Consent for women

If I say “this dude Gareth on Tinder looks excellent, but I never date Welsh people because I don’t speak Welsh and wouldn’t be able to talk to him” and someone points out that most Welsh people speak native or at least fluent English, then result! I have information I was missing and now I can date Welsh people

If anyone actually said that I'd think they were thick beyond redemption and Welsh Gareth has had a lucky escape.

But then there's a long colonial history of men being happy to be in sexual relationships with women they would never marry. The modern version of this is the aid worker scandal.

Yes. See also: prostituted women, "side chicks" and other mistress variants, the rape of enslaved black women in the Antebellum South to make them pregnant with more slaves, harems... There are plenty of men who will shag women they'd never give a job to and would bar their own children from playing with the woman's children.

Conversely, one of the thought-terminating cliches used by slavery advocates to undermine white emancipationists was along the lines of "you say you want black equality, but would you want your daughter to marry one?" ignoring the fact that no one should have to marry anyone they don't want to and forced marriage is a bad thing in itself.

There's plenty of men out there who chase transwomen for affairs, I'd use the slang term for those men but it includes a transphobic slur. Few, if any, of those men would consider an overt or committed relationship with a transwoman. There are plenty of white people of both sexes who chase black people, whether through exoticising black women or believing the size myth about black men, but would not openly date a black person.

Nina Simone asserted that equality does not mean shagging someone, nor even being friends with them, in her song Mississippi Goddamn when she sang "you don't have to live next to me, just give me my equality". Simone was correct. Being willing to shag someone doesn't get them a house nor a job nor a place in an educational establishment. It doesn't protect them from police brutality. It doesn't make a woman less likely to die in childbirth. Shagging someone doesn't say anything about willingness to accept them as a friend nor in wider society. All shagging someone means is that you want to obtain sexual pleasure, it doesn't prove anything about how you feel about the other person.

Bunting
There is never a 'but' in response to 'no' in a consent situation, in any context.
Exactly.

I’ve seen threads on MN about self-imposed sexual, dating, and romantic preferences (usually on Relationships, Chat, or AIBU). I’m not sure how far anecdotal answers gathered online on a completely open forum will go. Researchers who explore and write about these questions are typically doing so much more systematically. Friends who talk about them in a group of friends do so voluntarily and consensually, as would people who reply to such a post on a forum.

I also don’t think this is a specifically feminist topic, unless there’s a particular feminist slant to the question(s) asked. If there are important prejudices that need to be examined and dealt with, they will go beyond one person not wanting to have a sexual and/or romantic relationship with another.

If I say “this dude Gareth on Tinder looks excellent, but I never date Welsh people because I don’t speak Welsh and wouldn’t be able to talk to him” and someone points out that most Welsh people speak native or at least fluent English, then result! I have information I was missing and now I can date Welsh people.

If my best friend says “I’m only open to dating blond men with light-coloured eyes who are at least 6’2” and between the ages of 28 and 32, are vegan, love cats, net over £100 pa, have a PhD, are circumcised, have an EU passport, vote SNP, and live within a 10km radius of my house” and then frequently complains that she wants a partner and can’t find one, then I’m likely tempted to suggest she consider relaxing her requirements in one or two areas - not because her wrongthink needs corrected, but because more realistic expectations might put her on a better road to achieving her goals and finding happiness.

I also think there’s often a strong and genuine reaction in these types of discussions from people in happy relationships with people who are “not their type” - they would have missed out on a great thing if they’d adhered to rigid rules and they don’t want someone else to miss out. That can be helpful in context, but can easily cross a line too. All of these are individual, personal concerns. The person benefitting IS the person examining their own rules, not someone else questioning the rulemaker.

TedMullins: Also LOL at the “this is what young women are up against”... I am, literally, a young woman, I have read these boards for a few years now and posted on them before. I don’t know your age, but given that you’ve said you’re working as a professional journalist I think it’s fair to assume that you are at least 18 and more likely early-to-mid 20s. The “young” people most impacted by the erosion of consent or lack of clarity around it are often a decade or so younger: the young teen victims of the UK grooming gangs who believed that giving someone free takeout means you owe them sex, the traumatised 13 year old who was having “consensual” sex with 20 firefighters in France, trusting children who become trafficked children, and so on and on. Your “LOL” in response is not the most socialist and feminist thing I have seen today, nor the best display of critical thinking.

TedMullins: I find this a really interesting portrait of the demographic on this board… What is the demographic? Does anyone know? MumsNet don’t have my demographic info, except for what my IP address (if I’m not using a VPN) tells them. Anyone could post here, and probably does. The MumsNet Hive Mind and FWR Hive Mind arguments are pointless, in my view.

…and I’m actually in my other group chat talking about and disseminating this very discussion. Given the history of this board - which you’ll know as you’ve been on it for a few years - this does come across as a bit creepy. You’re not willing to start a new thread to ask your question, as many people asked you to do rather than derailing the existing one, but you are willing to go away to another private forum to launch a one-sided critique?

