[maybe NSFW] Where do some women learn that if they deny sex, they're a tease?

It’s a masculine ploy to get you to drop your pants. Stay strong sister.

Maybe deep down you really wanted that attention. I feel that sometimes, but from my experience they also have a way of making you feel guilty about it. Women love to feel wanted, so when we disappoint someone who wants us, we feel as if we have to apologize for being attractive.

Being a tease isn’t just denying sex, it’s making it look like it’s going to happen and then deny it. Like waving a lollipop at a kid saying he can have it, and then zipping the wrapper off and eating it.

Huge, huge, difference.

Agreed with mrentropy. If a girl was legitimately giving me reason to think something might happen, or purposely turning me on… and then withheld… that would be teasing.

Me just up and asking my g/f for naked pictures and her saying no, is not a tease. Even if I whine (which I totally would :) ).

@xjustxxclaudiax : Yeah… I don’t get a lot of male attention that much, and so I guess that when I do get it, I feel the need to apologize if I don’t do what they want. Does that make sense?

The virgin/whore dichotomy. No woman can be (or is allowed to be) the epitome of both, and yet women are supposed to be the ideal of both. You are made to feel ashamed for not giving Man what He wants, but if you did you would be blamed for not being a gatekeeper.

Maybe it is related to this question that you asked. :D

@papayalily I think you do women a disservice when you say, “You are made to feel ashamed”. Women are not the object in any relationship to be acted on by the man and changed as a result. It takes two to tango. Maybe the man is more “goal driven” in the situation described here, but each of us should be responsible for what happens.

Hey, do you think the man could be “Made to feel ashamed” for asking for naked pics? I kind of doubt it. And what the hell, if he asks for that why not cut him off entirely? Don’t play victim. @everephebe has it right; no surprise there.

To be honest, you learn it everywhere.

Even in areas where the goal is essentially to emphasize, nominally, female sexual agency. Women are taught that they can say no. Men, on the other hand, are taught that no means no.

Consent for sex is almost universally, therefore, located with women.

Because many women are conditioned from an early age by societal structure to be people pleasers. It takes a conscious concerted effort by parents to instill enough self esteem in their female children from an early age so that they realize that they have the power to swim against the tide if they don’t want to be manipulated into something that they don’t feel comfortable with.

This attitude against assertive girls/women is so pervasive and subconsciously affects so many areas.

If a man/boy is not only assertive but downright bossy, he is still praised for being a “strong leader” whearas if a woman wants to exercise similar control, she’s called a “castrating bitch” or worse. Barbra Streisand and Hilary Clinton are just two examples off the top of my head.

Many in the entertainment industry have noted Streisand perfectionism (not just for others but herself as well) and you mostly hear criticism for weilding control over the tiniest details like lighting and such.

A man would be praised for upholding high standards, but she’s referred to as a controlling bitch because she dares to impose the same type of attention to detail and high standards.

Little girls get bombarded with this attitude from a surprisingly early age. They are told to be “nice”.

@6rant6 I didn’t say that they necessarily did feel ashamed, but that society tries to make them feel ashamed. Nor did I say women were victims, or that any one man was to blame – hence using Man as a proper noun.

I have never ever felt like a “tease” or like I needed to apologize for anything, no matter how far the situation almost went. You shouldn’t either! It’s your body, and you don’t have to apologize for doing something you’re not comfortable with.

@6rant6 : Oh, I did cut them off from contacting me anyway.

@troubleinharlem Yea!!!

The worst thing in the world is to hear women sighing and crying over bad male behavior and then hear they say, “But we’re working it out.” That just sends such the wrong message to guys who are inclined to be nice.

@Buttonstc That’s all a tad hyperbolic don’t you think?

Really, now, you don’t think a MAN would catch hell for requiring a talk show set to be turned around so that his “good side” would be out? Where do you draw the line between perfectionist and narcissist? Barbara Streisand may be a bitch. Some women are. Some are a reasonable blend of self-assertion and cooperation. Some are prone to let themselves be run over and then complain about it – when their inaction was as much to blame as the misbehavior of someone else.

