How Often Should You Ask For Something? Part 2: The Specifics
When it comes to asking for what we want in bed, how do we draw the line between asking and pressuring?
In last week’s column, I wrote about a letter to Scarleteen, the sex advice Website for (primarily) teens and young adults. In this letter, a 17-year-old girl complained about her boyfriend who said he respected her sexual limits, but then kept asking for the same thing . . . over and over and over again. Scarleteen suggested that, since the boyfriend had made his desires clear, the ball was now in her court: his continued requests had crossed the line into pressuring, and he should bloody well knock it off.
Now, like I said last week, when it comes to the particular circumstances of this particular letter, this principle is very clear-cut. No matter what you might decide about the nuances and gray areas of “asking versus pressuring,” surely “asking for the same damn thing every single time you have sex with someone when they’ve clearly said ‘I’m not ready for this now and won’t be until at least (X)’” lands squarely on the “pressuring” end of that spectrum. Scarleteen’s advice on that front was entirely solid. If anything, I’d argue that they cut this guy too much slack. Personally, I’d be less inclined to advise his girlfriend to have a serious heart-to-heart about why he keeps bringing this up when she’s made her limits very clear . . . and more inclined to advise her, as Dan Savage so often does, to dump the motherfucker already.
But like I also said last week: I don’t think it’s fair that the ball should always and forevermore be in the court of the person who said “No.” I don’t think it makes sense that the person who said “No” to a particular kind of sex should always be the one to raise the question again. If “asking for something over and over again every single time you have sex” is a lousy place to draw the line between “asking” and “pressuring,” I think “asking once and then never bringing it up again for the entire duration of the relationship” is a pretty bad place to draw it as well.
So where should we draw it?
How do we value the right to say “No” to any kind of sex we don’t want to engage in — while still valuing the right to ask for what we want?
How — specifically, practically — can we make this distinction?
I don’t want to play the Seinfeld game of coming up with hard numbers for broad relationship principles. (”If you’ve dated someone for three weeks, you can’t break up with them over the phone,” and so on.). But I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve been coming up with a few very provisional guiding principles. (This is a rough draft, by the way, very much one of my “thinking out loud” pieces — so if you have problems with these principles, or can think of some I didn’t mention, please speak up in the comments!)
1) Asking every single freaking time you have sex is right out. That’s the situation that sparked this whole conversation — so I want to get it out of the way right now. Again, I don’t want to get into a lot of strict Seinfeldian rules here . . . but I feel fairly comfortable with this one. If you want something so badly that you feel compelled to ask for it every single time you have sex with someone, maybe you ought to find a partner who actually wants to do that with you.
2) If your partner gives you a timetable for revisiting the question — respect it. If they say “No,” you can ask again now and then. But if they say “Not until I’m in college” or “Not until my divorce is final,” do not freaking well bring it up again until they’re in college or their divorce is final. (If that timetable isn’t okay with you, you’re entitled to get out of the relationship . . . but you’re not entitled to do it in a way that’s guilt-trippy or manipulative or otherwise douchey.)
3) Be more cautious and conservative when asking for something again with partners who are younger, and/or less sexually experienced. As a general rule, people who are younger and/or less sexually experienced often have a harder time saying “No.” (And alas, that’s often more true for young women than young men.) Learning that it’s okay to say “No” when your lover asks for something sexual takes a level of confidence that many young people, especially young women, haven’t learned yet. And there’s a big difference between people who’ve done lots of sexual exploration, people who’ve had time to map out both the broad and specific outlines of how they do and don’t like to boff . . . and people who are just mapping this stuff out for the first time. Taking those first baby steps can be daunting. It’s definitely not okay to nag people into taking any particular step before they’re ready.
Now, there is another factor making this principle somewhat tricky. And that’s that younger and/or less sexually experienced people aren’t just less likely to have the confidence to say “No.” They’re also less likely to have the confidence to initiate things, and to ask for things they’d like. Including things their partners have already brought up.
Example: When I was 17, I had a sex partner — a really great, fun, imaginative sex partner — who asked me if I wanted to be spanked. I said “No”: not because I didn’t want to, I desperately did, I’d been thinking about getting spanked for as long as I’d been thinking about sex . . . but because I was afraid of what wanting to get spanked would mean about me. But the moment I said “No,” I regretted it. I regretted it for the rest of that night; for every time we had sex after that; for years after this guy was out of my life. I was way too shy to bring it up with him again . . . and way too scared of having him think I was a pervert. But I would have been much obliged if he’d asked again. Probably not that night, but sometime.
When it comes to putting a sexual proposition back on the table, I do think it’s good to be more cautious and conservative with younger or less-experienced partners. And that’s true whether you’re older and more experienced, or a younger, less-experienced person yourself. But if it’s done in a way that isn’t noodging or guilt-tripping or otherwise obnoxious (more on that in a second), asking for something again doesn’t have to be pressure. It can be an invitation: an invitation to something your partner might want but doesn’t feel comfortable asking for.
