Aziz Ansari Doesn't Pick Up On "Non-Verbal Cues" and Gets Treated Like A Rapist

[John V]

She let the guy take her clothes off shortly after getting back to his apartment. What did that non-verbally communicate?

Did she consent?

I was replying to pool's point on non-verbal communication. In that context, yes, she consented.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

She let the guy take her clothes off shortly after getting back to his apartment. What did that non-verbally communicate?

Did she consent?

I mean, she probably didn't outright say "I consent to sex" but probably communicated it through non verbal cues, the guy was smart enough to pick up on that non verbal communication but couldn't when she communicated no in the same way afterwards. Like I said, sounds sketchy. Still support the chick on this one.

[Mermaid]

Did she consent?

I was replying to pool's point on non-verbal communication. In that context, yes, she consented.

Are you sure she consented? 

Are you saying that allowing someone to take off your clothes is consent to have sex?

[Shell B]

I don't know the solution, but I think the 'You dumb bitch, just say no and leave!" isn't the answer either, because that's just not how everyone is wired.

That's not at all what anyone has been saying. No one called her dumb or a bitch. Those things might be true, but I don't know. I'm just pointing out that she didn't say no. She didn't leave. I never said she was a dumb bitch for not doing those things, simply that we, as women, can't call it assault when we give up the goods without crystal clear resistance. If women want men to have crystal clear consent, we ought to know how to give crystal clear dissent.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Remove all context and in a vacuum if someone allows someone else to take off their clothes then it is not consent to have sex but the context here is obviously different and so is the situation, obviously in this context in that situation taking off their clothes is "non verbal" consent. There's no questioning that. So two things :

1) guy could read the non verbal cues when she gave consent but suddenly became autistic when she gave non verbal cues to stop? Also, didn't you guys read her text reply? "hey had a good time with you" is so textbook I can't believe you guys couldn't see it, guys send that so the girl will reply something positive then he will have insurance if in the future she raises a complaint he can just show the text but instead her reply was negative.
2) just because she consented in the beginning doesn't mean she can't say stop at any time in between

[LadyForCamus]

But the main thing was that he wouldn’t let her move away from him. She compared the path they cut across his apartment to a football play. “It was 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down my throat again. It was really repetitive. It felt like a fucking game.”

I’m confused here.  Did she call out to anyone?  Did she tell him to stop putting his fingers in her mouth?  Did she demand he let her go home?  What does she mean by, “wouldn’t let her”?  Why not use words to the effect, “he dragged me back to his apartment against my will”?  Maybe...because that’s not what happened?

“Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points,” she said. “I stopped moving my lips and turned cold

“Most” of her communication was...mumbling, pulling away, and not moving her lips? Why not just tell the guy to stop?  Why risk him not understanding your ambiguous cues?  Why not simply be clear about what you want, and what you don’t want?  And it seems, that the alleged victim herself, can’t even say for sure whether he didn’t notice her cues, or simply didn’t care:  

Whether Ansari didn’t notice Grace’s reticence or knowingly ignored it is impossible for her to say. “I know I was physically giving off cues that I wasn’t interested. I don’t think that was noticed at all, or if it was, it was ignored.”

Ansari wanted to have sex. She said she remembers him asking again and again, “Where do you want me to fuck you?” while she was still seated on the countertop. She says she found the question tough to answer because she says she didn’t want to fuck him at all.

Why was it a hard question for her if she already knew the answer?  “Nowhere, because I don’t want to have sex with you” probably would have worked just fine.

Grace says she spent around five minutes in the bathroom, collecting herself in the mirror and splashing herself with water. Then she went back to Ansari. He asked her if she was okay. “I said I don’t want to feel forced because then I’ll hate you, and I’d rather not hate you,” she said.

Funny she chose those words instead of, “I’m afraid you’re going to try and force me. I’m scared.  I’m going home.”  Does she go home though?  No.  She sits down next to him, and hopes he’ll rub her back.  Wait...

This moment is particularly significant for Grace, because she thought that would be the end of the sexual encounter — her remark about not wanting to feel “forced” had added a verbal component to the cues she was trying to give him about her discomfort. When she sat down on the floor next to Ansari, who sat on the couch, she thought he might rub her back, or play with her hair — something to calm her down.

Ansari instructed her to turn around. “He sat back and pointed to his penis and motioned for me to go down on him. And I did. I think I just felt really pressured. It was literally the most unexpected thing I thought would happen at that moment because I told him I was uncomfortable.”

Why does she feel pressured when she hasn’t even told him no, or stop?  She engages in consensual oral sex here.  Talk about mixed signals.  Men are not mind readers.  

Halfway into the encounter, he led her from the couch to a different part of his apartment. He said he had to show her something. Then he brought her to a large mirror, bent her over and asked her again, “Where do you want me to fuck you? Do you want me to fuck you right here?” He rammed his penis against her ass while he said it, pantomiming intercourse

“I just remember looking in the mirror and seeing him behind me. He was very much caught up in the moment and I obviously very much wasn’t,” Grace said. “After he bent me over is when I stood up and said no, I don’t think I’m ready to do this, I really don’t think I’m going to do this. And he said, ‘How about we just chill, but this time with our clothes on?’”