I certainly have known women I would describe as teases. They made suggestive comments and touched too much. But I think had a called them a tease, I wouldn’t even meant it in a mean way. Neither of us was fooled into thinking more was really going to happen. And it was fun, sometimes. But still – the name fits.

I love a woman that is very independent and strong in their views of themselves. Jane Fonda is a strong woman and I heard her interviewed the other day and was really impressed by how acute her perceptions were. Woman have been used by men for almost all of the Earth’s history. Look at the porn industry and questions like the one I answered today about strippers. You should never feel guilty for doing what you are comfortable with and if anyone male/female makes you feel different that is their problem.

@6rant6

I don’t think it’s hyperbolic at all. From the earliest age little girls are told they should be “nice” (whatever that means).

And from the example given by the OP, I don’t think she was being a “tease” in the slightest.

I think @Buttonstc has it right. Women are socialized to be cooperative, helpful, and agreeable.

Have you ever been walking down the street, and a guy said something like, “Smile, baby!” Here in DC, men on the street are all the time asking women to smile. At first I thought, “What’s the big deal? It’s like asking someone to have a nice day,” so I would smile. But the more I think about it, the more it creeps me out. Why would a guy- a stranger-feel entitled to make a personal comment to a woman he’s never met? Why should I smile – to please him? Sure, this is a pretty harmless example, but you’ll never see anyone say “smile, baby” to a man. There’s this notion that women should be pleasant toward men.

@troubleinharlem, I’ve definitely felt the urge to apologize for sticking up for myself. I try to catch myself before it happens and stick to my guns. The fact that you’re aware of it, that you’re questioning it, means you’re moving past this socialization to be nice and sticking up for yourself. That guy asking for naked pictures- seriously, he had no right to do that, but he asked anyway. I doubt he apologized for making you uncomfortable.

@troubleinharlem I’m going to tell you the same thing I would have told my daughter. Sex is a powerful thing. It is powerful in both good ways and bad ways. When puberty hits, the hormones start raging. The sex drive starts getting heated up for both males and females at this puberty age and on into your teens. A video you use to watch or a song you listened to or a magazine photo seems more sexual now.

The teasing and back and forth play is a learning tool. Just like toddlers learning something new and how far they can go with things and where the boundaries are with how much they can get by with or push the limits; teens do this with the newly introduced hormones and sexual world and flirting games.

Like someone asking you for nude photos. I’m sure it started out with playfulness on both your parts before the request. His request was just testing the waters with you. Seeing where the boundaries are.

You pulled back and said to yourself, hey this is going too far. NO. But then, because you were enjoying the playfulness that led to the request, you felt guilty or confused. That is absolutely natural and, to me and I’m sure to your Mom, it was a good thing. You are growing up and learning your own boundaries and where to stop when something gets uncomfortable. That’s a good thing.

@Buttonstc You don’t have any information on what she was doing – only that she felt she’d been pressured – and yet you assert that she wasn’t being a tease??? You’re obviously projecting your own crap onto her.

It’s just chauvinistic. “Men are bad women are victims.” That’s the logic I can infer behind your opinion.

Blaming weakness on being taught to be “nice” and “cooperative” is just crap, and at least a generation unreal.

OP always had the power to resolve the situation. So she had conflicting emotions. So what? She chose; she acted. Applause. That’s how it works. If you don’t choose and you suffer…lessons learned.

@6rant6

(1) There is no such thing as being a tease. That’s a bullshit chauvinistic term that implies that women and girls can cross a line behaviorally after which they have some “social duty” to have sex. Nope. No such thing. Everyone is allowed to flirt as much as they want and at some point pull back. Implying that there’s some sort of insult or affront in doing so is messed up.

(2) Girls are still socially conditioned to be sexually passive and men to be aggressive. This isn’t about weakness of any sort – but it is still a very real imbalance.

@iamthemob You can’t define a world to suit your needs and then blame everyone who uses it. That’s just wrong and useless. And to boot, you’d have to be soft in the head not to know there are women who cross the line.

