General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Myth of Male Power - Warren Farrell [View all]Major Nikon
(36,814 posts)I see them as more of a reflection of the character(or lack thereof) of those who choose to use such cheap rhetorical tools.
The cite demonstrates that at least a pretty large percentage of women do in fact use token resistance in prelude to sex. Now maybe your argument is that women aren't having sex for excitement, but I would tend to reject that argument. Had you actually bothered to read the book (obviously you haven't or you would have known you were making a fool of yourself), you'd also find a cite for a Rosemary Rogers novel, which was written by a woman, for the consumption of women. So the two examples Ferrall gives for his statement you apparently find provocative (which probably was his point to begin with), were of women who find token resistance exciting. So the "we" Farrell was referring to meant women as much as it meant men, if not more.
The "no means no" meme is bullshit. The fact is that no sometimes means yes. Objective feminists know this and teach that people need to understand when no really does mean no. As it turns out, Farrell is directing that same message to men. Had you actually bothered to read the book you'd surely like to burn, you would have found the following in it's proper context:
If a man ignoring a womans verbal no is committing date rape, then a woman who says no with her verbal language but yes with her body language is committing date fraud. And a woman who continues to be sexual even after she says no is committing date lying.
Do women still do this? Two feminists found the answer is yes. Nearly 40 percent of college women acknowledged they had said no to sex even when they meant yes. In my own work wit hover 150,000 women and men- about half of whom are single-the answer is also yes. Almost all single women acknowledge they have agreed to go back to a guys place just to talk but were nevertheless responsive to his first kiss. And almost all acknowledge theyve recently said something like, Thats far enough for now, even as her lips are still kissing and her tongue is still touching his.
We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting. Somehow, womens romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said No. They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this marry the rapist theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of the most enduring of womens romance novels. And it is Rhett Butler, carrying the kicking and screaming Scarlett OHara to bed, who is a hero to females-not to males- in Gone with the Wind (the best-selling romance novel of all time- to women). It is important that womans noes be respected and that her yeses be respected. And it is also important when nonverbal yeses (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal noes that the man not be put in jail for choosing the yes over the no. He might just be trying to become her fantasy. The danger is in the fine line between fantasy and nightmare.
The differences in each sexs experiences are so enormous emotionally that I can create understanding only by conducting role-reversal dates: having the woman ask the men out and discover which of the mens noes mean no forever, which mean no for the rest of the date, which for a few minutes, and which just mean slow down .and having the men feel what its like to have their noes ignored.