Ah so you ask her which she prefers beforehand?

Look if she says “**** me now”, which obviously happens from time to time, you don’t need to ask. But anything short of explicit requests, you have no way of knowing if you’re in the group that can’t read signs correctly from time to time. I’m pretty sire Assis thought he was a great reader also. It’s a free roll. There are zero women who wanted to **** you that will *change their mind to know* when you ask if it’s ok.

Women's Anatomy of Arousal and She Comes First are a good start.

I've also read a handful of tantra or tao books since I'm into yoga and meditation and they all tie together.

I mean, this is just a social norm, like anything else. If 98% of people are ok with implicit consent then no reason to allow the others to have their way. Consent could be anything, coming back to someone's house or wearing a funny hat or saying "shabadabadoo"or whatever norm it might be. The disagreement seems to be what makes something explicit or implicit and if it's important or not. And that is up to each individual. You assume explicit yeses are best for everyone, lots of people disagree (lots of women even!).

Asking beforehand 50 Grey's style could be the future.

All I hear is a lot of rationalizations for “because I don’t wanna ask”. One can only assume the reason is lack of courage or a fear she’ll say no. Which is obviously dumb. When most women have been sexually assaulted at some point it behooves all of us as men to do this.

At the end of the day guys would be better off learning to not be so autistic rather than more formal rules they won't follow correctly or understand anyway.

Getting back on the online dating front what's the norm for asking if someone is trans or not? Is it rude? Are they required to say if they are (most seem offer it up front from what I've seen)?

If this doesn't happen almost all of the time you are doing it wrong.

Clark (and others),

Possibly interesting article to some of you: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...-of-no/550556/

In general I agree with what you've written about affirmative consent. It's not only not awkward, but I think for many reasonable guys, it's just a normal part of the process. I'm not talking about some formal interview, often just something whispered into her ear before taking the next step. And as others have mentioned, it often doesn't come up because if you're doing things well, the woman will many times initiate the progression. The only thing it sounds like I might consider differently than you is repeat partners. In that case, it's much more implied consent for me. I also find it interesting that you draw a line specifically at insertion.

OK, back to Aziz.

I'm assuming her narrative is accurate. And I'm cutting out some terrible, juvenile behavior by him that I agree is not what he should be doing (like going again and again for the hand on the dick), because I'm pretty sure we agree on those. But I'm interested in examining how much more consent you think he should be getting at various stages.

https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355

Did he tell her or did he ask "should I get a condom now?" Could easily be either, and I think it's relevant that he mentioned it to her before doing it rather than just getting one. But the key point to me here is that he ASKED her to perform oral, and she did. She does not mention being forced in any way here.

What do you think his obligations are at this point? Can he try again later in the date?

When she felt uncomfortable, she excused herself and he gave no resistance. After she comes back, he senses something isn't right here, and checks with her.

Those don't strike me as someone feeling like they have been assaulted/violated at that point.

What degree of consent do you consider it to be when a guy points to his dick and the woman starts sucking it? She says it was unexpected and she felt pressured. But what was the pressure she felt? I did not get the sense from the piece that she had any fear in the encounter, and it was more pressure of what she had to do if she wanted to continue on this date/dating Aziz. That's very different than feeling pressured to do something to get/keep a job, etc.

Certainly a lot wrong here, but he's also in a very awkward and inappropriate way asking for consent before penetration. And when she declines, he stops.

After Aziz tries yet again, and she realizes this date is not what she wanted it to be, she gets up and goes to call a car.

Should Aziz act a lot differently than he did? Obviously. But I simply don't believe it's reasonable to read that account and think it's anywhere close to 100% on Aziz. He de-escalated things at times, and then tried to ramp things back up, presumably after thinking he was getting some positive signals from her. She appeared to be a willing participant throughout much/most of the encounter. To me it reads like at some point she realized that Aziz was not interested in dating her, and more interested in just ****ing her, at which point her mindset changed to feeling violated. So the question is, was she sexually assaulted/violated, or simply misled and duped somewhat by things Aziz said to her about his interest/intentions? There's a big difference, and there's a lot of nuance we simply can't know from the article.

It's hard to draw comparisons because he's a celebrity.

She would have bailed out on any random dude much earlier, I'm sure.

Star ****ing is a thing.

All in all, what fossil said.

In general it's fine to try again but after this encounter you really need to take things easy since it's clear she's really uncomfortable. Instead, according to her recollection

This is out of line. Maybe she felt a little awed because he's famous and thought that meant she should do what he wanted. Maybe she's a little ****ed up. But in general you don't go, in two minutes, from explicitly declining sex, spending five minutes in a bathroom and saying how you feel forced to blowing a guy. An OK play in that situation is to chill, watch Seinfeld, drink some wine, make out, and if she's in to try to escalate. Give her some time to relax. Or just don't pursue her for the rest of the date. Immediately reescalating is not cool.

No, Aziz Ansari is part of the problem. Going by the account as described, if he couldn't see she was uncomfortable with his advances, he's a brainless moron. I'm not being held responsible for guys who don't know how to interact with women.

Anyway, let's get this straight. Cues for me: 'Shall we go to bed?' 'Yeah' 'You like that?' 'Yeah' 'You ok?' 'Yeah' Oh look, she's soaking wet! 'One second' *She watches me put on a condom* You're saying all of this is worthless unless I then ask if I can penetrate her? And that's the only acceptable line? What if she says yes but doesn't mean it/later regrets it?

No, I have really never been told to expressly seek consent before having sex. This enthusiastic consent stuff is a relatively new phenomenon.