And men are socially conditioned to fight. Yes. Should we hold them accountable if they fight? Of course we should. Social conditioning is a fact of life – not an excuse.

There is nothing I can add @papayalily @Buttonstc and @iamthemob are saying it truthfully and eloquently. Good on ya mates!

@troubleinharlem – read what they say and heed! You have the right (and so does he) to stop and say NO at any point in time. It does not make you anything except a person who has changed their mind.

@6rant6 There’s a difference between using societal conditioning to excuse everything you do and looking at it for answers as to “why”. You can indeed ask why without using it as an excuse.

@iamthemob are you sure that is all social conditioning? I have always been inclined to believe that, at least in part, that is biological conditioning. Such is the nature of testosterone vs estrogen. The more testosterone a male mammal has, the more likely he is to be aggressive, period. Healthy testosterone levels would attract a female looking to reproduce with a healthy mate, etc etc. Not saying there aren’t social influences, but I don’t think that phenomenon is exclusively learned behavior.
Having said that, I think that being dubbed a “tease” is a social issue, but the real problem is that there is a negative connotation attached to the label.

Is there a different definition of “tease” that I’m unaware of?

@papayalily We don’t really have any idea what went on in the original situation. At some point the OP felt it was too much and either pulled back or decided not to proceed further.

No one called her a tease as I understand the situation.

She just felt bad about it.

I’m jacked up about the linking of her comment about “feeling pressured” to all this “Society is flawed” garbage. We have no clue that his request wasn’t 1) civil, 2) in keeping with the preceding discussion and 3) lighthearted.

None and I mean NONE of the women I am close to would feel that they had to comply with a request they didn’t feel comfortable with. And several of them would be comfortable with ripping the guy a new one if he was out of line.

OP’s characterization is not “the way things are”. Women are not weak, not powerless, not clueless, and in some cases, they ARE responsible for what’s going on. And in some of those she is a tease.

And if any woman under 50 got through her early adulthood without being served huge helpings of women empowerment, she must have been in Afghanistan.

@6rant6 How exactly do you know how these women you’re friends with feel? Do you speak for them?

@6rant6

I’m not really sure that I’m defining the word to meet my needs (did you mean “word” above? The sentence kind of makes sense either way…). The implications of being the “passive” or “gatekeeper” sexual partner as it plays out are really, really complex and so much of the problem is actually tied up in the word “tease.”

First, look at your argument – you just said that I would have to be “soft in the head not to know there are women who cross the line.” The surface substance there is that sure, there are girls and women who flirt more than is probably appropriate in a given situation and know exactly what they are doing. However, the implication of the argument is that there is a “line.”

Knowing where the line really is is impossible, though. The person who feels like they’re being flirted with will see it one place. The person flirting will see it another. And it’ll be different in a bar, or in an apartment, etc. etc. But, in the end, it is the girl who’s held responsible for crossing the line.

And the thing is, what does crossing that line mean? What it means is that the girl either (1) follow through as part of her duty on the sexual promises or (2) back out and be deemed a tease. Of course, the irony is that even though the girl is held responsible for crossing the line, it’s the guy who gets to decide where the line is.

Second, I would challenge anyone to find a term on par for boys or men as “tease.” We can claim that “tease” is gender neutral, but the overwhelming connotation suggests that the referant is a girl.

If there is no other term, then basically girls are always left in a position where if they flirt, there might be consequences. Any act showing sexual agency carries with it these weird social pressures. Guys, on the other hand, are free to try and fail, try and succeed.

What further complicates this type of interaction is that if a guy backs down, has second thoughts, etc., the stigmatization that they get to be concerned about is being called a faggot or gay. That’s not the equivalent of a tease, but in many ways the opposite of it – and it incentivizes guys to follow through regardless.

The two factors above create an impossible social situation for girls in a lot of situations. The problem with the comparison to fighting is that sexual relationships are so much more complicated than violence.

