quizzical pussy

Henrietta Tansy is this girl I know. Young, healthy and comfortable, whip smart. Also the kind of girl who will actually say, out loud: “I’m worried my eyes are just too big for me to ever really be pretty,” knowing perfectly well that they’re “too big” just like they’re “too blue”, or the lashes that ring them “too long”. Then of course she’ll lament for hours how difficult it is to have so many ardent admirers, and confide how deeply she wishes people wouldn’t judge her based only on her (admittedly extraordinary) looks.

In short, hers are Mary Sue problems, and the story never ends. I want it on record that I have never slapped her. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by suggesting that I have never wanted to.

She’s currently in her first serious relationship, with a guy she pursued, something she’d never had to do before. “It’s so empowering!” She made a fist and pummeled the air as she told me this. “I wanted him, and I went after him, and now he’s mine!” To be honest, it doesn’t appear she had to work very hard. As she reminded me, she’s so much better looking than her new boyfriend she’s surprised they don’t get strange looks walking down the street. When he seemed uninterested at first she was indignant. But with a little persistence she seduced him, and she couldn’t be prouder if he were every bit as attractive as she is!

And yet again I was reminded that being the pursuer is something I’ve never experienced. My relationship with seduction has been mostly avoiding mocking laughter by eschewing it. So if it were empowering I wouldn’t exactly know, but it wouldn’t exactly surprise me.

I have this sense that there was once a time, long ago, when people were meticulously taught social graces as part of a well-rounded education, much like children are theoretically supposed to be taught geometry now. They learned how to be charming, how to have presence, how to hold a conversation, even how to tell a story that captivates one’s audience. Of course, this could well be a romanticized version of the past that’s a side effect from getting my working knowledge of old timey social interactions from novels. Dialogue is usually a little snappier when an author’s had the chance to mull it over for months and then edit it a few times. Perhaps these social graces have always been things we pick up only if we’re lucky, with one in a million of us seeming magically born with them like Henrietta was born freakishly adorable.

The one thing I know is that they are skills, and as such can be learned. And pretty much the only group who seem focused on systematically improving theirs are Pickup Artists.

As a community, Pickup Artists are at times awe-inspiring in their pursuit of self-improvement. When I make it a point to observe their process without judging their motives, it becomes clear that what they call “inner game” is largely an effort to build self-esteem. And while beginners learn scripted gambits to start conversations, the ultimate goal seems to be attaining true, engaging conversational skills. It’s only mildly off-putting that having legitimate discourse is often referred to as “improvising” rather than “talking”. The problem (if there is one, and that depends on your perspective) is that for some reason this is all done in the service of getting laid. All that effort to become a better¹ person gets cast in a manipulative light when it’s so single-mindedly libidinous, and frankly dehumanizing for anyone else in the sexual equation. But at least it’s honest.

I’m not honest.

I want what Pickup Artists want. I know what it’s like to feel like a social loser, and deep down, I don’t expect people to overlook that and see that I have a good heart and throw me a great big party with balloons. To be fair, my heart isn’t really all that spectacular. What I really want is to be charming and witty and poised and ever so magnetic. And my motives aren’t just to be well liked and make people smile, although those things are certain wonderful and welcome. I also want to be desired. I want to infect your mind like a melody and stab through you like hunger. It may be weakness telling me this, but I think it would feel empowering.

Even if I never took advantage of it, I’d want to know I had that power to seduce if I chose. It bothers me that the thing stopping me has never been nobler ideas about reciprocity and ethics and all that. Maybe those things factor in somehow, but it’s mostly fear I’d fail and look like a loser.

What makes this even worse is that I’m fairly sure that “Hey, wanna do it?” would work often enough that the question of seduction as art is barely worth thinking about.

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1. …or at least more socially pleasing [↩]

My new strategy for dealing with all types of intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice:

“Aw, honey, you’re just going through a phase. You’ll grow out of that.”

Foaming at the mouth because a mom’s putting pink (pink!) nail polish on her son? Because that somehow tells him it’s okay to be gay or transgender or something, and that’s somehow bad? Happens to lots of people your age. You’ll settle down once you mature a little.

Think you get to hold personal court over every woman who says she was sexually assaulted to decide whether she’s right about that or not? My cousin Denny went through the same thing (Denny’s always been a little off, truth be told), but he got over it and you can too. Not to worry.

