Thread by @VABVOX

I've read several threads by black women about their experiences mirroring those of the woman with Ansari. They are gripping, brave, painful. They evoke the fear of reprisal & how sexual agency shifts.
I am not RTing because I don't want to encourage trolling.
But I thank them.

The fact is millions of women have had this experience precisely because we DO exert power over our own sexual agency. But that power ceases when the man chooses to ignore consent being withdrawn. The facile "just leave" narrative white women are pushing we've heard before.

For generations women have been told there's a point where they are no longer allowed to withdraw consent.
That narrative must end. For women to have true sexual agency and choice, men must assent to follow the rules and not impose their own or the threat of violence.

What Caitlin Flanagan, Katie Roiphe and Daphne Merkin have in common (other than being white, middle-aged and immensely privileged) is they've embraced the internalized misogynist narrative that women are lesser than men in all things sexual.

Their writing is presumptive of male sexuality predominating in consensual sex and women being subservient and lesser. Thus Flanagan's embarrassing presumption that Ansari's date was seeking a celebrity boyfriend, not that he was seeking a very pretty much-younger girlfriend.

These "think pieces" also studiously ignore the reality that women get raped and that the majority of rapes are by someone we know and that there's always a peripheral lurking fear for every woman that too strident a no could result in assault.

I recently had a long conversation about consent with one of my oldest & closest friends. It was revelatory. We have talked most days for 20yrs. We talk about everything including sex. We both believe in sex as recreational as well as part of a marriage (we are both married).

The frankness of the discourse was welcome, because I wanted honest answers about what men think from a man I love and trust and have never had sex with. We need way more of this in breaking down rape culture. We also need women to stop silencing other women in defense of men.

Don't presume your experience is the same as even one other woman's. Don't presume to know that a man wasn't coercive. Don't insist that the litmus is violent rape. Don't claim that women "cry rape" and/or are "looking for attention." Don't promote these 19th century narratives.

The #MeToo discussion JUST began a few months ago. #TIMESUP is THREE WEEKS OLD. WOC, lesbians, working class/poor women have barely been embraced by either movement. Yet already white women are rushing to rewrite the narrative and silence other women in service to male editors.

Think hard about this if you're nodding along with these pieces. Think about the editors who assigned them and that among America's most prominent LEFT editors, quite a few are now out of work after having been investigated for sexual misconduct.

Male privilege protects itself.

That we have only just begun to speak about all of this and so many are dedicated to shutting it down is unsurprising. The drive to protect the status quo of male entitlement has dominated all cultures for millennia. Our female bodies have always been commodities.

The idea that women might have sexual choices is new--birth control has only been available in my lifetime. Yet THIS narrative persists: women's virginity is an awesome gift/responsibility while men do what they want sexually. That's part of the #MeToo /#TIMESUP discourse.

Kids being raised now may be able to escape these narratives. I hope so. But I know that if a man has had as many sexual encounters as I've had, it would be a high-five celebration, not a slut-shaming public branding.

Make that part of #TIMESUP: sexual equality.

Catherine Deneuve, a great actress & not-so-great human,apologized today for her unseemly letter claiming that some level of grab 'em by the p is part of the "fun" of the sexual interplay between heterosexuals. Another woman was on French TV saying sexual assault can be exciting.

IRL, most women don't want to be sexually assaulted against their will/consent. It's not fun. It's horrendous. (I know.)

Male editors AND READERS are looking for the Flanagans, Roiphes and Merkins to be the woman who will say women are liars and men are the real victims.

This is not complex. Who has the most to gain by having women assert that other women are liars and attention seekers and gold-diggers? IT'S NOT WOMEN.

I covered the election for 2yrs. I presumed women would be excited at the prospect of the tectonic shift a female president with a 50% female Cabinet would create.
I didn't understand white women--college educated women--voting for Trump.
I understand, now. It's self-protective.

If you've only ever acceded to men, even whilst telling one's self that one is in an equal relationship (never faked an orgasm? honestly?), it must be hard to make a different choice. 53% of white women didn't. Yet 94% of black women did.

So now I am full-circle. The threads of black women I read tonight (in addition to Jessica Valenti's) validated MY reality. Whereas the "women are whiny little bitches" "why didn't she leave" tweets I'd previously seen had disappointed me.

There's so much work to be done.
Women have to want to be in equal and honest relationships with men and be willing to demand nothing less. Men have to want the same. We have to divest of the man-subsumes-woman narrative in favor of equity and...fun.

Consent isn't hard. It doesn't "ruin" sex. It makes sex open, free and so much sexier. Playful. Real. Mutual.
You can't explore your own sexuality and share in a partner's without talking about what you both want, without being on the same sexual page.
It's not hard. Do it. <fin>