@ANef_is_Enuf

I don’t know that we can really lay much of the explanation on biology in this situation, though. Sure, at least now there are aggressive elements in men that aren’t in women…however, we’re talking about flirting and having sex here – a situation where both parties are really sexual agents – they are testing the waters, etc. And from an evolutionary perspective, I can’t see a benefit to a passive and careful approach to sex here – in nature, the female isn’t receiving the victor, she’s choosing the victor to reproduce. And we’ve taken out the reproduction from the equation, really.

So although it makes sense to reason that the reason why this plays out like it does is because of a distant biological difference, we’re really looking at a whole lot of moral and social conflict, not biological.

[EDIT] @6rant6 – I get your frustration, and please don’t think that I’m criticizing your initial use of “tease” in the way you did with your friends (a sort of friendly, familiar way). My commentary was about the second, more clearly pejorative use of it. That’s where we have to ask “Wait, why do I think it’s okay to say this about girls? What does that kind of shit condition them to behave like when they’re younger?” etc.

The OP just shows a common reaction that is getting more and more anachronistic as time goes on hopefully – a shame associated with any woman showing sexual agency. For kids today, they still deal with the stud/slut imbalance. And a girl who shows the agency and follows through gets to be a slut, whereas the one who backs off is a tease. And all of those pressures are coming down on people who are flooded with crazy hormones whose social lives are their universes and, with current technology, any misstep can be instantly transmitted to everyone you know.

It’s getting better, and none of that provides an argument that boys are bad or girls are weak and we should blame society for how they turned out.

But this really does bring up the problem of “personal responsibility* in these situations. It’s in many ways adding insult to injury as now women are being told they are agents responsible for their actions while having parallel forces acting on them to associate any flirting with a responsibility to follow through…so in the end, they are responsible for doing what they thought they were responsible to do!

Realize that however big the helping of women empowerment, in so many ways we’re really dealing with the first few generations of women that are actually sexually empowered. It’s a transition, which means that we’re meant to be agents, but moral – individuals, but traditional – powerful, but respectful.

So, we should neither (1) fall back on any traditionalist excuses alleviating women from their modern responsibilities, or (2) say that they’re totally free from any of the old influences of what it is to be proper and wholesome.

@papayalily
Really? Half the posters on this list speak for all women and you question whether I can speak for my family members? Why are you not challenging them? Strikes me as a sophistry emboldened by the support of mewing cats.

And as for the women I have had relationships with, I can speak firsthand that compliance was never on the menu.

@6rant6 Yes, I ask you because I don’t think you can speak for anyone but yourself. Same as anyone else. I haven’t read anyone else speaking on behalf of any certain people.

@iamthemob I think you make some good points.

Here’s what I mean when I say some women cross the line. Simply that they pretend to want something in order to frustrate or humiliate. I’m not saying that frustration and humiliation can only occur when intended; I am saying that is what some people intend to do (men too). That is what I say is over the line. I would call people who do that “tease” and worse.

But I believe not all teasing is mean-spirited.

Certainly, men and women (and other groupings, obviously) can engage in repartee and e-mail and even touching that leads one to have higher expectations about what is to come than the other one does. But it does not have to be done in a spirit of antagonism, victimization, or sexism. It can be good clean fun. Or even not so clean. I wouldn’t banish it, and I think this discussion has painted that sort of teasing with the same brush. Doesn’t everybody agree that someone who does this kind of thing is teasing?

The game is to get what you want, more or less and I think the man in the OP story could have been teasing, “Oh, come on, after all that talk you’re not going to let me see the goods?” or some such. Not my style, but I’d still call that teasing and can imagine it was within the bounds of prior conversation. And OP might feel guilty. And perhaps no one – even society – did anything wrong.

@papayalily I must have misunderstood. When you wrote, “You are made to feel ashamed for not giving Man what He wants” I thought you were representing the experience of other women. Is that not the case?

@6rant6 – Teasing can be totally fun and really mean spirited, depending, of course,

My only problem is with the trope or concept of the “tease” because it is so clearly a production of this agency imbalance between the sexes. There are a lot of weird pressures tied up in the term.

