Wherever they are, Julie Gillis writes, we need to make them clearer.

This post is tagged NO HOSTILITY. This is a new policy that will be applied to some posts at the author’s request. NO HOSTILITY posts will be moderated more than usual: comments might not show up right away or may be deleted if they are in violation of our commenting policy. This post also has a TRIGGER WARNING for talk of rape and sexual consent.

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This is not about rape. Well, not exactly. I admit to a little compassion and/or battle fatigue from the past few days and weeks. But I’m determined to keep focused on the path towards supporting all humans as we struggle with this together.

Rape is a difficult subject. It can bring out the worst fears in all of us, some odd and horrible mixture of shame, guilt, fear, anger, and probably a few other things thrown in for good measure. It’s the deepest part of our shadow side. It is a terrible thing, this shadow and it shows us the worst part of human nature.

Rape touches on the worst of that shadow–to take something so personal and turn it, twist it, change something so amazing, sex, into something fearful, forever. Because it’s so horrible is why it is vital to be able to accurately define it, identify it, report it, and eradicate it.

That being said, this article isn’t a post about rape precisely. It’s certainly not about rape that occurs in time of war, prison, or torture or systematized forms. This post isn’t about familial abuse, though that seems to be connected more to what I’m talking about. Neither of those angles are what I am addressing in this piece. They are real, they are extremely problematic, and they do need focus.

What I’m focused on at the moment are the posts and comments I’ve seen of more personal moments: date rapes, confusing nights, mixed messages. Was it rape? Was it sexual assault? What if I’m a man and I felt really bad about the experience? What if I’m a lesbian and I should have said no to her, does it count?

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As noted, the FBI classification is causing lots of conversations. The recent change makes us lay people (read: non-legal experts) ask questions: What is rape, how do we define it, what’s the difference between sexual assault and rape and sexual misconduct. What makes female on male envelopment count as a different kind of statistic than male on female penetration? When is it bad sex and bad choices, and when is it much more nefarious?

Some of those questions are being dealt with elsewhere, so I am going to share my thoughts on an angle I think is worth examining.

Sexuality and Communication

Here are some some vignettes from my own life. Because I’m a woman and, at the time, was dating men, these little stories are told from my POV, and are heterosexual in nature. But I bet any of us, after reading the stories could share some of our own from any orientation and gender combination.

1) 1988 — I briefly began dating a man and we had reached a point of serious making out on our sexual progression. We went to a movie and he drove me home and we made out in the front of the car. Things got steamy and he stretched out over me and though I froze up and mumbled to stop, he engaged in frottage to fruition on my leg, looked embarrassed, I went inside and we didn’t date or speak again.

2) 1989 — I was at a theater festival and all the interns were sexually active. I went to a boy’s room one night. He hadn’t shown much interest, but neither had he rejected me. He let me in. We fooled around and didn’t quite have PIV but we did get naked. He didn’t talk to me the next day and avoided me.

3) 1990 — I met a young man in a city about an hour away from mine while I was visiting a friend. We hit it off and I invited him to come visit. He did though when he arrived he seemed different than when I’d met him in person. We hung out and even though he knew other folks in town, he wanted to stay at my apartment. He was sexually assertive with me and I grew uncomfortable with where things were going, yet there he was in my apartment. I freaked out, said I didn’t want to have sex. He slept on the couch.

4) 1992 — I was a party with some new friends in Seattle, where I’d recently moved. I met a guy, flirted with him and decided to take him home with me, though my friends seemed really worried about it. We got into things, but it was really no fun for me. Things weren’t going well, chemistry-wise, let’s say. He, though, was motivated to have a good night and made it clear he wanted his. I remember, very distinctly, a moment where I calculated the situation; alone, no roommates, late at night. Ask him to leave or take 5 minutes and get him off in order to get him out. I chose the latter option.

What did all of those vignettes have in common?

There was not one bloody word of communication about wants, desires, limits, boundaries, ideas, hopes between me or any of those men. In all the scenarios, I see both of us at some level of fault — no direct communication of yes or no, no curious conversation about what the night or relationship might hold, no “no harm no foul” card was offered from either party in any of the examples.