Finally!  Her first semi-assertive verbalization regarding consent!  And how does he respond?  By listening, backing off, and getting dressed.  

While the TV played in the background, he kissed her again, stuck his fingers down her throat again, and moved to undo her pants. She turned away. She remembers “feeling in a different mindset at that point.”

She hasn’t exactly been straightforward about what she ACTUALLY wants up until this point. She just gave the guy a blow job, and now she’s sitting on the couch with him.  

“I remember saying, ‘You guys are all the same, you guys are all the fucking same.’” Ansari asked her what she meant. When she turned to answer, she says he met her with “gross, forceful kisses.”

After that last kiss, Grace stood up from the couch, moved back to the kitchen island where she left her phone, and said she would call herself a car. He hugged her and kissed her goodbye, another “aggressive” kiss. When she pulled away, Ansari finally relented and insisted he’d call her the car. “He said, ‘It’s coming, but just tell them your name is Essence,’” she said, a name he has joked about using as a pseudonym in his sitcom.

I think he’s terrible at assessing non-verbal cues, and she was absolutely terrible about communicating herself clearly.   Shitty date?  Yeah. Was he being pushy, self-involved and unempathetic?  Sure.  I still don’t see where the assault happened.  We aren’t talking about an adult and a teenaged girl here. She wasn’t wasted out of her mind, or drugged up. He never threatened her in any capacity. She’s an autonomous, adult woman. If a guy is being pushy and you don’t like it, push back. Don’t leave anything open for interpretation. Why would you?

[Amarok]

Pure revisionism

[henryp]

I don't know the solution, but I think the 'You dumb bitch, just say no and leave!" isn't the answer either, because that's just not how everyone is wired.

That's not at all what anyone has been saying. No one called her dumb or a bitch. Those things might be true, but I don't know. I'm just pointing out that she didn't say no. She didn't leave. I never said she was a dumb bitch for not doing those things, simply that we, as women, can't call it assault when we give up the goods without crystal clear resistance. If women want men to have crystal clear consent, we ought to know how to give crystal clear dissent.

The dumb bitch part is the implication in the narrative (overall, not specifically you in this thread).  The unspoken answer to the 'why didn't she just say no and leave?' is that she's a dumb bitch.  It's why she's being attacked rather than sympathized with.  She needs to be dehumanized to make it okay so people can keep liking Parks and Rec and Master of None.  Again, not necessarily you, but I think this is the crux of the overall narrative.  And another group needs to dehumanize her to justify the actions, because they do the same thing.

Louis CK got verbal consent, I believe, before he pulled out his dick.  But even that wasn't really.  He just knew that put on the spot, they'd probably not stand up to him.  

I just don't believe 'be assertive' is as easy as people make it sound.  How many people don't ask for raises, or cave when asked to work overtime, or don't report sexual harassment, or stay in bad relationships, or get taken advantage of by friends, and on and on and on and on and on.  

Which brings me back to my original point, if you're a passive person, do you deserve what you get when someone takes advantage of you?  It doesn't seem like that should be the case.

[Mermaid]

Is she accusing him of sexual assault?

[Shell B]

That's not at all what anyone has been saying. No one called her dumb or a bitch. Those things might be true, but I don't know. I'm just pointing out that she didn't say no. She didn't leave. I never said she was a dumb bitch for not doing those things, simply that we, as women, can't call it assault when we give up the goods without crystal clear resistance. If women want men to have crystal clear consent, we ought to know how to give crystal clear dissent.

The dumb bitch part is the implication in the narrative (overall, not specifically you in this thread).  The unspoken answer to the 'why didn't she just say no and leave?' is that she's a dumb bitch.  It's why she's being attacked rather than sympathized with.  She needs to be dehumanized to make it okay so people can keep liking Parks and Rec and Master of None.  Again, not necessarily you, but I think this is the crux of the overall narrative.  And another group needs to dehumanize her to justify the actions, because they do the same thing.

Louis CK got verbal consent, I believe, before he pulled out his dick.  But even that wasn't really.  He just knew that put on the spot, they'd probably not stand up to him.  

I just don't believe 'be assertive' is as easy as people make it sound.  How many people don't ask for raises, or cave when asked to work overtime, or don't report sexual harassment, or stay in bad relationships, or get taken advantage of by friends, and on and on and on and on and on.  

Which brings me back to my original point, if you're a passive person, do you deserve what you get when someone takes advantage of you?  It doesn't seem like that should be the case.

Here's the thing, "deserve" isn't the word I would use. Still, being assertive has to be part of your sexual exploration if you're going to get naked with a guy after the first date. At the very least, that's what we need to be teaching girls and women, instead of that they can mutter something about being uncomfortable and that makes them violated. There is another group in this overall narrative that you speak of. We're the people who think that adults are responsible for their sex lives. In my case, I think that 1: bail if the dude is so creepy that you're going to cry for an hour afterward and 2: don't put a guy on blast when you know the whole WORLD will demonize him and you because you had a creepy, unsatisfactory first date. The punishment doesn't fit the crime.