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Understanding feminism, sexism and sexual assaults III: Saying 'yes' doesn't mean a blanket sanction to any sexual activity

Indianhomemaker posted this as a guest post (link) on her blog (link). I am resharing it here.

A Guest Post by Freebird.


I don’t think consensual sex which doesn’t involve any coercion should be treated as rape at any cost. So I find the statement ‘I said ‘yes’ but it was ’emotional rape” very contradictory.

But what I didn’t understand, and do find disturbing, is this:

// I nodded. But it was an unsure nod. I was still thinking but he started acting on it before I could know. Nobody could stop him from there. He undressed me and complemented my body.

He asked, he didn’t force himself on me. He was brutal and really wild but since it was my first, I didn’t know it was not supposed to be like that. There was no romance. He quickly got into me and enjoyed my painful shrieks. He didn’t kiss my forehead as in the movies. I couldn’t gather what was happening to my body. It was being twisted and twirled like a rubber band. I was in pain, I told him but he didn’t care. My lips were bleeding, my shoulder had a mark, I was suffocated by the weight of his body but he just didn’t stop. // - link

// Just a nod costed me my happiness. // - link

In this story, why didn’t this girl ever realize that it was OK for her to say ‘no’after saying ‘yes’? Saying ‘yes’ doesn’t mean a blanket sanction to any sexual activity. It is perfectly right to set boundaries, or ask the other person to stop when she was getting uncomfortable. If he was hurting her and she was in pain, why isn’t it clear that she had every right to tell him to stop hurting her and not engage in things which were painful to her? And the moment this message is conveyed clearly and if he still carries on, it does become ‘rape’ (not an esoteric ’emotional rape’). Whether it can be proved or not is a different issue. That doesn’t change the fact that it is rape when the other person is violating your boundaries.
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