4) When you ask for something again, make it explicitly clear that “No” is still an acceptable answer. There is a huge difference between, “So, can I spank you? Huh? Huh? I know you said ‘No’ before . . . but can I? Pleeeeeeeze? Oh, come on. Don’t be a wuss. All the cool kids are doing it. If you really loved me you’d do it” . . . and, “I know you said you didn’t want to be spanked, and if you still don’t that’s totally fine . . . but I’m still interested, and I just want to check in to see if your thoughts on that had changed.”
5) Talk about it when you’re not having sex. This is a good general principle of sexual negotiations . . . and it applies just as well to re-negotiations.
When people are in the middle of having sex, our thinking isn’t always at its clearest. To say the least. We’re vulnerable; we’re sensitive; we’re excited and horny. (Ideally, anyway.) Our judgment about whether we genuinely want to do something can be impaired. So if you’re going to bring up the “Have you changed your mind about (X)?” conversation, it’s much better to have it when you’re not already in the throes of passion.
6) Find out how firm the “No” is. Is this a traumatic emotional trigger? A profoundly nauseating gross-out? Or is it just a mild squick, something that might dissipate with time and information and familiarity? As I’ve written before: Is this broccoli or tofu?
If I’ve told a partner, “Eh, I’m really not into that,” it’s probably not going to bug me if they ask me about it again a month later. But if I’ve said, “Fuck no, not if it paid me a billion dollars and brought about peace in the Middle East” — it’s definitely going to bug me if they keep bringing it up. That doesn’t mean they should never ever mention it — I’ve had hard Nos turn into Maybes and even Hell Yes Please Oh Pleases in my life — but it does mean I don’t want to hear about it every month.
7) Start by asking if there’s something your partner wants. The “Have you changed your mind about (X)?” conversation is likely to go better if you don’t make that the opener. Things are likely to go better if the conversation starts with, “Is there anything you’d like to do sexually that we’re not doing?” This makes it clear that you care about your partner’s desires. It sets up your re-negotiations, not as a nagging demand, but as part of an ongoing conversation about sex, a two-way street intended to get everyone where they want to go. It’s considerate and thoughtful. (And from a purely selfish, Machiavellian standpoint, it’s good strategy.)
8) Tit for tat. And speaking of good strategy: If you’re asking your partner for something they’ve said “No” to? A good approach can be to let them do it to you first. If you want to spank them, to tie them up, to fuck them in the ass, and they’re not interested — offer to take it before you give it.
This doesn’t work in all situations or for all sex acts, obviously. “I’ll let you fuck me in the bathroom of Madison Square Garden if you’ll let me do the same with you” is clearly not a fair trade. But for some kinds of sex — sex where there’s some inherent inequality or imbalance, for instance — this can be a way to allay people’s fears, and make it seem safe.
9) When someone says “No,” it’s okay to ask “Why?”
We have to be very, very careful with this one. That “Why?” can’t be guilt-trippy. It can’t carry any implications that there’s something bad or wrong about saying “No” to a particular kind of sex. Not even a little.
But sometimes, when people say “No” to a certain kind of sex, it’s because they have misconceptions about it. (I said “No” to anal sex for years because I was under the misconception that it always hurt.) And sometimes, even when people have entirely valid, non-misconception-y reservations about a particular kind of sex . . . those reservations can sometimes be addressed. (”We’ll go slow, and we’ll use lots of lube, and we’ll slow down or stop if it starts to hurt” leaps to mind.)
Again, we have to be seriously careful with this. There’s a difference between saying, “Why are you such an unloving, uptight prude that you don’t you want to give me this thing I want so much?”, and saying, “I accept your No and will respect it — but I’d like to know where that No is coming from, since some people have misconceptions about X, and there might be some way we could do it that would address your concerns about it.”
But if it’s done in a non-judgmental way, asking “What are your reasons for not wanting this?” can be a good start to settling sexual differences and arriving at compromises that everyone’s happy with. And it can lead to better overall understanding of each other’s erotic maps . . . and to good conversations about other things you might or might not want to do.
Nobody is required to give an answer to the question, “Why don’t you want to do that?” The answer, “Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t feel like it” is perfectly valid. But it’s a valid and reasonable question to ask. And I think it’s valid and reasonable to ask your partner to at least think about the answer.
•
That’s my rough draft.
Wanna help me fine-tune it?
This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 June 2010 at 11:43 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Friday, 18 June 2010 at 12:02 am Steve wrote:
I think that’s fair.
Dan Savage would say you should negotiate - if your partner wants you to do something that your not comfortable with then perhaps you could do it so long as they explored something that you were interested in later. Perhaps discuss it a bit if the request was about piss play well perhaps they don’t mind being peed on but just in the shower, or not in the face - find out what part of the act you’re interested in trying they are resistant to.