Personally, I just call women who toy with guys with no intention of having any physical contact just to mess with them bitches. It’s probably a better term in the end – because I’m never surprised when people who show themselves to be real bitches in one scenario inevitably end up proving it again in a whole new context.

@iamthemob I have been hit on by women who I knew in advance had no interest in doing anything. But they knew that I knew that too. So it was just play. Teasing, absolutely. Bitches? Well.. maybe a couple.

I’m curious about how people feel about this situation: you’re eating dinner and your dog comes and makes that horrible pitiful starving dog face. [And any pet owner knows that feeding him will NOT make him stop.]

Is he trying to manipulate you? Do you feel guilty if you don’t “put out”? Do you see this as a flaw in his character? In yours? Is socialization “at fault” for your guilt?

@6rant6 Yes and no. No one woman in particular, but rather the collective of women. Like “Rome felt the need to put the Iceni in their place” or “Man became arrogant and haughty after mastering the skill of the sword.” It’s a sociological approach.

@papayalily You’re still saying your position represents the experience of a “collective” – excuse me “THE collective” of women as if you knew them.

Seriously, if I were a woman, would you deny me the right to say, “the women I know..”?

Can you speak for yourself Jane Aulden? Do you feel you have to do what a guy wants or feel that you are a failed woman? If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re someone who can keep her own code and feel good about it. And you don’t need me to like it, either.

Let me know. I want to add you to my list…

@6rant6 No, but I didn’t claim to speak for Jane Aulden. I cannot speak for anyone one person but myself – I can, however, speak as a member of the female entity. You, on the other hand, are claiming to speak unequivocally for a small, set number of individuals, with no possibility that any of them do feel uncomfortable saying no but simply haven’t told you. There’s a whole macro vs micro thing going on here.
Yes, if you were a woman, I would ask you if you could really speak on behalf on anyone besides yourself – and I have done it on Fluther, too.

I learned the expression in school. I never took it seriously.

@papayalily Sorry, my mistake in the John Aulden reference. I assumed you were literate and would get the reference. He was a pilgrim sent to ask a woman in the Plymouth Rock community for her hand in marriage and she is reported to have said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself John Alden.” I used “Jane” instead for obvious reasons. Well, maybe I shouldn’t assume that it will be obvious to you. I used “Jane” because you are a woman. I was asking what your personal experience was in this kind of situation. I would respect your personal experience.

But rather than offer it , you chose to say that I couldn’t possibly know what the people closest to me think – with the obvious implication that you do.

You are now saying that you speak for as a member of the female entity [?]. As if you have some universal insight into what all women think because you are a woman. I cry BS. I could just as easily pretend that I know the vilified guy in the OP was misunderstood. And I know that because men have experience with women maliciously and intentionally leading them on. But I’m not going to pretend that I know what all men think just because I am one.

You don’t think you might have a slightly inflated sense of what you know? Why is it so hard to acknowledge that the women in my circle might not be your image of “generic” women?

I think that @Buttonstc beliefs show the core of the problem. People who still have beliefs like this are either living a century behind or are perpetuating several generations old practices or ideologies.
Women are just as powerful, capable and equal and should be treated as such.
I am proud to be raising an independent, forward thinking daughter who already at the age of 10 knows that she should not and will not allow herself to be judged or treated based on her simply being a female. She knows that she can attain whatever she puts her mind to and its not about being brash, bossy or ballsy. Its about her being confident and capable and caring.

Break the cycle my friend.

@blueiiznh – Actually, you’ve got it backwards (or you’re phrasing it backwards).

You’re attributing the pressures that @Buttonstc describes to @Buttonstc. Rather, the recognition of that pressure is something that is necessary to break the cycle. Not understanding that there are these forces at work may result in people unintentionally reinforcing them.

So much of the problem is that people don’t recognize it. I believe that if most girls were raised with this understanding so that they were taught a sex-positive viewpoint, the OP’s dilemma would be more and more an anathema.

