“Why didn’t she just leave?”
Last year, an anonymous woman known only as Grace went on a date with actor and comedian Aziz Ansari.
What transpired was what she described as “by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”
Grace alleged that while in his apartment, Aziz repeatedly pulled her hand towards his penis even though she kept moving it away.
She said that Aziz asked her where she wanted him to “fuck” her. She said he took out a condom soon after they started kissing. She said that he repeatedly stuck his fingers down her throat. She said that he was forceful and that she felt violated.
Text screenshots provided by Grace showed that Aziz said he was “truly sorry” for making her feel that way, and that he had “misread things in the moment.”
Following the publication of Grace’s story on Babe.net, Aziz issued a statement acknowledging that they had engaged in sexual activity but that it was “completely consensual.”
The reason that so many women were appalled by Grace’s story is the same reason that so many men were quick to defend Aziz’s actions.
Because as stories go, it seems normal.
It’s normal to invite a woman back to your house and assume that she’s going to have sex with you, and it’s normal for a man to repeatedly push a woman’s hand to his penis.
It’s normal for a man to try and coerce a woman into having sex even when she’s giving non-verbal and sometimes verbal cues that she doesn’t want to.
It’s normal, and it happens, but that doesn’t make it alright.
For many men, sex with women seems to be a challenge – something that they have managed to achieve in the face of adversity, regardless of the protestations or the discomfort or the clear lack of interest.
For these men, sex is not something that is enjoyed between two people. It’s something that is going to happen, and it doesn’t matter if you’re into it or not.
There are plenty of reasons why many women don’t, or can’t, remove themselves from these kinds of situations.
You tell yourself you’re fine, it’s not that bad, it could be worse.
You think that if you just lie there, disinterested, he’ll stop.
You rationalise that they’ll get the message and that this is easier than saying no – a no that may not be possible, or one that will be potentially ignored anyway.
This is the text Grace* sent Aziz Ansari after their date which left her feeling “violated”. She tells Ansari how uncomfortable he made her feel, saying “you ignored clear non-verbal cues” and “kept going with advances.”
Read the full story on https://t.co/FyMMG6uO1j. pic.twitter.com/lPOvW6tFTr
— babe (@babedotnet) January 14, 2018
In that moment, you’re not somebody who may or may not decide that they want to have sex.
You’re some girl who, for some incredible reason totally incomprehensible to these men, is just not that into it.
Later, they’ll call you frigid. They’ll tell people you were a shit ride and that you were wasting their time. They’ll convince themselves that they’re glad you two didn’t get to have sex.
She was a bitch anyway, they’ll say. Why bother?
Call them out and sometimes the best you can hope for is a tentative apology and the promise that they won’t contact you again.
The worst is that nothing happens and that they continue on as normal – assuming that convincing women to sleep with them is just part of the game that all men must play.
Grace said that afterwards, she couldn’t figure out whether what she had experienced was a typical bad date or a sexual assault.
The problem was that it had the potential to be both.
Women experience these kinds of “bad dates” all the time.
We recount them to our friends afterwards, honing in on the particularly uncomfortable details, agreeing that yeah, that guy was an asshole, listening to the responses that tend to begin: ‘Oh that same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, let me tell you about it too.’
We take solace in the fact that we’re not the only one who has been treated this way by a man we thought seemed like an alright kind of guy.
We’re used to it.
Grace’s story is a difficult read because it’s so familiar.
It’s one that so many of us have experienced and that so many of us could have written ourselves.
It happens but it shouldn’t. It’s normal but it’s not.