Think you’re better than one fucking person on this planet? Feel innately more correct, important, or that you occupy a moral high ground over any one group of people based on sex, age, weight, race, religion or lack thereof, sexual identity, orientation, or, hell, political affiliation? Bless your heart, all toddlers think they’re the center of the universe! You’re just a tiny bit behind, darling. Once you grow up a little you’ll let go of that and be a normal, healthy person.

It’s not being condescending. It’s being optimistic.

Reginald Sleeth and I had been dating for all of two weeks. Our dates usually consisted of me driving the half mile to his house and rushing upstairs to his room where we’d make out furiously. That night, though, he handed me a tightly folded piece of college ruled paper first.

I knew it was a poem. He’d given me several already. Reginald liked to write love poems to girls. Years later my friend Miriam, who also dated Reginald for a while, and I would go back and compare and realize that some of the heartfelt verses given us looked shockingly similar. Kid must’ve kept master copies somewhere.

But this was the first poem I ever unfolded to discover blood smeared all over the paper.

Reginald looked rather like a cat who’d dragged his freshly killed bird onto the porch. I reacted rather like that cat’s owner.

“What, I just don’t even… I mean what happened here?” Beat. “…It’s a very nice poem.” Nice save.

Reginald proudly showed me his hand. There was a distinct gouge. Then he produced a blunt decorative knife. “I designed this years ago to one day spill my blood for my love. And now it’s yours; I have no more need of it. It has done its job.”

I’m not even kidding. He seriously talked like that.

I figured that perhaps my sense of the romantic was underdeveloped. I liked Anne Rice as much as the next little demigoth, but I was more creeped out than moved. Of course my (most) fatal flaw kicked in at this point and told me that I must be the one who had it wrong.

It soon became clear to me, though, that Reginald expected me to perform the same gesture. It was supposed to be some kind of sacred lovers’ ritual conceived in Reginald’s head at some point. That was more or less why he gave me the knife.

I just wasn’t going to do it.

Understand, I really thought I loved Reginald at this point. The bloodletting had meant something to him, clearly, and I didn’t want to ignore that. But seriously? No part of me was happy that I had his blood on a piece of notebook paper, and I wasn’t jazzed about the idea of following suit.

And if I ever did, I knew it wouldn’t be with his Renaissance Faire knife. Thing was fucking letter-opener-dull! And coated in his blood.

In retrospect, this should have tipped me off. This wasn’t ever going to be a healthy relationship. Yes, healthy relationships can involve exchanging blood or playing with letter openers, but they’d at least require a little prior communication. And less peer pressure.

As for my dilemma, one morning I nicked my ankle in the shower shaving and I realized I’d solved my own problem. Well, one of my problems. The other one I kept around for a long, long while yet.

(image source)

I don’t give it much thought anymore, not in the present tense. It’s always “Oh, that wacky Reginald Sleeth used to do the craziest (evil) things!” in my head. My conscious mind has moved on from all that, put it in the past. Unfortunately, the rest of me hasn’t caught up yet.

I’m still a beaten girlfriend somewhere deep down.

I’m realizing how profoundly affected I really am by it all, to this day. My self-esteem was never great to begin with, but staying in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for years trained even that scant confidence out of me. And while, believe it or not, I’ve scraped a fair amount back for myself, if we’re making comparisons, I can’t escape the learned worthlessness that was my liturgy for so long.

I wonder if I’ll ever let myself feel like an equal in a relationship. If I’ll ever feel entitled to ask for things or even make demands. If I’ll ever believe that I was chosen, that my partner is with me out of desire and not just kindness.

Will there ever be a time when, after I’ve said something stupid and made someone I care about angry, I won’t slip into that old numbness and terror? The cold tingle that comes when the mind spins in a loop of self-loathing and the body feels heavy and wrapped in moss.

This might be one of those things that’s hard to understand unless you’ve lived it, and I hope you haven’t lived it.

I’m afraid that the legacy of a really poorly chosen first relationship will be that I can never behave like a truly healthy partner. And with the amount of hate I have and show for myself, can anyone reasonably be expected to not develop contempt for me?

I want a do-over. I want my first boyfriend to be that nice Mormon boy who hugged me like I was made of lava.

On a lighter note, Bangable Dudes (and Dames) in History: for when the living just aren’t cutting it, but the undead have inexplicably turned sparkly.

The strip club wasn’t what I imagined it would be. I was expecting tacky. I was expecting neon. I was expecting a lingering whisper of sweat and booze. But I was expecting all that to be married to effort: a little velvet, a tassel or two. Some varnish obscuring the grime.

This was a pit.

