While I completely understand how you arrived at your perspective, I think you're giving the guy who raped you too much credit, and other guys too little credit.

I doubt very much that he raped you because you said the wrong thing; he did it because he was a bastard. There was no right thing you could have said that would have changed who and what he is.

And there are plenty of guys in the world who can take no for an answer. You've seen some of them on this thread... most of the men posting here have described situations in which they behaved decently under trying circumstances.

(I was going to say 'all the men posting here' but unfortunately one or two trolls have finally joined us.)

I think my husband and stephenjudd have it right; for people who have grown up in this culture and don't have Asperger's, there's no real ambiguity in "Let's be friends." If two guys were watching a movie where a guy and girl were making out and the girl said that, the guys would laugh and say it was a burn. The "ambiguity" only comes into it when a man wants what he wants and doesn't want to hear no. That's bad behavior on his part.

Conversely, when a woman says no, or shoves the man away, and then berates him for not forcing himself on her, that's bad behavior on her part.

Both sides need to cut it out.

God, all these "she said no but she really meant yes" anecdotes are so incredibly lame they make me want to scream.

SO WHAT? Honestly. She said no and then "got mad" when you took her at her word and backed off. And, wah wah wah, you didn't get laid *one time* when you maybe could have.

Did your world fall apart? Did the sun explode? Did you experience massive physical and emotional damage that stunted your psyche for the rest of your days?

No. You didn't get laid. Boo freaking hoo.

And for all the others with the equally lame stories about all those times "she said no but then said yes when I tried again"? Imagine - if you'd taken her at her word, you might not have gotten laid! Horrors!

I don't know - it seems pretty simple to me. If a woman says "no" but really means "yes," then the worst thing that can happen if you take her at her word is that everyone goes home unsatisfied. Still seems a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

As usual, this entire discussion is ignoring a basic fact of female sexuality -- women, without exception, respond sexually to power in men. Feminism faults them for this, which results in an amazing amount of discomfort and obfuscation among young women about what they really want.

I'm in my forties. I am a gifted writer, have an Ivy League law degree, and am EXTREMELY well-read. I'm articulate, witty, sensitive, curious and very perceptive. None of which get me anywhere with women. What they notice, and respond to, is that I'm also 6'2" tall, weigh over 240 lbs and have enormous hands. I can palm a basketball, for example. I remember one girlfriend commenting on how in my hands a beer can looks tiny. I had another one say once, kind of sadly, after I told her that I had spent the weekend doing construction, that "Jewish guys never do that kind of thing." (She was Jewish; I'm not). I've never once had one of them want to discuss Thoreau.

What they do enjoy is size, strength, intensity and passion. They want to be wanted. They just do. My current girlfriend has said, more than once, during sex "You can do anything you want to me." When actually having sex, every single woman I've ever slept with has wanted it hard, verging on being violent. They have no trouble asking for that -- they insist on it.

Feminism seems to promulgate this fantasy that for women, sex is supposed to be a female-controlled game of "Mother May I?" Women my age typically have enough mileage that they are through with that, but I think younger women are made to feel tremendously guilty about the submissive element in their sexuality, thanks to feminism. This also drains a lot of the eroticism out of sex, which, remember, is a primal physical act, not a thesis defense.

But please don't take that the wrong way.

You make some good points. I will not pretend to speak for other posters, but sometimes physical intimacy is about more than sex.

Rejection can be painful, no matter what your gender. A good friend of mine, whose thoughts on dating I consistently discounted (he had a different girlfriend every few months or so...a simplification, but we don't need the whole backstory) would say, "btrader, the worst thing you can do is not sleep with a woman who wants to have sex with you." My thoughts, that's complete garbage and I called him out on it. He smiled, shrugged and we never spoke of it again.

A few years later, there was a woman with whom I had an evolving friendship. As we'd flirt, talk, hang out, and eventually go on dates, the signals I was reading were that she wanted to take it slow. This was cool, I thought, as my past experiences had led me to believe that when sex enters the equation too early, bad things can happen. I behaved accordingly and, given the fact that she kept wanting to hang, figured I was doing something right.

Long story short, when we finally found ourselves making out in a serious fashion, and she absolutely freaked out when she learned that I had no intentions of sleeping with her that night. "I guess you don't find me attractive!" she screamed before waking up my neighbors and storming out of my apartment.

There were many possible lessons to be gleaned from this, and I don't believe my friend's aforementioned point is one....although I finally learned where he was coming from on this. The tragedy was not that I didn't get laid, but that a woman I had grown fond of was no longer prepared to be a part of my life after a perceived rejection. Perhaps what I remember isn't the whole truth...or my memory is accurate and I've just left out necessary details that would enable posters to point to where we both went wrong. I don't know. What I do know, is that we both misread the other's signals and, had we been more forthright, would have prob avoided this nasty incident.

Now, we could say that i was a poor judge of character at that time, and that I'm better off not having this woman in my life. Fine, I can accept that. But that doesn't change the fact that our past experiences influence our character and frequently have a cascading impact on the decisions we make in the future.

The proliferation of ambiguity, especially when it reinforces the WRONG conclusions, is good for nobody. And not just because fewer people are getting laid....but because it drives a wedge between the sexes and impedes meaningful conversation and interpersonal intimacy (not just the physical variety).

Frequently these skewed opinions get reinforced through young adulthood (not just school), and can take years to unlearn. This is one reason, I believe, I've experienced more meaningful and enduring romantic relationships with women older than I.

Another shout out to TCF, best broadsheet post ever!