If she looks uncomfortable in any way I stop. If she is absolutely wasted I won't do it. If she's in a bad place emotionally it's no good for either of us. Besides, if she's in a bad place emotionally but it isn't outwardly clear she may say yes even if I did ask, then regret it later. Is that rape too?

As far as I'm concerned, that leaves no grey area where a woman is going to feel mistreated, and for me it has stood the test of time.

+100000000000000000000

I've practically felt like I have not initiated anything with my gf other than getting her worked up to the point of wanting to get nekkid which is basically a green light for the next stages, at whatever pace we decide.

Actually if a girl needs to spend five minutes in a bathroom to compose herself to tell she doesn't want to feel forced, that would just be it for the evening. Making another move is inappropriate.

Yeah. It's also time for her to adult the **** up, end the evening and leave.

This seems appropriate given the current discussion

Sexual assault is a crime and a serious one at that. Given that you think he committed this serious crime, how much jail time do you think Aziz deserves assuming things happened as described?

haha, i'm not sure why you are singling me out. i agree she didn't consent to insertion, and as a result (thankfully) no insertion occurred.

Clark, Greg, and others:

Perhaps you’ll find this take more agreeable:
https://www.vice.com/amp/en_ca/artic...-not-the-point

or these:
https://jezebel.com/babe-what-are-you-doing-1822114753

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/...ce-babe-me-too

This is the best piece (in terms of the sentiment expressed; it takes forever to get to the point though, and not such a fan of the writing style) I've read and way better than The Atlantic and NYT op-ed crap http://www.katykatikate.com/2018/01/...ad_15.html?m=1

It's similar to the one you just posted.

I mean if you want to be technical about it, pretty much everyone has sexually assaulted someone. It would be very unnatural if you had to ask every time you wanted to touch someone's boobs, and literally everyone would have to be on board with that being the procedure.

I think the problem is how sexual assault is often defined:

1. Sexual assault always sounds terrible, but it isn't always THAT bad. For example, if you were in a crowded place and people kept bumping and pushing into you, I feel like that should feel more uncomfortable to you then if someone were to start rubbing your genitals after making out and other physical contact. Obviously I took the broadest definition for this example, but there are obviously different severities (just like any other crime) and I feel like it is viewed under one umbrella.

2. People should stop calling rape sexual assault. To me that just marginalizes rape. It's like someone saying someone committed battery when murdering someone. Rape should evoke strong emotions and shouldn't make the crime any less clear by using a term like sexual assault.


Other thoughts:

1. Women can be terrible communicators. Women can often be too implicit and don't realize that's a very poor way to get a message across for something where explicit communication is important. Unfortunately, some men won't take no for an answer even with explicit communication. I totally disagree with Sandra and the real problem is the implicit communication and not enough explicit communication.

2. Women sometimes will say they don't want sex even when they do. Maybe it's a tactic to convince themselves they aren't sluts or maybe they don't want it at the beginning of the encounter but change their mind.

3. Many women want to be dominated. This is obviously a natural conflict with potential sexual assault, explicit consent, etc.


Lastly, I do agree with you, Clark, on the verbal consent. It's pretty ****ing easy. A simple "you ready?" is pretty clear what you want and doesn't ruin the mood.

I was on a date 3 years ago. We had been on a few dates,pretty quickly including a quick second date where she took me to a hockey game which was great. So I lined up a comedy show one night to go to. We had dinner and then we checked out my place for the first time. We were chilling. I had moderately touched her breast in the car on other dates and I tried touching them in the apartment while we were making out and she kind of freaked out but I quickly backed away.

We still went to the show. She was all over me during the show. So I was getting some mixed signals. On the way home, I get a few texts which I respond to about going out. Personally, I was exhausted. This was the 8th date in like two weeks including dates the last three nights with other girls. So I kissed her good night in front of my building and texted her I had fun a few minutes later as I went to sleep. She didn’t text back till the next day telling me she thought the date was going to basically end up in my bedroom but she thought I went out with my friends due to the texts. I’m definitely not the best at reading signals but I told she was sending me mixed ones with the freak out and then being all over me that I didn’t realize that’s what she wanted. Needless to say, that was the last time I saw that girl. I had a few others left in the stable and I didn’t need a crazy one.

I never want to assault anyone and didn’t think I was going to but she did and I of course backed off. But then despite the freak out she wanted even more but of course read that poorly. The lines are insanely thin and almost anything now can be considered assault in some context.

that is a great piece.
Although it's sad the message is sort of 'boys will be boys', this sort of discussion you would think should be perfect inspiration for men to be better. To set them apart from the competition!

I'm not saying they should be beta, just show some basic perception, read the cues and try and see things from her perspective.

Men, learn to read non verbal cues better. Women, don't worry about the fact he obviously wants to either bang or have you leave, which is NOT COOL, men are the only people capable of being held morally accountable so just do whatever.

I guess this forum is more about talking about how men should act. Aziz should have just said something like "you can either blow me or leave".

I don't actually think I've seen an article of this from a guys perspective. El D could probably do it.

Women shouldn't be morally accountable for leading a guy on. She was flirting, things looked good, but now she's made a decision not to have sex, noone knows why, but it's happened. deal with it. You are not owed her vagina.

Men however will be always be morally accountable for obvious reasons.

'You can blow me or leave' would have been an interesting thing for him to have said and I'm curious what people make of that.

worth mentioning that the girl was caught in that halfway house between being uncomfortable with sex right now and clearly being open to the prospect of seeing Aziz more over time.

That's a horrible/pressurey thing to say, asking her to leave ("Why don't we just call it a night and pick things up another night?) is fine.