For the Men Who Don’t Understand the Concept of Sexual Coercion
Trigger Warning: This article discusses r*pe, sexual assault, and harassment in DEPTH.
When I was eighteen, I learned the real definition of pressure. Growing up, peer pressure always felt like a term applied to drugs and being bullied. My mom and I had open and honest discussions about sex due to the nature of my grandfather’s arrest. I think, because of the trajectory of my childhood, I never stopped to apply the word “pressure” to sex, only thinking of rape in terms of dark alley ways and child molestation. But, then again, I was both a child and a victim of the latter. Aside from that, I’d never been raped by someone my own age or close to.
When I was eighteen, I met a boy, just four years older than me. He was charming and devilishly so. He was the most traumatizing experience I’ve ever had. For six months straight he sexually abused me through various forms of sexual assault and rape. He pressured me into doing whatever he wanted by making me feel useless and unwanted in return. He would lock himself away when I denied him his way, until I caved and begged for his forgiveness. I tried leaving him multiple times. The first time, he pinned me, sobbing, against the front door with my car keys in his hand. I was trying to drive to my aunts’ house after we got into a nasty fight, and he threatened to throw me out a window. The second time, I was forced to continue living with him, due to my underpaying job that put me in a position of codependency.
When I left my marriage, I was thrust back into the world of uncertain dating and meeting new people. Don’t get me wrong, there were some people I chose to sleep with during that time enthusiastically. Others, not so much. I was always kind to everyone I met, unless they gave me reason not to be. I tried to be personable and conversational. I tried to be nice, because deep down I wasn’t used to being alone and I wanted something more. Unfortunately, I had to re-learn navigating sexual coercion — something I now wouldn’t let affect me, even with a gun to my head. You’d think after everything I’d already been through; I might have been smarter. But the truth is, most abuse survivors will fall back into a cycle of abuse on an average of seven times before they finally leave. It doesn’t need to necessarily be with same abusers — it can be a partner, a spouse, or even yourself. For people who have been accustomed to lifelong abuse, it takes even longer.
So, now the part you’ve been waiting for.
Dear men,
Unless you yourself have been a victim of rape, assault, and sexual coercion (sexual coercion WILL result in one or the other; they are explicitly and undeniably linked).
What IS sexual coercion? What does it mean to its victims? What does it mean to its survivors?
On paper, sexual coercion is a form of abuse that takes place by utilizing unnecessary duress, emotional manipulation, or other such manipulation tactics to pressure a sexual partner into having sex. Forms of emotional manipulation can include telling your partner that a lack of sex after foreplay will cause you physical pain (newsflash: that’s not their problem, you should have stopped before letting it get to that point and asked for consent), making yourself appear to be downhearted, upset, or angry because of being rejected for sex, or arguing that you are entitled to sex because you are a romantic partner. Other forms can include complaining, guilting, and shaming your partner — for example, saying you wasted gas, or nobody should expect free food, drinks, or smoke without putting out. Last but not least, sexual coercion can simply be initiating sexual contact with a partner who has recently or previously stated their terms for having sex. Whether it is a pride thing or thinking you can change their mind, it’s wrong and it puts someone who has already communicated their boundaries in a position to feel violated and pressured into doing things they don’t want to do.
What is sexual coercion to victims and survivors? Sexual coercion is feeling the flipping in your stomach when someone reaches down your pants without asking first. Maybe you try to put a hand on their wrist and push them away, but they continue because they think you are trying to be “hot”. They never once asked for explicit consent to be sexual and you never gave them indication that you wanted that. Sexual coercion is feeling numb when, yet another person begs and pleads with you to have sex, and you cave because you think they really want you and they make you believe it — then they leave high and dry, because they got what they were really looking for. Sexual coercion is trying to communicate through body language because the other person has made it clear they think your verbal warnings are not serious. Sexual coercion is believing that the sweet person who was complimenting you and having a normal conversation with you moments ago may actually be dangerous if you reject them, because of the sudden glint in their eyes or the way their mouth turns into a smirk. As if they just expect it to happen, no matter what — and makes you afraid they’ll take it at any cost just like the ones before.
