Learning to Say No

The Sexual Revolution Freed Us to Say Yes. No is a Good Word, too.

One of the awesome gifts and responsibilities that the Boomer generation inherited and passed on to those younger is the freedom to say “yes” to pleasure, especially pleasure of the erotic kind. With the introduction of reliable contraception, the Sexual Revolution could get into full swing and people could explore their fantasies and desires more fully than ever before. Women could admit that they enjoy sex without the stigma their foremothers had experienced. It wasn’t perfect but being a woman with a libido didn’t land you in a mental hospital, so it was a step in the right direction.

The problem with suddenly realizing that the fence is down and we can run free is that there’s a lot of new territory to navigate, often without guidance. Roaming the frontier is exciting but it’s also scary and fraught with dangers. There are a lot of skills to be learned and a lot of unhealthy thought and behavior patterns to unlearn. As strange as it seems, now that we can choose what experiences we do and do not want for ourselves, many if not most of us struggle with the word “no.” Not because we can’t speak or write it, but because we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. We don’t want to anger anyone. We don’t want to rock the boat. We don’t want to put ourselves in a different kind of harm’s way. We have our reasons, but the end result is the same. Communication breakdown and all the resulting horrors it spawns, among them an ever-growing spiral of lost trust and found resentment.

How can we break the very unsexy chains of fear that keep us from feeling confident in both our “yes” and our “no?” Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy solution to that. I can’t speak for those assigned male at birth, but as someone who was declared female upon emerging from her mother’s virginal birth passage, I know a few things about what can hold me back from speaking my honest truth, which is sometimes a “no.”

My father was a drill sergeant and not one to tolerate backtalk lightly. My mother is still as pure as the day an angel appeared to her mother to announce that she would be conceived without sin. And me? Eldest child; a living, breathing experiment in meat and fat and opinions and attitude. And so many questions. And so often the answer was “no.” No, I couldn’t do that. No, I couldn’t go there. No, I couldn’t believe that. No, no, no.

It was hard to say “yes” after learning to avoid it at all costs, but as Anais Nin once wrote, “And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to Blossom.”

In other words, a stranger relieved me of my virginity underneath the stop sign next to my parents’ house after I got off work and had to hitchhike home late one night. It was the late 70s and the streets were supposedly safer then. I didn’t and don’t know about that, but I did know that my virginity had never done me any favors or earned me any rewards, so I felt relieved to be free of it. After a lifetime of saying and hearing “no,” it was nice to finally have said “yes,” even if under less than ideal circumstances.

After a visit to Planned Parenthood to prepare for my life as a non-virgin, I said “yes” a lot more often than was likely good for me, although I prefer to think of it as a time during which I did copious research into the mating habits of Pacific NW men and a few women. For a while, I was the girl who couldn’t say no, just like in Oklahoma! Sometimes that was because I didn’t want to say no. Sometimes that was because my no was ignored, dismissed, laughed off. And through it all there was this insane feeling that I was responsible for everyone’s feelings and had to say what they wanted to hear, or I’d be the bad guy.

I had youth, ignorance, and inexperience against me at the time. I also had a highly sexualized world telling me to go for it. To say yes because the modern woman was supposed to be ready to go at the drop of a pair of Hanes Activewear. And sometimes I was very hot to trot. And sometimes I was hitchhiking. And sometimes I was lonely. And sometimes I was scared. And often I was “being polite.” Usually, I was trying to avoid what I believed would be trouble. People often do not take kindly to being told “no,” especially when it comes to intimate touch and especially especially when it comes from a female-presenting person. It’s embarrassing to the person soliciting an affirmative and we do and say stupid things when we’re embarrassed.

And today? Now that I’m such a self-actualized human being and get to write a weekly blog where I lecture people about things that I think I know about? Have I risen above the nervous need to keep my mouth shut when I want to say “no?”

No.

And yes.

I still tolerate a lot of unsolicited touch, talk, and imagery; some of which are quite intimate and highly emotional. My reasons for this are complex and my own, some thought-through and some still the results of years of conditioning. But I’m getting better, much to the chagrin of some in my life. Figuring out what my boundaries are and how to maintain them has been a tough road for me. My own personal history and my work within the sex industry have made the lines between professional and personal consent fuzzy at times. It’s all a learning process, if not always a comfortable one.

The temptation can be strong to avoid confrontation, to ghost someone, or continue to silently tolerate contact, especially with those we’ve previously allowed close, instead of telling them “no.” It’s easier to vanish and hope someone catches a clue than confront them and assure them of our lack of interest. This is especially true where power differentials exist, even within a largely egalitarian system. We are either wired or conditioned to see hierarchies and sometimes we don’t realize we’re in one until it’s been pointed out to us retroactively.

I don’t know what the answer is. Workshops. Practice. Mirror work. More practice. Counseling. Maybe some meditation. Deeper self-examination. Definitely more forgiveness and patience with self and others. Repeat as necessary. This shit is complex and takes time to get right consistently. In the meantime, of course, people get hurt, emotionally and sometimes physically, which is why, although perfection may never be achievable, better is a good goal.

It's a long-standing sexist cliche that women want to talk all the time. And within the poly community, there is a motto of “communicate, communicate, communicate.” Kinky people prize negotiation. In this area, kinky poly women especially may have the right idea. The more we screw up, the more we need to work to improve. We owe it to ourselves if not others.

It’s not always an easy process, this learning to say or even hear “no.” Hell, learning to say “yes” was hard enough! It’s all more art than science. I don’t have it down and I’m supposed to be a “sexpert” of some caliber. I’m also mortal and fallible like other sexperts, sex workers, adult product and service consumers, priests, rabbis, prom dates, brides, and anyone else who’s ever said “yes” or remained silent when they wanted to say “no.”

It’s taken the human race at least 50,000 years to develop the words and social opportunities to have this conversation. Hopefully, it won’t take us another 50,000 to refine it to the point where we can actually express ourselves honestly, hear one another without prejudice, react after careful thought, take accountability when we fall short, and resolve to be clearer in the future. Wash, Rinse. Repeat.