TedMullins: I have an idea of why my view is in the minority and I think it’s because as much as a certain cohort on here crows about young women and wanting to protect them, they actually largely view them with utter contempt …. Again, you are misunderstanding what people mean by “young”. And your view was not in necessarily in the minority, it was just irrelevant to the thread. …. and are very resistant to the evolution of societal norms and don’t actually want to engage in any kind of meaningful feminist activism or conversation. Many people here are parents, many people here have worked with young people day in and day out for decades. Many people here understand the ins and outs of safeguarding, and you might too if you’d listen. Many people here have been involved in feminist and other progressive activism for decades. Overall, I don't think they are the ones being contemptuous on this thread.

When I was younger and in the dating game, black men would tell me I wasn't worth considering as a sexual partner because I was athletic with small boobs and a flat bum.

Sure it was rude (I mean, I wasn't actually interested in them either, but they still felt the need to point it out.)

Did I question their preferences? Did I try to change their minds? No, why would I want a sexual relationship with someone who didn't fancy me?

I still consider it a little mean and unnecessary, but wouldn't try and coerce another opinion out of them. (Plus my fragile ego couldn't take it.)

Thankfully different people fancy different things and I married a man who requires zero squats from me.

I do notice women habitually often understand the word no...

After seeing what's happened to your post, it really does.

Bunting So sorry you had to go through that and thank you for expressing everything I wanted to say but much more eloquently.

No, I don’t believe you have an inalienable right not to be asked a question. I do think everyone has an inalienable right to decide who they’ll have sex with. But discussing it is not the same as pressuring someone to change their mind

I disagree. Anyone should have the right to choose not to have sex with somebody for literally any reason (or no particular reason!) without question.

It is one thing to muse in your own head upon the reasons people might have the sexual preferences they do. It is a completely different thing to actually question them about it. The only context I can see that being ok is friends talking about it together. I can imagine no situation in which it would be acceptable for the question to be asked by someone seeking to have sex with you. The response to "No" in that situation should never ever be "But why not?". The answer is "Because I don't want to, and that is all you need to know."

But then there's a long colonial history of men being happy to be in sexual relationships with women they would never marry. The modern version of this is the aid worker scandal.

This place really needs an edit button.

Are you sure? You seem to be saying that if I dont want to have sexwith an individualit must be because they are from a different ethnicity, and that makes me racist.

Read my later post...

Fahkin hell 🤦🏼‍♀️

If i don’t want to have sex with a woman, does that make me homophobic?

I clarified my point a couple of posts later...

It doesn't matter why you don't want to have sex with a woman, or someone from a different race or religion or whatever other trait you don't find yourself attracted to.

If homophobia, racism or whateverism was the reason, getting you to examine the reasons why you have that prejudice about won't stop you having that prejudice.

Bordois
If someone doesn't want to have sex with a person from a different racial/ethnic background then chances are there's a racist reason behind it.

Are you sure? You seem to be saying that if I dont want to have sex with an individual it must be because they are from a different ethnicity, and that makes me racist.

Did you mean to say that if I reject all people from an ethnic group it must be because I am racist?
Are you sure thats the only reason you can think of?

Excellent post Bunting, really great points, and I'm sorry you were put through that

Bunting I'm so sorry you went through that.

Excellent point though.

There may have been people from backgrounds other than my own in the town where I lived with whom I could have had a friendship on that basis, but I happened not to meet a single one. Precious few of what might be assumed to be my own background either.

Now, I could have spent all my time looking for something I had discovered to be very unusual indeed; or I could (as I did) spend my time with people I got along well enough with.

I knew too that there was a minute chance I would get along with a skinhead who wore bovver boots and treated women like some sort of slave.

One is "racist", but what's the other?

And why should the onus be on me to tell a skinhead I didn't want to fuck with him and then be obliged to explain all that, rather than just being able to say "No, but thank you, that's flattering" and get on with my life without all the bloody hassle?

Some of the conversion therapy I endured was framed as just a question of examining why I was attracted to women, and what it could be rooted in - parental divorce, childhood sexual abuse, rape as a teen, exposure to pornography at a formative age. It was all tres civilized at that point, and because I wanted to be a 'good' person, I went along with this 'voluntarily', in the hope that I could improve myself.

All that endeavour achieved was to leave me fucked up and vulnerable for a very long time, including being vulnerable to the more extreme end of conversion therapy, which in my case involved rape.

You can have nice little intellectual conversations down the pub as you please, but you really need to own that every time you suggest that someone is morally deficient for who they are or are not attracted to, you are enabling coercion and undermining consent.

I don't care how many intellectual back pats you give yourself for being 'open minded'. You don't understand consent. There is never a 'but' in response to 'no' in a consent situation, in any context. If you think there is you need to be honest with yourself that you don't believe consent is sacrosanct at all. I mean, if that's your position, that's your position.

At the moment, it seems like you're saying you agree that consent is sacrosanct because you feel you must, just to get it out of the way so you can talk about the ways you feel it's appropriate to question it.

The bloody quote didn't work.🤦🏼‍♀️

I was replying to this:

black men are totally within their rights to wonder why they areexcluded from some people’s dating pool for being black, and whitewomen can wonder why their friend says they won’t sleep with blackmen

Some people are racist and my point is that getting them to "examine their reasoning" isn't going to stop them from being racist

That's to Bordois btw.

Oh please. Let's not bring racism into it. We are talking about orientation.

And it's ridiculous to say it's racism. I prefer men from certain ethnic backgrounds. It's nothing to do with racism. It could be do with my socialisation. It could be I like the aesthetic or their pheromones.