Reciprocity

[libertango]

This is one of oh, so many responses to this post, or, more accurately, the firestorm that's swirled up around it.

"No," means "no," correct? Can we all agree on that? Can we also agree it would be boorish and insulting to think anything else?

OK. If so, then another statement must also be true, axiomatically:

"Yes," means "yes."

What I'm seeing is a whole lot of rationalization, and patronizing, and wishing away that "Yes," might possibly, actually, really mean "yes." I see cries of "privilege!" and "peer pressure!" and "objectification!"

The problem is, every single time someone chips away at YMY, they're also chipping away at NMN. If a person can't say "Yes," and have that decision respected and believed as sincere, it becomes very difficult for a person to say "No," and get equal treatment.

Which is, unfortunately, equally as boorish and insulting as not respecting "No," means "no," in the first place.

If people are independent moral actors whose desires are legitimate, and should be respected as long as they cause no harm, then that bet is, as the poker folks say, All in. Even when they say "Yes," to things you would never do.

This is, as usual, in one's own self interest. If you want your own moral choices respected, you have to respect the choices of others.

If not, then not. But be aware just how sharp that edge is.

Comments

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

So, assuming "Yes" still includes right of refusal, as it was presented, I'm curious, do you think would you be a Yes man? Call it an informal survey.

Manly

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

(NB: I know my answer is going to sound somewhat passive-aggressive. That's not my intent -- I'm not making the news, I'm just reporting it.)

As is so often the case with me: It depends. :)

Mostly it would depend on mood. I'd say there would be about a 1-in-10 chance I'd be in Lord Flashheart mode and say, "Did I just say, "Yes!" or is the Vasa in my pocket?!"

The 9-in-10 chance, though, would be for me to be Eeyore-ish and assume it wouldn't matter/no one would notice/etc., and thus say No.

Re: Manly

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Now why did you have to go and assign personalities to yes and no? Eeyore says yes many times, it's the _attitude_ he has about going along with it that makes him Eeyore. "Well, okaay, but I'm not going to like it."

Nobody wants to be thought of as an Eeyore. And thus, people may respond with the whole "peer pressure" argument.

Anyway, I agree with your position.

I read his original post and I concluded he's not a good spokesperson for the "project".

Would I have participated? Who knows. I've been known to join all sorts of things when I'm caught up in the moment and the energy of my friends. Convention or not.

Re: Manly

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"Now why did you have to go and assign personalities to yes and no?"

Because I'm a lazy writer, and like to use shorthand to throw an image upon the mind's eye?

Nahhhhhhhhhhh.

Re: Manly

[ckd]

I read his original post and I concluded he's not a good spokesperson for the "project".

This is particularly true since he's the person who also wrote Unfortunately, I can't decry the process of "asking repeatedly," mainly because it's the only stimuli a lot of women respond to. Frankly, I think any woman who has to be begged fifteen times before she eventually accepts should be drug into the back alleyways and beaten, because her rampant need for a string of pleadings trains the wrong sort of men that no doesn't mean no. And then we should go beat up the men for good measure.

Not exactly the poster boy for "I will respect that No really means No."

Re: Manly

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Good heavens.

Re: Manly

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was bothered by a lot of the stuff in the Public Domain Breast Idea, because the motives I got from it didn't look healthy, but when reminded of that sentiment (where women are to be punished for giving into weaker men, and, "for good measure" the guy will get thumped as well; mostly because he's making other men beg, when accepting that no means no would solve all the problems, well that pissed me right the hell off); well the jury is allowed to infer what it wants about the witness from how his other behavior paints him.

TK

Re: Manly

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. FWIW, I think I'm in the "it depends" camp too. I'm just having trouble connecting his (albeit interesting) abstract exercise to any context or practical application that doesn't have the potential (and reality, I think) of turning extremely skeevy and possibly dangerous very quickly. Hence my question. When made personal, does anyone still take this for the theoretical exercise that it wants to be?

[ckd]

I agree with you, and I think this response misses a big chunk of the issue at the same time.

I agree with you that some of the discussion has made undue assumptions about the motivations of the people who were involved in the original at-con festivities, and some people have said or strongly implied that nobody would really mean "Yes". Having heard from people who participated and said "Yes", I'm willing to believe that in the original between-friends event that there really wasn't any high pressure nor any unwilling participants. I also don't think that the idea will scale beyond a between-friends event unless it's in a demarcated space where entry requires assent to basic guidelines (which should include both NMN and YMY).

The missing chunk is that we don't have the idealized symmetry that makes NMN and YMY equivalent in this discussion, and we don't have it in several aspects.

First, there's the male/female power imbalance, in both physical power and social power. The "Project" as described in theferrett's post was described from a very strongly gendered male perspective, and seemed to completely ignore the questions that the imbalance raises.

Second, the problem of disbelieving "No" is far more widespread than that of disbelieving "Yes", and as I previously noted seems to be an issue for the original poster of the OSBP "manifesto". I find it hard to imagine anyone asking 15 times to confirm a "Yes", but all too easy to imagine 15 retries to wear down a "No".

Third, when limited to the people involved (since I do see your point about third party discounting of "Yes Means Yes"), a failure of YMY can be seen as simply the other party saying No, and NMN applies. (It's an AND, not an OR, and certainly not an XOR.)

Finally, "Yes" and "No" are asymmetrical, because action and inaction are asymmetrical. As we see from the "do you flip the switch/push the fat guy onto the track to stop the runaway trolley" philosophical discussion, people consider them to be different even if the end result is exactly the same! That seems to be something that won't be fixed/changed even in a society or culture where men and women have equal power.

[karawynn.livejournal.com]

I agree that in an ideal world, Yes would mean Yes. But the ideal world doesn't account for intimidation/shame/peer pressure/assorted other cultural issues that affect one's ability to say No. (In certain circumstances there are undue pressures in the opposite direction, but predominantly American culture seems to promote whore over madonna in its women.)

Men rarely if ever have to deal with those issues. Women rarely if ever escape them. If a woman bucks all of the cultural pressure to say Yes and actually manages a No, odds are high that she Really Fucking Means It. If she says Yes ... who knows?

I can't see any harm in double, triple, even quadruple-checking a Yes. If the woman in question finds it annoying, she'll prolly tell you right quick, absolving you of further worry. If not, she'll likely appreciate your sensitivity.

But 'if No means No then Yes means Yes' is oversimplified to the point of inaccuracy, imo.