cover-ups by others. And most recently, the Attorney General for New York (who filed charges against Harvey Weinstein for his own bad behavior) has resigned after four women accused him of assault, which he has categorized as consensual role-playing. A CNN headline states the obvious: “In case you were wondering, #metoo is far from over….”
I’ve been wrestling for months with this topic. First, it’s a beast with many tentacles that is probably more suited to a book-length treatment. I was paralyzed by an overabundance of issues and details, each of which seems important. Second, I wasn’t sure that a blog about two people having great sex was the right place to address #metoo, but Sophie’s trip, the ongoing news, and our conversations all along the way have put this topic on our front burner. And third, I wasn’t sure I wanted to look under the hood of my past, go through the mental rolodex and reconsider innocent-seeming consensual experiences in this newer, more exacting light.
So let’s tackle my reservations, before I begin in earnest. First, this piece won’t cover or even mention everything about #metoo that is important. However, it will not waver from the principle that a man is not and should not be the gatekeeper for a woman’s success and happiness in the workplace (or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter), and sex is not and should not be a toll she has to pay to get through the gate. Second, maybe this blog is the perfect place to discuss #metoo, certainly in terms of striking a balance and establishing a context. Sophie and I love our bubble of consensual bliss, but we are not clueless about the wider world, and we have things to say. So we will say them. Third, while I may not want to look under the hood of my past, it is essential that I do so. And I have begun to do so, even going so far as to reach out to a few old acquaintances to make sure they remember our encounters as positively as I do. So far, I am pleased to report, I have discovered no differing memories. I will keep looking under the hood, and I will keep reaching out as I can when it seems important to do so. And this, I think, should be a response from any self-respecting male. Own your actions. Acknowledge their effects. Apologize if needed, and do better next time.
Okay, now let’s cut to the chase.
What Is Sex?
The dance of seduction is older than HR diversity training, older than feminism or patriarchy, older than modern culture, older than civilization itself, older than language, and even older than anything we might define as human. At its root, sex is about making sure a species lives on. That’s the hard wiring. What we do for fun within that space (the celebration of which is the reason this blog exists), and the rules we apply to channel that roaring torrent, should be based on mutual consent. Mutual consent can come from mainstream vanilla defaults, or it can come from two (or more) like-minded rebels at the extreme edge of society. It applies to the prudes, the sluts, the kinky, and everybody in between.
Yes, at some level mutual consent is a gray area – how can you know if that other person is (dis)interested unless you make an overture? Fair enough. There are positive and appropriate ways to seek that knowledge. But when you have your answer, whether yes or no, the gray is gone and your actions should then demonstrate respect for the response. What about fantasies that play with the very notion of consent? I see your point, and I know some of you. When done correctly, that sort of play falls outside the #metoo realm. I am sure plenty of informed and helpful maps exist for navigating that landscape. Go find them, if you have a need.
The central concept of #metoo is this: No woman should be fucked without her explicit and hopefully eager consent. No woman should be seduced or touched without her reciprocal interest and willing participation. No man should hear “yes” when a woman says “no.” Dude, I don’t care if you think she’s almost convinced and that tenth email will magically tip the scale. I don’t care if she’s drunk or altered and said yes earlier before changing her mind. (But I will add HOLY FUCK, it’s pathetic, unethical, and possibly illegal to push that boundary. Have you no game?!) I don’t care if the suite was expensive and the condom is already on. No means no. And you better make damn sure she gets home safely.
In the workplace, a woman should not feel compelled or coerced to fuck a man, or to put up with his unwanted advances, in order to save or further her career. To summarize some of the more colorful anecdotes to surface during the current #metoo wave: Showing your dick to your female staff is bad. Commenting on her ass while she’s opening the copy-paper box is bad. (And for the love, don’t corner her in there. Bad!) Making yourself the sexual gateway for a generation of actresses is bad. (How is this confusing?) Drugging and abusing naïve or unsuspecting woman is very, very bad. (It’s called rape, and it’s a crime.) Thinking that the aura of elected office gives you the right to declare your lust to a starry-eyed underling is bad. (But before we tar-and-feather that creep on the other side, let’s admit that our guy did it last year and somebody on our side will again. It’s not a political flavor; it’s a professional failure.)
