"NO"

This is a story about saying NO. About listening when one says NO. About not using your power over someone to get what you want. About ignoring when someone clearly feels uncomfortable to fulfill some fleeting fantasy. About being so pushy about your own wants that you don’t care about what someone else is feeling. The following are two stories of men being too pushy to care.

On my 19 birthday I met a blonde German male model at the Beatrice Inn in New York City. I was so young, and so naïve that when he told me to go home with him I immediately accepted. We then got to an apartment building and I realized he did not really live there, he was just crashing on his friend’s couch. We were making out when suddenly he started fingering me. Honestly, it was awful. I had not asked for this. It was so rushed and done without care or question. I was so new to this, young and inexperienced that I could not make myself say no, and I felt I had no right. He was so much better looking than me. I did manage to squeak out “I’m a virgin” to which he replied “Well then give me a blow job.” I was in total shock. I had never given anybody a blow job before. “Come oooon, I touched you. Now it is my turn.” He said, and I could sense his exasperation. He was getting tired of me. He is going to hate me if I don’t do this. I said to myself. So I did it. I crouched down and gave this man, a complete stranger, the first blow job I ever gave someone. I did this not even thinking about what I would end up thinking of myself for doing something I knew I did not want to do.

The post blow job activity consisted of him showing me pictures of him modeling in the Prada runway while I sat next on him on the couch, disgusted at myself while finding him repulsive. Let me say this, there is absolutely nothing wrong with going down on somebody, it can be fun, if both of you are into it. But there is something wrong in guilting someone into doing it. And there is also something wrong in not listening to yourself when you know you feel uncomfortable. That however is how a lot of women are taught to be. To be liked. To continued to be liked even when you are doing something that makes you not like yourself. I went home that night and cried while looking at myself in the mirror, not recognizing who I was.

Months later I met my first boyfriend. The one I had sex with for the first time. The one who taught me that what “felt good to you, felt good to me.” This, however, was a hard relationship, because I went into it with everything that I had. And that is very dangerous. I simultaneously found myself and lost myself in that relationship. By 2011, we were through, and I was going through some of the toughest times of my life.

By my senior year of college my girlfriends and I were regulars at places like Lit, Sway, Socialista, Westway, and Le Baron. Honestly we were kids, and we were exposing ourselves to things we did not really have the tools to deal with, but it was fun to dance and drink and meet people who you never thought you would meet. It was an incredible experience, and in general, I would not change it for the world, I made some of the best memories of my life during those years. One night however, it all changed.

It must have been early spring, when I went out with a friend to the Jane Hotel for another night of dancing and drinking. That night I met a semi-celebrity, a guy on a famous reality show that claims to be doing the right thing by exposing frauds on the internet. Somehow we sprang up a conversation, which led to us making out (as it usually does when you meet someone at a club) and he kept telling me he would like to “take me to Martha’s Vineyard.”

At some point during the night, we moved from the couch to the dance floor, then back to the couch, until he grabbed me by the hand and led me away from the main ballroom to a more secluded area of the club. He pushed me behind the draping red curtains, and pinned me to the wall. With my back to the wall, and his weight on me, I could not move away, I was trapped, hidden in plain sight. What made it worse is that he kept trying to have sex with me. I really did not want to have sex at this club, I really did not want to get caught with this guy, so I kept saying “No.” I know, even now, that I kept repeating “No.” I also know that I said it in a kind and hushed tone, I wanted to be kind, I wanted him to still like me. My tone was not forceful, but his want for public sex was. In his fantasy we would have fucked behind the red curtains at a club and it would have been a great memory to jack off to in the future. In reality I was a 21 year old girl who had only had sex with two other people, who had almost no self-confidence when it came to relationships and who really, really wanted to be liked. But not to that extent.

As I said “No” and squirmed under his body, I suddenly felt him enter me. He had done it. This man was inside me. Even though I was saying “No.” Even though I sure as hell did not want him to do what he did. Especially not then. Especially not there. Not behind a curtain at a fucking club. I was not that person. I didn’t want to be. That snapped me out of it and I managed to push him back.