Actually, more than anything it was like a small community workshop theater. A single room, the club was black painted wood with two pine platforms (also painted black) where the brass poles stood, dull and worn. There was a little neon. And there were men in g-strings.

Between the makeshift stages, a shower was built into the back wall. Wednesday was shower night, but the shower was broken. Of course it was.

I hear that female strip clubs– that is, those where the strippers are women– are more velvety. They try harder. Male strip clubs– specifically gay male strip clubs, I’m told, don’t bother with pretense. I have no idea if this is true in general. To this day, I’ve only been to one, and it was true here.

In we walked, a gaggle of females. The club was dead. We didn’t care. It was Miriam’s birthday, and she wanted to visit this pit on shower night, dammit, shower or not.

There were two guys working that night. Two. A short, wiry guy with a pretty face and a tall, beefier guy with a, well, a face. He had a face.

We chicks danced a little with the newly out dean of a local university. Then we sat down directly adjacent to one of the platforms, ordered drinks, and watched the guys take turns working our pole. It wasn’t until about five minutes into Wiry Guy’s performance that we realized he was wearing an electronic tether over his tube socks.

Classy. Classy is the word for that.

Beefy Guy, not to be outdone but lacking the necessary state-mandated hardware, was at a loss for a moment. Then he wrapped his flaccid shaft clear around the brass pole and seemed to feel better about himself.

Did I mention class?

As the night wore on I got a bit bored. It is a great shortcoming, but I can really only watch people I’m not attracted to writhe around naked for so long before I want to pull out my Nintendo DS. In retrospect, this is probably why Beefy Guy approached me.

“You’re very pretty,” he began.

“Oh. Uh. Thanks,” said my lips. I’m not giving you money, dude, said my brain.

There was some inane small talk on his part and some noncommittal nodding on mine until he saw some bruises on my arms.

“What happened there?” Beefy Guy made his face-which-he-had-yes-indeed look concerned.

“Just some horseplay,” I answered honestly. Clifton and I were hanging out fairly often at the time, and there was a lot of wrassling.

“No one… hurt you, did they?” We were really breaking the stripper fourth wall here.

“Not at all,” I assured him. “I pity the fool.”

“Good. Because I just couldn’t stand that.” Okay, Beefy Guy… oh wait, he wasn’t done… “I could never hurt a woman,” he told me earnestly.

I nodded.

“…except that one time when my girlfriend cheated on me. But she also stole my stereo, you understand.”

“Um. I think my friends are ready to leave. Now.”

I’m very likely never going to that–or possibly any– strip club again. I don’t care if they get the shower fixed.

(image source)

I have sex. I fuck. Because I find the term hilarious, I bone. I do all these, and additional things, passionately and sometimes with a deep, abiding love thrumming through every molecule of my body.

I’m not really a “make love” person.

Disliking the phrase “making love” is probably at least a little more hackneyed than the nomenclature itself. I don’t care. It rubs me the wrong way. It’s overly sentimental and treacly and euphemistic. Edwin Pomble never once– in years– said he wanted to “make love” to me… until after we broke up and he was was feeling particularly maudlin one day. I laughed at him. I’m a bitch.

If you need to make love, if just having sex isn’t going to work for you, I’ll gladly microwave a mess of peeps for you to stick your dick in, because I’m clearly not sugary enough. Then I’ll go fuck three of your best friends. Notice I will be doing the microwaving because I’m a romantic.

But I have absolutely no issue when the term pops up in old movies, when it means flirting/making a pass/wooing. That’s adorable, and it makes more sense. You’re literally forging a love bond out of a preliminary attraction. That’s making love; the other one is making babies .*

I’d say we should bring the old definition back, but at this point it’d just confuse everyone beyond redemption. Just think how many times a day you’d be obliged to launch into an explanation featuring Cary Grant.**

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*Or for some of us, avoiding same.

**Not that this would be a bad thing. Just time-consuming.

INT. LOCAL MEGAMART – EVENING

Magazine stands flank the checkout lines at the front of the store.

LARAMY and QP walk past on their way to find vitamins and feminine hygiene products. QP casually scans the magazine covers as they pass.

QP

What the fuck did Sandra Bullock do this year that makes her People’s Woman of the Year?

LARAMY

I’m sure I don’t know.

QP

Didn’t she get divorced or something? Is that what put her over the top? If that’s all it takes, hell, I can think of a couple other Women of the Year who are wondering where their awards are right now.

LARAMY

Yeah.