Rule of thumb: The workplace is for work, sir. Show some class. Granted, two (or more) people can find their heart’s desire at work as much as anywhere else, but (back to the gray area) if you have made an unreciprocated overture, then shut it down. You read the signals wrong.
#wavetwo
If the #metoo movement spotlights a very real, pervasive problem, then something I’m calling “wave two” is threatening to dilute and derail the original message. Rape, workplace harassment, and similar oppressive or coercive behaviors rightly belong under the #metoo umbrella; a guy who really sucks at flirting and dating, all things being equal, does not. Now, if that clueless guy is your boss, that’s #metoo. If it’s the asshat on the bus or across the bar, well, probably that doesn’t rise to the same level. Granted, it easily could. But it’s more likely you’re simply stuck with a clumsy partner at the seduction dance. He needs to upgrade his software. If you politely decline and he doggedly persists, well, then we’re back to “no means no.” If he leaves stalkery notes on your windshield or shows up uninvited at your door or sends waaaaaay too many flowers to the office, that’s creepering back into #metoo territory.
Being angry at a man for benignly (if clumsily) expressing his sexual or romantic interest is not a position, it seems to me, that is grounded in reality. I was going to call this the “Aziz Ansari effect,” after the popular comedian, actor, and self-declared women’s-rights supporter who recently found himself the target of #metoo accusations after a bad date. But after doing some research, I realized it’s not as simple as that. According to the blog babe.net, which broke the story in January 2018 by recounting the events from the viewpoint of the emotionally bruised and upset 20-something woman who left his apartment in tears, Aziz Ansari may have crossed a line. Reader comments (found here under Ansari’s response to the babe.net story) are telling. Certainly, the most biased supporters of the woman in the story have written Ansari off. More thoughtful readers, both female and male, had the same reaction that I did: the story is a cringe-worthy narrative depicting two people who failed to communicate their expectations, with painful – and avoidable – results. Aziz Ansari, given his public support for women’s-rights issues, could and should have been a better date. The woman, young and perhaps daunted by Ansari’s celebrity status, could and should have been clearer about the limits of her interest. To his credit, Ansari has acknowledged his part in the debacle.
It is beyond the scope of this piece to define and discuss the details of communication in the #metoo era, or in any era. Others are already at work on this, I’m sure. There’s even an app designed to make each person’s intentions crystal clear. App or no app, common sense dictates that men and women should ask for what they want, and they should be clear about what they don’t want.
Why is this so hard?
Speaking Truth to Beauty
So you think you know “what should happen” on a date or during a sexual encounter or at the water cooler. I think so, too. How did we get there? Where do assumptions about what is (in)appropriate come from?
As I look under the hood of my adult past, I can remember crossing a line from time to time. Nothing egregious, nothing worthy of #metoo recriminations, but moments that might not put me in the best light. Moments that might have caused discomfort even if now forgotten. Sometimes the line comes into focus only when you look back at it. I have taken and will continue to take my own advice: own my actions, acknowledge their effects, apologize if needed, and do better next time.
But my signature #metoo moment, if that’s what it is, has nothing to do with work or adulthood. It starts with an eighth-grade crush. I had just moved across town and switched schools. I knew almost nobody. But there was this girl, this beautiful friendly girl. Let’s call her Z. Z wasn’t just pretty, she was Cindy Crawford pretty – just one sharp-eyed agent away from stardom, she was. She wasn’t just friendly, she was a ball of happy light, and all the flowers turned to face her as she passed by. Me included.
Me, I was a shy skinny boy who made good grades and drew nobody’s attention. Including hers.