His latest about threesomes is on exactly this topic.
on Tuesday, 22 June 2010 at 5:00 am Kit wrote:
I’d be cautious about assuming young men find it easier to say no. Young men are supposed to be up for anything and everything at any time, and that’s gotta create a considerable pressure. I never was a young man, but I’ve read men online talking about how women sexually pressured or even assaulted them, and how they just get laughed at if they try to talk about it, because men are just a penis on legs, right? So I think it might be pretty easy to make many a young man fold: just question his manhood.
As a corollary to ‘asking every single freaking time’, I’d add ‘going on and on about how interesting you find that sex act - even if you do it in non-sexual space and pay some lip-service to “but you don’t have to do it” at intervals.’ Obviously there’s a line, because talking about what interests you is part of a healthy sexual relationship, but if you talk and talk and talk about what interests you even when your partner has said, ‘Seriously, don’t wanna do that’ … past a certain point, you’re putting the pressure on. ‘You don’t have to’ isn’t very convincing when the unspoken part is ‘You don’t have to (but I’m not going to shut up about it until you do).’ That’s a situation where you need to decide what you want more, this act or this partner.
And on the subject of being obliged if someone would ask again … Well, I hear ya. But I think if you’re going to ask again, you have a responsibility to pay close attention to how they said ‘no’. Ask yourself if you could see any sign of temptation in it. If they said ‘Absolutely no way, I think that sounds awful’, a second question probably isn’t as welcome as if they said, ‘What? Me? Golly - er, no, no, I’m a good girl…’
I also think there’s another way of tackling the embarrased-but-tempted no situation, which is to make sure that you always leave it saying, ‘Well, if you change your mind, that’s cool.’ Because past a certain point - well, we have to learn to speak up for what we want, we have to take responsibility for owning our own desires, and if we work on creating an atmosphere where the other person feels safe, then we’re already helping with that. A partner who never brings up a desire unless directly asked is probably not a partner you want to be with long-term.
And another I’d suggest is ‘Remember there are ways of feeling someone out other than a bald request.’ If you want to try something kinky, for instance, you can lay some groundwork. You could say, ‘Ever wanted to be spanked?’, or you could go watch Secretary and see what your partner thought of it; you could say, ‘Ever fancy bondage?’, or you could try gently holding their hands behind their back when you kiss them and see if it seems to turn them on. (After all, they might not know how they’d feel about it until they try.) Obviously you need to be really, really careful about introducing something in the context of sex - know if they have any major traumas in advance, don’t do anything too extreme, and if you try holding back their hands and they twist uncomfortably, be prepared to let go at once, and maybe say later ‘Seemed like that made you uncomfortable, is that something we can talk about?’ But in general, some things are easier to say Yes to if there’s a bit of background to the question.
on Monday, 19 July 2010 at 8:55 pm Grigory wrote:
I’d like to comment about our 17 year old with the pushy boyfriend.
So he wants to finger her… but she isn’t so keen. The first thing that came to mind was that they hadn’t had intercourse. Sexual play, certainly - but not sex. So I read the article in Scarleteen and find that this assumption was correct.
I’ll state here that a clear “no” certainly means “no” (at a minimum “right now, no way”). No debate here.
(At this juncture I’ll mention that I’m male. I’m in my mid thirties and took my learner plates off some time back.)
First point. It is incredibly frustrating to get “half way”.
I can tell you from experience how difficult it is to hold back. It takes will-power and love. It is the right thing to do, but so very difficult in practice.
I wonder if it may not be better to just say “no” to anything past a chaste kiss if she don’t want to go the “whole way”. It may well be prudent for our young lass to kiss and say goodnight rather than do anything more. Showing a starving person a table of edibles and letting them eat a single biscuit is not really fair, is it?
If our 17 year old is not comfortable with her boyfriend asking for the pork roast with all the trimmings, why does she keep bringing him to table?
Second point. “Can I finger you?” means “I want to have sex with you, but you won’t say yes right now, so perhaps I can make you more comfortable with the idea by doing something else. Hopefully we can have sex soon because I really, really fancy you and I’m finding it hard to hold back!”
In the end many of us eventually have sex. I gather it’s rarely ever joyous at the outset. There always seems to be some regret for both men and women. (On the other hand, when you get in your stride, sex is… brilliant.)
Our young lady does have a small problem with her boyfriend, but she isn’t alone. Every girl has an issue around her burgeoning sexuality. So does every boy. That’s the ugly paradox of sex - it’s confusing and messy, but oh so truly wonderful and necessary.
None of us escape unscathed. Boundaries do help, if you can clarify what these might be and enunciate them to your partners. In the end, we do have to muddle through as best we can… and at some point we just need to take the leap when it comes and either sink or swim as best we can.