When ‘no’ means ‘try again’
By Brian Dickens, Contributing Writer
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Sometimes a woman says “no” during sexual intercourse, but everything else — her body language, her clothing, even her perfrume, says “yes.” Many men find that confusing and some men will insist on having sex even when a woman has said “no.”
It may be that a simple communication gap has resulted in an epidemic of rape in America. Every year an estimated one in eight women in college will be raped — although many will not use that word to describe their experience, the Northern Michigan Counseling and Consultant Service reports.
A recent survey of 6,104 students at 33 United States’ colleges indicated that fifteen percent of the college women surveyed had been raped. In eighty-five percent of these assaults, the women knew their attackers. Interestingly, five percent of the men in the study reported having been threatened or forced to have sex.
This writer spoke with a random sample of men and women on campus to determine if miscommunication between the sexes is resulting in sexual violence. Many men say they not only listen to a woman, they also assess her “non-verbal” clues about whether she wants to have sex. They consider what a woman is wearing, the way she smells, the time and place of their encounter, and who else is around at the time.
If a woman is wearing appealing clothing, that might mean she wants the man to ‘feel” her. Some women like to wear exotic perfume. This type of smell attracts the male. Women say that it does not matter what type of clothing she is wearing. If a women says “no” the man must stop with his advances. They say the scent of perfume does not give a male the right to molest her. Women wear perfume because they enjoy the fragrance — not to seduce men.
What do you think? Does “no” mean “no”? Or does it mean “try again”?
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