In the first scenario, we never talked about (for instance) our religious differences pertaining to sex, issues around my virginity or if we wanted to keep dating.

Second, at the theater festival, I was focused on getting the guy and not paying attention to his signals. He didn’t say no and he did participate. I have no idea what he really wanted.

In the third scenario, I didn’t talk to the man about finding additional places to stay, that I wasn’t sure if I was ready for sex, he didn’t relay any information to me about his goals.

In the final story, I made assumptions about my safety without talking to him. I didn’t make decisions that were in my best interest and I didn’t have any idea at all what his actual feelings were.

I don’t consider any of the above situations rape, sexual assault, or actual danger of being in sexual assault. At the time, and still, I see those situations as really nights of immature sexual behavior by people with little to no skills about how to talk about sex, about how to communicate and own their own sexual desires and boundaries. I see individuals making choices without any structural support in their past that would have given them better skills, to have better sex. Or not to have sex at all.

Again, focusing only on people in the dating and mating scene, I wonder at times if all the very valuable stats, all the important anti-rape programs, all the Take Back The Night movements (for men, women, trans, and any sexual orientation) will do systemic good at all if there isn’t also a complete systemic overhaul about how we communicate about sexual health, sexual pleasure, bodily autonomy, sexual agency and until we learn to truly speak to each other about sex. I still think there is something bigger and deeper that needs to be addressed concurrently in order for those programs to be globally effective for both men and women.

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How we begin that process in a country with such conflicted views about sex? In the US alone we have states that focus on total abstinence only sex education and states that promote a comprehensive sex ed program. We have battles over vaccines that could prevent cancer, because we fear that the administration of them will cause our children to have sex. Which they probably will anyway.

We have politics influenced by religion and beliefs, which are often opposition to more secular beliefs. I’ve seen articles focused on returning to decades old Family Values, posts on how feminism causes men to commit less, pieces on how women being sexual active lowers their market value. We’ve got activists focused on legalizing prostitution and we have activists promoting “True Love Waits.”

We have poles within poles within poles and the messages are very, very confusing. We speak, quite literally, different languages about it all. We need interpreters.

If we don’t talk about sex, if we don’t talk about boundaries, if we can’t together define bad sex from immature choices, to sexual assault to rape, how are we to get good stats? How do we inform men and women about rape, assault and the role consent plays in sexuality if we aren’t having clear conversations and mutually agreed upon definitions across the boards? How do we shift sex from poles of “Yes/No” to a continuum of mutually shifting and changing negotiations around sexuality and the sex act, as ClarisseThorn mentioned in her piece earlier this year. You know my position, as I’ve written about it before.

Naysayers will say, and have said to me, that no one will talk like that. That it takes the romance out of seduction. That it’s an impossible mode. Maybe. Maybe that’s the price we have to pay to get the clarity we say we want. Women have to own their desires, wants, and boundaries as clearly as do men. Women need to be able to say yes, men need to be able to say no. Maybe everyone needs classes in how to read body language, how to ask questions, how to use clarifying language in a sexy way. I personally think that class could be kind of fun.

Maybe our western cultural paradigms about sex, sexuality, sexual health, men and women (masculinity and femininity and the narratives connected to each) need some attention before we can figure out how to truly solve issues like date rape, consent, envelopment and how arousal doesn’t equal “yes.”

These things actually are happening, I believe. Concurrently. That’s part of why it’s messy work.

I realize we all come from different perspectives and opinions, some of them at a 180 based on religious, moral and cultural differences. But things don’t seem to be working well out there (std rates, teen pregnancies, ample examples of miscommunication, and more), and I’d rather deal with the differences than ignore the problems.

People are having sex, they don’t all have the same information, skills, and abilities, and there is room for improvement. If sex, pleasure, and connection are what we want (and if abuse, pain, loss, and assault are what we want to avoid), I think we should all work on it together, even if it’s difficult. Even if we speak different languages.

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I’ll be posting a piece about intepreting sex in the next few days. Until then, I’d love to hear your comments, stories, and thoughts.

—Photo ctrouper/Flickr