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Friday, March 10, 2006 12:00 AM

No more "no means no"?

Three writers wonder whether we need a better definition of rape.

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  • Saturday, March 11, 2006 03:08 PM

    No *needs* to mean no, dammit

    If it's really true that 99/100 times someone has said "no," he/she meant "yes," then there's something really screwed up going on here. I think the burden of communication needs to be put on these coy, falsely modest people (mostly the kind of silly women who can't bring themselves to say "fuck" and refer to their nether regions as "down there") who claim not to want sexual activity to take place when they actually want it. (And I have a hard time believing that the percentage of false negatives is really that high.) Communicating one's sexual desires clearly to one's partner--and not expecting them to second-guess them--is standard advice in sexual counseling and self-help; crying, "No!" while continuing to wriggle about seductively and faux-helplessly is really the stuff of those annoying bodice-rippers on the supermarket shelves. The burden should not be placed on women--however few they might be--who really absolutely do not want to be coerced, simply because these other people can't get over themselves and be direct about what they want. If one out of 100 is raped because her partner didn't believe her when she said "no," that is one too many.

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