Raising My Sexual Standards

My “yes” must be enthusiastic — and ecstatic

When I was a young girl, I assumed dating would be easy. You’d see someone from across a room, your eyes would lock, and sparks would fly. I thought this might happen a few times in my life — I didn’t expect to meet a forever match the first time like most of my friends did. (And frankly, I wanted to sample the goods before I locked myself in.) But surely, it would be easy, right?

What turned out to be easy was sexual attraction. Everything else was hard (no pun intended).

There were all kinds of reasons for this, but ultimately, my biggest problem was that I was never taught about consent. On the contrary, I was taught very dangerous ideas about sex.

My father told me repeatedly that I needed to be careful about what I wore, what I said, and what I did, because if I wore/said/did something that turned a man on, there would be no going back. I’d have to follow through. Once the launch sequence has begun, there’s no button for aborting it, as he said.

As if that wasn’t confusing enough (how was I supposed to determine what was going to start a man’s “launch sequence?!”), he added a few more horrifying gems. If a guy likes you, he’d say, it’s because you did something to make him like you. So you have to take responsibility for that and give him a chance. And if you express an attraction to a man and then change your mind…shame on you. He literally said to me once, “Don’t be a cocktease.”

(I love my parents, but let’s just say that I and my future therapists will be cleaning up their messes for the rest of my life.)

Of course, that’s not the story about consent that’s being told today. I’m 44 now, and I still feel like these “new rules” are some kind of wonderful dream, too good to be true. Wait a minute… I can change my mind? I can change my mind about being attracted to someone? I can even change my mind in the middle of sex? What?!

It’s like I’ve entered some kind of fantasy land where what I want matters. I realize that might sound sarcastic, but I’m quite serious. I did not grow up with that message and so all these years later, I’m almost suspicious.

I get to do only what I enthusiastically consent to? Can that be real? Is that a thing now?

I was 19 the first time someone pursued me sexually. He had just been hired in the position above me, and I remember seeing a copy of his driver’s license on my boss’ desk and having an intuitive feeling that we were going to date.

Strangely, this filled me with dread. I’m not one to judge people by their looks, but I was immediately repelled by his appearance. His style was “emo meets vampire” and something about that photo gave me the feeling that he had a very dark, violent personality. (Which I’d find out was accurate all too soon.)

Sure enough, within a week of his start date, he began hitting on me pretty aggressively. I remember my dad’s words, that if a man liked me, it was because I had invited it. So when he asked me on a date, I agreed to go, despite the fact that I passionately did not want to.

I remember that date so vividly. We went out to breakfast and I ordered oatmeal because I felt like vomiting the entire time. I couldn’t even eat it. I didn’t like him. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to date him. But I thought I had “started the launch sequence,” so I assumed I had to endure whatever he wanted to do.

What would it have been like, I wonder, to have felt that I had the right to simply say no to that date?

Inexplicably, I ended up feeling some attraction to him at some point (though certainly not major sparks), and our relationship grew. It saddens me that I have no recollection of whether or not I wanted to have sex when we had sex. I remember our first kiss and that I did, indeed, want that. I initiated it, in fact.

But the sex? All I remember was that I wanted to get it over with and hopefully have an orgasm.

How sad is it that I can’t recall if I “enthusiastically consented” to my first sexual experience? Or that I didn’t even know I had the right to hold out for enthusiastic consent?

Just the other day, I was indulging in a lovely fantasy which suddenly and strangely veered into an anxious future projection. There I was, in my fantasy, getting jackrabbited five seconds into penetration.

As it played out in my head, I imagined doing what I have always done: gritted my teeth, clenched down on my pelvic muscles to protect my body against the aggressive invasion, and tried to catch my breath, waiting for it to be over.

I realized how much I dread having to do that again.

And then…I reminded myself that I don’t have to endure that ever again! I don’t ever, ever, ever have to lay there through a 30-minute porn simulation in which my partner moves me into various positions and endlessly jackrabbits me until I’m so raw I have to ask him to please finish.

Sure, I want my partner to have fun, and I’m not opposed to some pounding from time to time, but I don’t have to endure that sustained discomfort. I don’t have to pretend that I enjoy being a passive receptacle for someone else’s pleasure.

I get to do the things in bed that I enthusiastically consent to — either because I want to experience certain types of pleasure, or because I want to do something for a partner’s pleasure. But even the latter can be accomplished without me having to grit my goddamn teeth.

How many times have I done things with a male partner that I didn’t want to do because I thought once we had initiated intimate contact, there was no turning back? No rescinding consent? No saying “yes” to this but “no” to that?

How many times did I give an Oscar-worthy performance of a blow job that I wasn’t really into? Or swallow when I didn’t want to? Or let someone put their hand down my pants before I was ready? Or not speak up when a lover was doing something that caused me pain?

I’ve never been with a lover with whom I was able to consistently exercise enthusiastic consent. I literally never knew I had the right to exercise such a privilege.

I still remember all the times in my last relationship in which I initiated sex only to be swiftly and emphatically denied when my partner wanted to play video games or when he felt sick, and all the times I didn’t object when I didn’t want to have sex and even the few times when I said no, begged him to stop, and cried while he pinned me down and fucked me anyways.

I’m still trying to retrain myself. I don’t want to go into another encounter — a relationship or even a hookup if I happen to end up being that bold — forgetting this and defaulting to the way things were before.

I realize this might sound ridiculous, but I’m giddy over the prospect of a future filled with enthusiastically consented-to sex. No more gritting my teeth. No more putting up with constant jackrabbiting. No more keeping my mouth shut when I just want to say, “Could you do that softer, please?” or “A little to the left.” No more passive agreements to do whatever a partner wants. No more failing to say, “I don’t want to do that tonight. How about this, instead?”

I can’t help but wonder what this might be like. What a game-changer it will be.

It, no doubt, won’t make things any simpler when it comes to sex. Like I said, the only thing about sex that’s easy is the attraction. The rest of it takes a lot of work, whether you’re in a relationship together or not.

But…I can only imagine what it would be like to only have fun during sex, rather than counting down the minutes until certain parts of it are over. To only experience pleasure, not pain. To enjoy exactly the things I want to do and avoid anything that I don’t enjoy.

And I can only imagine how wonderful this would be for a partner. Well…I would hope so. Admittedly, I don’t think most of my past partners would have been down with this, but the person I want to be with is someone whose own pleasure would be enhanced by knowing that everything we were doing together was sending me into paroxysms of ecstasy. The partner I want is someone who would be increasingly turned on by every request I murmured, and every goddamn “no” I voiced.

So now I’m teaching myself to imagine what it would be like to experience a world in which I felt free to change my mind about someone I’m attracted to. To know that I have the right to wait until I feel that enthusiastic yes before deciding to have sex with someone.

And then, when we do…every single moment of it, I remind myself, is supposed to be a screaming, ecstatic yes. Every breath, every kiss, every collision of flesh.

I get to say “YES!” to all of it. And without that, I’m not interested.

© Yael Wolfe 2020

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