Consent for women

Doesn't the rot set in when there is the suggestion that someone (anyone) has the right to require more from another person than what that person has offered?

You said “nobody has the right to question your preferences”, I disagreed, and I have just provided examples of times where preferences were questioned and nothing bad happened.

This seems to me to be to introduce a completely different matter, though.

That you have had a discussion is fine if that was your choice. What is not acceptable is someone of any sex or gender or race or species assuming the RIGHT to discussion, or anything whatever beyond the word "no". Even "thank-you" at that point is not their right but the privilege of person saying no to offer or not.

In a social context, nobody whatever has the right to any more of my time than I choose to give them.

Interesting that women discussing consent and boundaries must be disrupted and forced to justify wanting to keep a thread focused on the topic in the OP. Interesting that we are repeatedly asked to consider dropping our boundaries and that boundaries are conflated with prejudices.

This is what young women are up against and how they have their concept of consent is eroded via social media posts along these lines so that by the time they come up against it for real their boundaries are weakened and confused.

And no sorry but I disagree it's a power / status issue to exclude bisexuals from my dating pool nor do I think it's any different to excluding any other group of people.

But @TedMullins you still don't seem to be grasping this is a thread about consent. Questioning someone's choice to consent could be considered coercive. You may not have been in the position of "but why won't you sleep with me?!" coercive questions but I have and it's absolutely awful and in my case absolutely was coercive (I was a young teenager and highly impressionable not that really makes a big difference but still).

Even if the person in front of you is of your preferred orientation, political persuasion or whatever and you fancy the pants off them - you still have the right to say no.

Why do some people still not get that?

Okay, well firstly I don’t exclusively date bisexual men and I wouldn’t NOT date straight men, I’m merely saying that I have found bi men more attuned to my worldview. Stating ‘I prefer sex with bi over straight men’ is a preference, but yes, it is because I hold some prejudices about straight men such as, they are more likely to be sexist, they’re less inclined to question traditional gender roles, they’ve probably emotionally harmed a woman at some point without realising. I know these things don’t apply to all straight men (and they could apply to bi men too).

Straight men are the ‘default’ in society though so there are no long-running societal prejudices against them in the same way there are against bisexual people, so I do think the power/status of different sexualities is relevant, and why it is slightly different when it comes to excluding bi people from your dating pool.

But I don’t think about these things on a daily basis, I admit I have prejudices when questioned, but ultimately feel the same about who I will and won’t sleep with.

But these scenarios are what I had in mind all along, because to me that is what’s meant by questioning preferences. If you are LITERALLY naked in bed with someone and they say ‘actually no’ then of course that shouldn’t be questioned, or if you’re asked ‘will you have sex with me’ and the answer is no, again, no questioning. But neither of those situations are questioning preferences.

*he apologised, not we

I’ve also had men, upon finding out I was bi, as if I’d ever had a threesome with a woman and man, filmed myself with a woman, would I be interested in doing those things for him. I found this fetishising and misogynist and told him so, we apologised, went our separate ways.

I also prefer to date bisexual men if I am going to date men, or at least men who are open minded about sexuality possibly being fluid, not because I find it a turn on but simply because in my experience I tend to have far more in common with them and view the world similarly, than I do with people who are wholly straight.

I’ll inevitably be asked now if I think people should sleep with trans women/men and the answer is no I don’t, unless they want to of course.

In answer to your question, yes I have discussed with people why I didn’t want to date/sleep with them. I am the kind of person who enjoys deep philosophical chats and I’m attracted to similar people so if the conversation on a date descended into that I wouldn’t find it threatening or inappropriate.

One such situation was where a man asked outright where my red lines were in regards to someone I wouldn’t sleep with. One of mine was landlords (yes, really). Turned out this man was himself a landlord due to a divorce and still owning the marital home but both parties moved out and rented it out. He asked why I said that and he was quite affronted. I said because I’m a committed socialist and I don’t believe property should be for profit. We had a very lively debate in which he said he felt unfairly maligned because he hadn’t chosen to be a landlord, which I could see his point on, and then I said I still didn’t want to sleep with him and off he went home.

Another was on a date with a woman who said she’d never date a journalist. I am a journalist. I asked why she felt that way and she cited tabloids, the sun, bigotry etc. As it happens I have never worked for the sun or a tabloid, I am a socialist (as mentioned), a feminist, anti-racist, as was she. She still wasn’t interested, which was fine, but she said I’d changed her opinion of journalists as I wasn’t was she thought they’d be like. We went out separate ways and didn’t speak again. I don’t think either of those situations are in any way coercive or unacceptable.

Soon tobe60
Yes, by bland I mean no, but politely
Although I have explicitly told someone why I wouldn't be going out with them - it was something quite throwaway like 'dont wear your hair up' when we meet and it made me feel really uncomfortable. I was much younger and whilst I wasn't even aware of the concept of red flags, it felt instinctively wrong. I rang him (before texting existed!) And said I wouldn't be meeting him and that comment had made me uncomfortable. He was really stunned, but weirdly polite and thanked me for letting him know.
Ted I think you're getting a slightly hard time on this thread but think your point is one worth a seperate discussion.

There are two possible responses to "Why?" as a reply to "No."

One is "Because" and the other is "Why not?"

The first is appropriate when someone questions why you don't want to have sex with them. Either that or the use of a large fish.

We seem to be getting perilously near that awful modern phrase 'gatekeeping your vagina' and the other awful reminder to lesbians that they should 'learn to cope' with sex against their choice and preferences as a social duty.

So sex in that context for a woman is not about her pleasure. It's not even about her instincts, her choice, her desires, her feelings. She has a social duty to use her body for the benefit and wellbeing of someone else and the most she can hope for in this exchange is that they expect her to 'learn to cope'.

Put that on the relationships board and they will tell you to run like hell and seek counselling.

No, women do not have a social duty to provide access to their bodies to others to correct perceived inequalities - or a social duty to overcome things like their choice, feelings, orientation. Any more than they had a duty to provide sex in the marital bed. Women do not have lesser rights and sex isn't something they owe others to endure whether enjoyed or not.

Someone who asks about my boundaries, and then in effect says "now let me try and talk you into doing something you've just said no to' is not ever someone I could fancy. Never mind trust enough to have sex with.

Ted has queried the tea analogy and basically is suggesting that if one refuses a cup of tea without having tried it, then that's unreasonable.

I don't find any woman sexually attractive and there are many, many, physical characteristics of men which I don't find attractive. I find certain regional accents very unattractive. This might all be down to snobbish, culturally imposed attitudes but hey ho, so what. I'm considering who I might want to have sex with. I'm not interviewing them for a job.

@Beamur or is this what you meant by bland?

But I’ll say it louder for people at the back: theoretical analysis of ones preferences doesn’t mean you have to have sex with anyone you don’t want to

I'm not all the way through the thread yet, but I think this is a good topic for a different thread.
I am of course assuming you mean the discourse should be on an anonymous forum like this one, not a discourse between adults in a situation likely to need one adult to say no.