QP

In other news, Hermione really did get hot, however creepy that might make me sound.

LARAMY

Yeah, she really did. But then she cut her hair and kinda ruined it.

QP

(sputtering)

I was talking about when she cut her hair!

LARAMY

It’s too short.

QP

(remembering when she shaved her head)

…I don’t think I understand why you’re with me.

———

Now, personally, I think short hair on women is very, very sexy. But I can prove that her pixie cut was objectively a good idea. Emma Watson won an award for it last month. Best Hair of the Week on a website, baby! They don’t hand you one of those just because you got a divorce or something.

I don’t know exactly how concerned I should be that someone recently tried to access my personal Facebook account from the city where Reginald Sleeth now resides.

I should add the caveat here that it is a large city.

Reginald and I haven’t seen each other in over seven years. At least, I believe this to be true.

I saw him three years ago.

It was Christmas Eve. My grandmother was dying, and my sister and I had been visiting her in the hospital. She hadn’t woken up all night, even to look at us. I’d never seen her megawatt blue eyes dim before that week, and now there was nothing, and the later it got the more nothing eclipsed her. Her time was coming and the thought of it made my solar plexus ache. Eleven thirty we finally left. Eleven thirty and there was nothing at home but ingredients to eat. Eleven thirty, and we were drained and hungry and defeated.

To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t showered in at least two days and my fatigue settled on my face like two black eyes.

There was a single restaurant open that night in our smallish hometown. A greasy spoon that never closes, where kids can go pad their pickled stomachs after last call. We were just glad to find a place to sit down and vacantly watch someone put plates of warm things in front of us.

Right after the waitress, brown ponytailed and shimmery lidded, took our drink orders, the door swung open, briefly staining the air with the outside chill. And in he walked.

I could see him perfectly from the booth where I sat. Reginald Sleeth. His hair was spiked high, garishly, as he used to do it when he was feeling especially self-conscious. And he had gained some weight, perhaps, but he still fit in his old winter coat. His stride was the one I’d memorized, casually hunched but hemorrhaging arrogance. He was distracted by the girl who’d moved in after I’d left our shared apartment four years prior, and another couple. They all sat down at a big corner booth, Reginald in the middle, holding court as he loved to do.

Reginald Sleeth was not even supposed to be in the state. I’d heard he’d moved far away. I’d heard his parents had moved even farther. My stomach recoiled on itself. Suddenly, I’d never been less hungry in my life. Terror had taken over my torso, from tensed shoulders to thumping heart to plummeting guts. I dropped off my seat and hid behind the table.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” I hissed to my sister, “Reginald just walked in.” She twisted around to see. “Don’t! Don’t look over there. I don’t think he saw me.”

“Are you okay?” She asked. See, I was crouching in abject horror on the floor at a greasy spoon diner, hiding from the person I feared most in this world. P.S. My grandma, one of my favorite people ever, full stop, was off dying in a hospital room down the road. ‘Okay’ was not a valid guess here. Hurriedly, I told her I was leaving. I was really sorry, but could she explain things to the waitress and follow me as soon as she could? I snuck a couple dollars onto the table and slithered out of there as quickly as my crippled limbs would carry me.

I don’t think he saw me. To this day I choose to believe that.

I choose to believe it partly because those were not the circumstances under which I was supposed to see him after all that time. What was supposed to happen, I’m sure, is something more like this:

I’m on a gorgeous, 16-hand Friesian stallion who is also a cyborg who can fly. Having just published my first international bestselling novel, I am riding through the countryside, looking inexplicably like Twin Peaks-era Sherilyn Fenn and wearing the coolest pair of sneakers in the world (because no fantasy is complete without great sneakers). Reginald is in a ditch, bawling because his life has collapsed like a house of cards. He is wearing flip-flops and has zero cyborg horses. I coolly observe Reginald from my high vantage, “You hurt me,” my eyes tell him. “I am a terrible person and you deserved better,” his say. A single tear rolls down my face and falls to the ground, where it becomes a beautiful blossom that will never fade nor die. That beautiful blossom sprays a toxic mist onto Reginald’s face, disfiguring him for life. Then I turn my flawless, porcelain doll face homeward, where I go have earth-shattering sex with diamond-studded nerdcore rappers who are also professional water polo players.

Is this so much to ask?

The other reason I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice me that Christmas Eve was because he didn’t acknowledge me or try to contact me soon afterward. And Reginald tries to contact me every so often. Sometimes to say he misses me, sometimes to say he’s sorry, and sometimes to be fucking creepy. Once he emailed me (at an address I never gave him) to cryptically tell me that he prays… every day. As far as I know he’s still an atheist, so I don’t even know what that means!