I felt so strange. He half-heartedly apologized and repeated “Let me take you to Martha’s Vineyard.” I look back on it and I can’t remember what I really happened later. Too many vodka sodas and an unwanted sexual penetration later and who could? I just remember that, against every fiber of my body, I decided to keep hanging out with him that night. At least until what had happened between us really sank in. When realization hit I grabbed my friend and told her something that made me feel uncomfortable had happened with the guy and we needed to get out of that damn club. She asked me “Why are you still hanging out with him if he did that?” To which I blanked. I had no idea. I still don’t truly get it. It probably comes back to not wanting any negative attention.

The morning after I called my ex, told him what had happened. I was crying. He proceeded to call his friend who threw the party we had gone to. His friend then banned the semi-celebrity from attending his parties ever again. And that’s where that ended.

Although it didn’t. I keep thinking about it to this day.

At that time, I had been going through some dark times. Graduation was coming up and I felt so incredibly lost. I decided to take advantage of the free healthcare and went to therapy. I remember sitting in the waiting room, filling out my mental health questionnaire when I arrived to the question: “Have you ever been sexually assaulted?” I stopped writing, feeling uneasy. After the incident at the Jane, I told some close friends what had occurred, to which they replied: “That, is sexual assault.” And there, at the therapists’ office, it hit me. It was sexual assault. Even if it was for a moment, even if I managed to stop it, even if it had not been violent. Even if there had been no climax. I had to call it what it was. I had said “No” and he had ignored it. I had said “No” and he had still entered me. I was now a statistic. One of many. I broke down and shakily circled yes.

After months of therapy, after talking about what had happened with someone who did not know me, after sharing with her my darkest thoughts, about giving up, about feeling the world was a big black hole that was swallowing me in it, I felt better. Talking to her helped me. Sharing my story helped me, no scratch that, it saved me.

What happens is that when there are two people that find themselves in a sexual situation and the power dynamics are off kilter, one is afraid the other won’t continue liking them if they set boundaries. At least, that is what happened here. When I said I didn’t want to have sex with the German model he was immediately over it, like all I was for him was a way to get off. I was not really a person. I was a sex toy. And for the reality show celebrity I was a fantasy waiting to be fulfilled, a night of public sex with a stranger in a packed bar.

What angers me to this day, is that this semi-celebrity is a self-proclaimed feminist, a guy who is “abuse-free”, a “modern man,” a guy who stands up for women. At least that’s what he says he is. I’m not saying he is evil, or he is a bad guy, what I am saying is that there is a moment where almost every guy finds himself being too pushy when it comes to sex. Too coercive. It’s in their education. It is “how to be a man”. A guy is trained to not take no for an answer. A no is just a maybe in disguise, a no can be turned into a yes, winners turn no’s into yeses.

And that has got to stop. The need to get off even though that other person has to think about that moment for the rest of their life and wish they had done something different. This comes directly from patriarchal capitalist culture, from the need to WIN, to be number one. I get what I want regardless of how I hurt other people. I put ME first. Even the President’s slogan is “America First” and screw everybody else. If they get hurt in the process of me being number one, so be it.

We need to end toxic masculinity. We need to listen when someone else says no. We need to work on our empathy, we need to be willing to be disappointed if it means you are keeping someone else safe, mentally and physically. People need to take accountability for their actions. I want men to stop coercing women into having sex, I want men to stop making women feel bad or guilty when they don’t want to have sex (even the sweetest, most supportive guys are guilty of that). I want women to say “No” without the fear of being replaceable, I want women to trust their gut, I want women to be able to tell their stories and not be doubted, or called sluts, or ugly, or told that we asked for it. I want sex to be fun, a conversation, deep, exciting, interesting, playful, and most of all I want sex to be a consensual voyage people take on together, in total agreement, and for it to not be used as a tool for enforcing guilt, punishment or power over somebody else. I want sex to feel and do good at the same time.

Hopefully sharing this changes something in people, we need to keep having this conversation. Hopefully, also, it helps me let it go, once and for all, so I can move on to chapter number two.