@blueiiznh

I smiled when I read your response because, in describing how you are raising your daughter (and she is fortunate indeed to have a parent as affirming as you are) you are making my exact point more eloquently than I.

If you will scroll back and re-read the initial paragraph in my first response to this Q, this will be abundantly clear.

Obviously you ARE the type of parent who IS making a conscious and concerted effort to make certain that you instill enough self esteem in your daughter so she will have the confidence to resist sexual manipulation (or any other type as well) without apologizing for it For you this is a priority, but that doesn’t mean that it’s equally true for every parent.

I would guesstimate that it’s most likely true for your family and those of the majority of your circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, but there are plenty of areas in our society (whether geographical areas or educational or socio-economic etc.) where that type of enlightenment does not prevail.

And the antiquated attitudes which you are purposely educating your daughter to NOT buy into are still prevalent in much of our current society.

I have no inkling of where you get the impression that these are the “belief” of buttonstc.

I was merely pointing out that this nonsense is still extant in our social structure even today. I certainly am no advocate (which I would be, were it my “belief” as you erroneously state)

I was merely answering the Q posed by the OP. She clearly states that she was not raised to believe that she should apologize for her boundaries regarding naked pics of herself. And yet she did. Since this false guilt for asserting herself was not taught by her parents, from whence did it originate? That was her Q.

I merely answered it. I certainly was not championing it. It’s not my belief.

And how do I know that these antiquated attitudes still are held. By simple experience. In my years as a teacher, dealing with all different types of parents and families I can tell you about ridiculous ideas held by some parents that would have you gnashing your teeth.

There were tons of girls in my English classes in Fall River, Mass. who were being raised with the message (either stated or implied) that their destiny was to find a hubby with a good job so she could have a nice house and a passel of kids. Birth control is not part of that picture. This is what they told me when I inquired about their lack of interest in college.

I’ve encountered parents in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn who sincerely believed that taking the belt to their kids’ behinds or backs would turn them into A students. I still have memories of one 8yr. old who was missing for two days because he was more scared of bringing home his report card than he was of spending the night alone in an abandoned warehouse.

I had one US Army drill Sargeant father trying to enlist my aid in persuading his (skinny as a rail, short statured boy) to join the football team so he wouldn’t grow up to be a “nancy-boy”. Yes, that was exactly how he phrased it.

My suggestion to appreciate his child’s natural qualities of intelligence and compassion instead of forcing him to man-up and play football did little to change his attitude.

In your particular circle and in more educated or sophisticated areas, these stereotypical gender attitudes on both ends of the spectrum are recognized as totally outmoded.

But in many areas of our fair land these are still alive and well and quite pervasive. Trust me on that. I encounter them on a regular basis. Take a tour of the South or rural W. PA. sometime. A little informal survey of prevailing attitudes should be an eye-opener.

That certainly doesn’t make them my beliefs. I’m merely pointing to their existence in spite of best efforts to the contrary. Obviously the majority of Flutherites have far more enlightened attitudes. But there are still significant portions of our society with far less enlightened views.

PS if you have any sons in addition to your daughter, I would assume you are also revealing to them the total BS inherent in the ridiculous notion of “big boys don’t cry”.

But would you care to explain the ridicule heaped upon John Boehner and the cynical assumption of “crocodile tears” and political posturing on his part coming from most of our “enlightened” society?

For the record, I haven’t a clue as to whether he was totally sincere or just being a politician, but neither would I make the assumption that it WAS manipulation simply because a MAN was on the verge of tears at memories of his family and their hardscrabble origins, that something is inappropriate about that.

But there’s obviously a deeply held core belief in our society that “big boys (or men) don’t cry”

Is it any small wonder that the last nitwit we had for Commander-in-Chief blithely sacrificed countless lives and many more debillitated for life simply to wage war on the WRONG country. He obviously wasn’t shedding any tears. He was too busy projecting his tough-guy image.

It would be so nice if our society were half as enlightened as we like to pat ourselves on the back thinking it is.