It’s been a while– over a year– since his last try. I hope I’m off his radar. But whenever something weird happens, like when, say, someone tries to hack into my Facebook account, I have a moment of panic. In a twisted, fucked up way, it’ll never be completely over with him, and I will have to live with that even after my cyborg Friesian ship comes in. But every time I don’t respond to whatever shit he’s trying to pull, he doesn’t win, and that’s something.

(image source)

I think a lot of us live in fear that the sex will dry up for us, and we’ll be left horny, frustrated, and humping furniture. Or maybe it’s just me. My first relationship set a precedent for that: at some point Reginald Sleeth just stopped wanting to touch me, and that damaged our longevity and my self-esteem almost as much as all the abuse did, if indeed in our case one can completely separate the two.

I still don’t understand how it happened. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that everything Reginald found challenging and attractive in my personality had withered away by that point. Maybe he’d mentally moved on to his next victim. Maybe he’d been faking everything sexual with me and got tired of humoring me. Maybe finally having vaginal intercourse was too great a turn-off to recover from. Whatever made the sex die, I’m glad now that it did because it made it easier to walk away, but it was devastating at the time.

But my second relationship wasn’t exactly validating either, and brought up the question of whether it’s worse for the sex to dry up, or to have to keep wondering why it never got around to getting damp in the first place.

Perhaps Aldo Melastophilus and I shouldn’t have started dating. We were so great as friends. Our conversations popped with absurdity and hilarity in ample and equal parts. We could spend hours doing art projects together like six-year-olds, or have super serious time discussions about the sociopolitical wisdom that Opeth songs held for dinosaurs, if dinosaurs were to still exist and like death metal. We got along famously. It didn’t bother me that he was also very good looking. I’m open minded like that.

Then one day he walked me to my car after an evening together, and lunged forward to kiss me. Which was very surprising indeed, but I regrouped eventually and we kissed a little more.

Eventually we evolved into regular making out, but not significantly fewer art projects. After our early progress, it seemed like I was doing all the escalating. I was the one to introduce his hands to the concept of potentially interesting things being present under my shirt. Eventually I removed my shirt, and then later my bra. I put my hands down his pants. I put his hands down my pants. I may have given him his first blow job, and I could tell– like some kind of disappointed sixth sense– that I was the first girl he tried giving oral sex to. He didn’t seem to dislike any of these activities, but damned if they weren’t always my idea.

This sexually forward person I’m telling you about really doesn’t sound like me, does it?

The first time we tried having penis-in-vagina sex (on my initiative, naturally) it was awkward. His bed was lofted and he’s almost a foot taller than I am. Add inexperience squared to those key facts, and there was no immediately obvious solution as to how to configure our bodies to make our genitals match up correctly. I think we just ended up on the floor, or possibly his computer chair, which I remember us breaking somehow either then or on another attempt. He got inside me, but went soft soon after.

A word on losing your boner: it’s really, really not a big deal. Until it is. First time pressure to perform is just too great? Understandable. Stressed lately? These things happen. You swear this never happens to you? Let’s just cuddle. It’s really not the end of the world, although I would respectfully like to remind you that you still have fingers and I still have needs. But when it happens every time there’s a problem, and that problem is my ego.

Turned out, Aldo could keep wood all the way to orgasm when I gave him oral sex, but not so much when my vagina came into the picture. We just failed at having vaginal intercourse every damn time. I don’t think we ever rode that pony for more than a minute or two, tops, before his erection faded. And he never, ever came when we were fucking. After many failures I quite naturally concluded, as any reasonable person might do, that my pussy was repulsive and that I was probably also disgusting in every other way that matters. I slipped into a sadly resigned stone approach: forgetting about being touched; just trying to give him orgasms and abandoning any idea of my own.

Of course we were doomed. I’m not saying that stone/pillow queen relationships can’t work, but when I am part of us and that’s what we’re doing, we’re doomed. So very doomed. Doomed doomed doomed. He was embarrassed, I was frustrated, and eventually we just stopped calling each other. Much later he told me that he’d been slipping into a clinical depression at the time.

“It wasn’t you; it was me,” he confided.

“I can not believe you just retroactively it’s-not-you-it’s-me-ed me,” I disclosed. It was truly a time of healing.