Z and I sat near each other in a few classes. Sometimes I couldn’t help but look at her. Even when I didn’t look, I could feel her presence like a kind of heat. It was overwhelming and paralyzing. Eventually, of course Z noticed me. But for all the wrong reasons. I was that sullen boy who was always staring but who never said anything. I tried to think of things to say, some way to make small talk, but that never has been my strength. And it felt like a death even to imagine trying. This dynamic became a feedback loop, building on itself, and it never went away. Throughout middle and high school, even after I had outgrown that paralyzing shyness, we never spoke. When her eyes passed across me in the hall there was a flicker, a dimming. I was a benignly unpleasant blip on her radar screen, a reminder that pretty girls have to put up with a lot of uninvited attention. It was painful to realize that my presence dimmed the light that made her so attractive in the first place. It was easier to keep saying nothing.
Of course I moved on. In some ways my (non) experience with Z shaped me into who I am now. I tackled my paralyzing shyness, not allowing myself to remain stuck in challenging situations, actually seeking out challenges for practice. I learned to make small talk, albeit a deep and disconcerting sort of small talk that others either like very much or escape as quickly as possible. And I’ve grown into my own sexual confidence, as this blog attests. I have been and am a ball of happy light to some who are equally special to me. But way down at the bottom of the well, some small piece of me was still a shy paralyzed kid who couldn’t speak truth to beauty.
A few years ago, at some informal reunion gathering, I confessed my youthful crush to a mutual classmate. As it turns out, he has known Z since childhood; they grew up in the same neighborhood. With an amused look on his face, he told me a story about Z that changed my inner landscape. As a child Z befriended the disabled child of a nearby store owner, and for years afterward she always made a point to drop in and visit. The boy called her his girlfriend. (You thought I was going somewhere else with that story, didn’t you? Admit it.) And in that moment, hearing that story, Z changed from a symbol of hormonal frustration into an actual human person.
Thanks to the magic of social media, it wasn’t hard to track Z down. She is still transcendently beautiful. Like many of us, she appears to be a great parent with a spotty relationship record. She has lots of friends with whom she socializes, many of them dating back to childhood. And she remains unfailingly kind, as I learned when I reached out, my heart in my throat.
I wrote to Z and told her I had heard something nice about her. I told her I regretted not getting to know her better when we were kids. I asked if she would like to be in touch via social media, and I added that I would understand if she didn’t. Z responded immediately and positively, and just like that we were reconnected. We haven’t exchanged two words since that moment, and we don’t need to. An apology, such as it was, was offered and accepted, the sun is a bit brighter, and life goes on.
I shared this long and somewhat painful memory to make a point. We are all haunted. The ghost that shadows our steps is our younger self. And whether we realize it or not, our actions must pass through, and are sometimes directed by, the specter of the past.
What does this have to do with #metoo? Take the example of Aziz Ansari. For all his women’s-rights advocacy, Ansari has a ghost that dictates his actions in a sexual setting. There’s a script in his head, and he acted out that script while completely missing his date’s timid counter-signals. His date also carries a script in her head, and clearly Ansari was not following her script. How could he? Neither of them shared their script with the other. Their ghosts were not on the same page, so to speak. The result was pain and embarrassment all around.
That guy at the bar, or in the copy room, or at one end of the casting couch, has let his ghost direct his actions into an inappropriate place. Some version of that shy paralyzed kid at the bottom of the well is demanding to be let out, and too often the ghost gets its wish. It is up to each person, male and female, to identify their ghost, to decide whether and how much to let it out, to grow it the hell up if possible, and to move through the wider world with that greater self-awareness in place. On the male side of things, making this effort addresses both #metoo misconduct and the more benign clumsiness that sometimes pops up at the seduction dance.
Let’s wrap this up with a brief (yes, I am capable of that) summary:
- Know yourself.
- Respect the existing rules and guidelines. At work, for example, HR will be happy to clear up any confusion.
- Don’t let a childhood ghost define your assumptions or control your actions. Grow the fuck up.
- Ask for what you want. Be clear about what you don’t want.
- Wherever you intend to go, make mutual respect and mutual consent your starting point.
This, to me, is where necessary change begins – one positive encounter at a time.
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