On coded invitations to sleep with someone

[aquila_black]

professorfangirl:
So priceless:

3. Speaking of perception, why exactly do you think I am or would ever be interested in you? Am I being particularly flirty? Handsy? Am I letting my eyes wander listlessly down your body? Or is it the whimsical sundress I’m wearing? If the only romantic thing I’m doing is “being gay,” then hold off on the assumptions. Even if the sundress I’m wearing just so happens to be whimsical. I have several.

3a. Just kidding. Sundresses are over.

4. Look at me as a person, not as a gay. If the gay thing weren’t an issue, would you want to grab coffee with me? Then let’s grab coffee. If the gay thing is an issue, then skip the “Dude, I’m flattered, but…” and go straight to “Dude, I’m a bigot!” --An open letter to straight men

[Addressing the OP directly because that’s how this post flowed.]

Here’s a shitty fact about straight society: there are a lot of things that don’t explicitly mean “do you wanna have sex with me?” that do, in fact, often mean “so, wanna have sex with me?” It’s confusing, I know. A lot of women turn down offers to do stuff that they wouldn’t actually be averse to doing, like … you know, meeting someone in a private place for coffee, because they have a diffuse sense of social discomfort that warns them they might not be hearing exactly what the other person is implying. And yes, straight men set up this dynamic, in order to make sexual offers to straight women and not be turned down directly.

When everyone’s on the same page, it sort of works. Like, “I turned down his offer to grab some coffee together after dinner, and we can both pretend he didn’t just covertly proposition me.” Or “I can agree to have coffee with him, and the rest of the room can pretend we didn’t just have a conversation about how we’re going back to his place to have sex.” It’s not fair of straight men to get their reaction to hearing their own secret codes used in a non-sexual way all over your fabulous gay self. That sucks.

I would be all in favor of said secret codes being a lot more publicly accessible, or abolished entirely, because it’s dangerous for, say, socially awkward or neuroatypical women (and everyone who didn’t grow up with English as their first language) to have to navigate a world where people are offering one thing and believe they’re obtaining consent for another. But it clearly also creates problems for you, as a gay man who wants to have literal coffee with man friends and keeps being misunderstood.

On those grounds as well, help us dismantle the patriarchy. :)

Tags: sexuality, feminism, consent, psychology