Maybe it was just depression. Maybe I wasn’t repulsive. I really don’t know. Maybe Aldo just isn’t a very sexual person. For all the conversations we’ve had while and after we were dating, he has never once mentioned dating anyone other than me. Manifold nuances and forces could have conspired to keep his penis out of my vagina. All I know is that I’m still much, much less aggressive than I was back before Aldo and I became fuck-crossed lovers.

Fuck-crossed (Pt. 2)

(…with not-so-quick explainy stuff before and after)

Do you seem to get into a lot of arguments about rape, and you don’t really know why? Have you ever wondered why your statements about rape get negative reactions from feminists and victims/survivors? If you’d genuinely like to understand what’s going on, and maybe even reevaluate your stance on sexual assault, please read on…

It has occurred to me that many people may not understand what being a rape apologist means versus someone willing to be an ally to victims. Like it or not, in a discussion about rape, you will usually come off as one or the other. There is no side of any rational argument saying “Rape is great! There should be more rape!”, so often when people think they’re representing a middle ground they’re actually the extreme side, the apologist side, against the “Rapists are made of pure, unadulterated suck!” side. Just accept now that “Rape is never okay, but what did the victim think was going to happen when she went back to that dude’s apartment wearing that postage stamp of a skirt!?” isn’t the cool-headed voice of reason between two equally valid arguments.

We tend to not see self-described rapists entering public, philosophical debates about rape. So an apologist ends up as the rapist’s de facto voice (most often not intentionally), representing the rapist’s interests and trying to divvy out the blame more evenly. This is why people, especially rape victims or those who empathize with them, don’t tend to exclaim “Thank you for your brilliant and original perspective! Bless my buttons! I’ve simply never thought of it that way!” when confronted with an apologist’s comments.

Rape apologists aren’t rapists (see: rapists), nor are they consciously trying to defend rapists (see: trolls). Blaming the victim or insinuating that the victim has some responsibility for an attack (a maneuver coincidentally known as “blaming the victim”) are rituals woven into the fabric of society. It doesn’t make you an automatic monster, or even rare. But understand, please, that because of this your opinions are also far from revelatory, marginalized, and vital to the discussion.

This type of discourse about rape can be very hurtful, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how it’s helpful. You might not know if you’re coming off as speaking from a rape apologist platform. You probably don’t feel like you are. “Rape apologist” isn’t exactly a self-identification. But, you know, there’s an internet quiz for everything these days, and ZOMG here comes one now!

_____________________________

Quizzical Pussy’s Quick and Dirty Rape Apologist Quiz!

Read the following statements and try to react to them naturally:

1. Approximately 1 in 6 women is raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Approximately 1 in 33 men is raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in his lifetime.*
2. Rape is underreported.
3. Nothing any rape victim does or leaves undone before, during, or after a rape can make the rape her or his fault or responsibility.
4. Rape can and does occur by means of physical force, coercion, and/or lack of the victim’s ability to consent.
5. Rapists are responsible for the rapes they commit, and they have the choice to not rape.

If you can fundamentally agree with these statements, not just here, but when you confront them on the internet or in real life, and (this is key) you don’t feel compelled to add a “but…” then we can probably have a productive conversation about rape. If you contest them or continually need to add a caveat, then the way you discuss rape might come off as more compassionate toward the perpetrators than the victims. In that case, you are being a rape apologist.

_____________________________

Be really honest with yourself here. If you fall into the latter group, it doesn’t mean you’re a horrible ogre and have no right to speak your mind, ever. It doesn’t mean you have to suddenly agree with everything I say, or even that this five-item list comprehends the entirety of points and truths related to rape. And yes, you have every right to voice your opinions. But you’re very likely not as useful to the dialogue as you believe you are.

I simply don’t understand what you think is going to happen if you just listen to the anti-rape, pro-victim point of view without getting defensive and argumentative. Do you feel like we anti-rape extremists are going to get too comfortable with having our views go unchallenged and start filing police reports indiscriminately? Do you think we’re going to collectively decide that every time we had consensual sex in the past, gee, now that we think about it, we were probably raped?

The whole “All intercourse is rape” thing is about as much a strawman as “Rape is great!” Sane people don’t feel that way. Believe sex bloggers don’t feel that way. What we (I’m going out on a limb and speaking for others here) really want is to not be raped. But at very, very least we want to be taken seriously if we are, and to be allowed to be compassionate to rape victims without getting blamed and lectured, or having our experiences trivialized.

* Please note that rape is also perpetrated upon those who don’t identify as fitting within the gender binary.