Sexual coercion comes in many forms, not just what is highlighted above. Any situation where the victim feels pressured, in danger, or taken lightly is sexual coercion. Any situation where a romantic partner leverages the relationship as a means to entitle themselves to sex, is sexual coercion. Any time explicit terms of consent are set, just to be overlooked, is sexual coercion. If you get a blow job because you wouldn’t stop asking repeatedly, congratulations. You’re a sexual predator. If you have sex because you climbed on top of a girl who wasn’t reciprocating your advances and just masturbated yourself with her body, congratulations. You’ve raped someone. If you’re mad that I said that, good. I want you to get angry. I want you to feel angry. Then, I want you to stop projecting that anger onto your victims. Stop saying “she wanted it” when you never bothered to fucking ask. Knowing if someone reciprocates your feelings is as simple as saying “Are you comfortable with this or do you want to stop here?”
Always give your partner that explicit verbal option — you’re more likely to get enthusiastic and consensual sex (which I hope is what you’re really looking for) if you can at least give some credible display of empathy. But honest to God, if you don’t want to question whether or not you’re a sexual predator, then you better fucking mean it. Let your partner know that they can safely say no to you without hard feelings and continue to spend time with you in other ways. If you’re only looking for a hookup, then be up front about that before you even waste their time.
If you have sex because you climbed on top of a girl who wasn’t reciprocating your advances and just masturbated yourself with her body, congratulations. You’ve raped someone.
Moral of the story, sexual coercion by itself is sexual harassment. Sexual coercion that results in sexual favors is sexual assault. Sexual coercion that results in sex is rape. The sad truth is, if 97% of women have experienced sexual harassment, assault, or rape at the hands of men, then yeah, I hate to say it, but more men are predators than let on. It’s not to say women can’t be predators too. However, I never see men as shocked and appalled as I am when a young or teenage boy is molested by his schoolteacher. I never see men as shocked and appalled as women in general are, when we see other women sexually advancing towards boys under the legal age. I never see men as offended by sexual pressure. Suffice to say, the men in the comments are saying how they dreamt of those fantasies, not realizing that it is those very fantasies themselves that adult predators twist against their victims.
Men get upset when told there is more sexual abuse towards women because of sexual coercion, because most of them have perpetrated it. I would say a solid majority of my sexual or near-sexual partners at least tried to coerce me into doing things I was not down with. Yet not a single one of them will ever realize it. I outright told one that he raped me after having a panic attack when he penetrated me, after we’d had a long discussion about my choice to be abstinent on a date earlier that night. He said I made him feel bad because he doesn’t think of himself as a rapist and would never intentionally do that to someone. Yet… he did, after trying to convince me and myself saying “I’m not really in the mood” multiple times. It turned from “oh, but you’re so hot, I wish you’d let me” to “just really quick” very suddenly — and he was damn near 30, definitely at an age to know better.
I crave interaction. I crave it! But I just can’t anymore.
— Melinda Sordino, Speak
It is for these reasons that I dedicated this article to men who don’t seem to believe in sexual coercion. Since you make up the majority perpetrators for violating infringements on others’ bodies, you’re the ones who need to listen. Even if you’ve never done anything like this yourself, step in when your friends or family are unwittingly talking about sexually coercing someone themselves or being upset that sex and favors were withheld, all it takes is a “Hey, dude, try to understand it from their perspective — not everyone is always in the mood all of the time.”
If you see something happening in front of your eyes, even just harassment, firmly take a stance and defend the victim. Don’t be a bystander. Watching it happen makes you just as weird, like you have some sort of voyeurism kink for sexual assault.
As a survivor, I’ve had to stand in the mirror and face myself many a time. I’ve had to remind myself face to face that I’m so much more than my body and that it wasn’t my fault that people could not respect clear boundaries. I’ve had to wake up in the middle of the night after having dreams I was being pressured or forced to perform favors again. I’ve been wracked with chills as my body processes the anxiety that comes with opening yourself up to a new person and hoping they are not part of the dangerous majority. I carry a taser, pepper spray, and intend on getting my gun permit to defend myself. But it will never be enough. Unless I keep them on my person at all times, I won’t be able to use those to defend myself from emotional tactics and mind games. Even if they were on my person, mental abuse is mental abuse.
It wasn’t my fault that people could not respect clear boundaries.
My last point is this:
You are not forcing your victims to degrade themselves by forcing them into sex. You are degrading yourself and hurting them. You have no self-respect if you get off on taking other people’s autonomy from them. Why, might you ask? If you had self-respect, you’d realize that violating other people is not a healthy tactic for validating yourself. All you’re doing is sinking yourself further into a hole of needing to be a literal predator to feel validated, as you traumatize and scar your victims for life.
Try to understand it from their perspective — not everyone is always in the mood all of the time.
When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You’d be shocked at how many [people] are really dead inside.
— Melinda Sordino, Speak