What is wrong with being a tease? It might be in good fun, or it might be mean, but it still doesn’t mean consent to sex. If a guy calls her a cock tease or a ball buster, so what? He’s disappointed. So what?

People are mean to each other all the time. People lead others to expect something that they won’t produce all the time. Some do it deliberately. Some do it without being aware of how they are coming across. But teasing does not imply or explicitly mean a contract.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with teasing. It can be mean. I mean, if a woman was all over me and got my clothes off and then said, “So long. I didn’t really want to have sex,” I would be livid. I would think the woman was very mean, and I’d never want to have anything to do with her again, and if I ever talked to anyone about her, I’d tell them what a jerk she is. But I would never think she had an obligation to fuck me.

I think that some guys are not like that. I think that some guys have this idea that they are privileged and that if a woman starts flirting, that means they want sex and that the guy has a right to have sex.

It makes me think about what the Duke LaCrosse team was accused of. It makes me think of stories about many other pro athletes who sometimes end up being accused of rape. It makes me think of the porn movies where guys are shown fucking girls who have passed out. It makes me think of one of the hundreds of stories I’ve heard from women who went out with a guy and had no intent to have sex with them, but felt like they had to because they were out in the middle of nowhere and the guy was telling her she had to.

I hate those guys. I hate the idea that they feel like they have a right to have sex if someone acts at all flirtatious or because they are some big star.

The big stars do seem to have some reason to believe that the women who to out with them want to suck their dicks. Apparently, so many do, just because it’s someone famous. I mean, how does a star know that if he glances at a woman and then goes into the mens room, she’ll follow him in, and get down on his cock without a word?

But if you have that experience, it seems to me that it would be likely that the guy would think that no woman would turn him down, and if they did, it was just for fun. I also think there are other men, who aren’t stars, who have this same idea that women are for their pleasure and that no doesn’t mean no. It’s just part of the game.

Women are a part of the same culture. Some mothers may still teach their daughters that it is not ok to say no when a boy asks them on a date. [God, if I had known this, I probably would have had a lot more fun in high school]. The polite thing to do is to say yes. It’s obvious that if women are taught to say yes, then they learn they are not supposed to say no to guys, no matter what. Their job is to please the guy. The guy comes first. If they don’t please the guy, they’ll never get a husband. If they are too smart, no guy will ever like them.

I thought all this shit had gone out in the 70’s, but maybe not. It seems like the same problems still happen in the relationships young people today have.

Why does this still happen? My guess is that it’s partly culture and partly the absence of any forces that educate boys and girls about how to respect each other. I think the decline of the feminist movement has contributed to this. So many young women seem to think they are free and equal. They don’t even know they are buying into the idea that they can tease. They think it is their own idea to have sex with whomever they want. They think they are free to party and get drunk. They are proud of drinking so much they passed out and had no idea what happened after that.

I’m not saying the drinking thing is a male conspiracy, but yeah, it’s a male conspiracy to get inside the girls’ pants. Everyone knows what will happen, and yet everyone, of their own “free will,” chooses to participate. Seems to me, that when this happens, then guys are much more likely to get this idea that they are privileged and that no girl should turn them down if they show any interest at all.

The coolest thing about the male conspiracy is that girls buy into it. No one wants to say this is what is going on because we all have free choice. Well, according to some stuff I read yesterday in answer to a question about date rape, a girl can not give consent to sex if drunk. So even if she says “yes,” the guy is raping her.

Ironic. In this case, “yes” means “no.” Pardon me while I laugh my head off.

@iamthemob and @Buttonstc I apologize if my usage of the word “beliefs” connotated that this is what they practiced or believed themselves. I was merely agreeing that those beliefs are the core of the issue.

No prob. It would definitely be better if more parents were following your example in how they raise their kids to resist the pressures of society.

@blueiiznh – I second the “no prob” – I just wanted to draw out the distinction as it could have easily been read the other way. Especially important considering the fact that you definitely seem to be part of the solution in eliminating the issue in how you’re raising your daughter.