What are you into?
On asking too soon + male entitlement to access
So, what are you into sexually?
I’m less than three text bubbles in with this guy on Feeld and the question rolls in like clockwork. Just a few vague intros and BAM, there it is.
In an alternate reality, my desperately horny 14-year-old self is clutching her sports bra. He wants to do things to you sexually! And you get to tell him what those things are! Do you know what they are!?! Quick! Figure out what they are!!!
In another alternate reality, my currently horny 36-year-old self is fizzing with the thrum of anticipatory pleasure. In this reality, the question itself is born on the backs of curious glances and charming banter. Hands grazing, then lingering on fingers, forearms, then thighs. The slow layering of conversation and quirked grins.
In my current, still-horny, 36-year-old reality, the one where I’m only a sparse text exchange and one lazily constructed profile deep into knowing this guy…I’m annoyed.
Before I say anything else, let me say that, in all realities, I am a words person.
I love language. I love talking about it. I love talking about sex, in particular. Always have, always will. I’ve worked for nearly a decade as a sex educator. I make and deliver applied theatre and participatory performances surrounding reproductive justice, sexuality and pleasure. I’m a huge fan of dirty talk, sexting and all manner of sexual language. The right combination of words has the visceral potential to get me wet. How fucking cool is that.
And still.
Something is happening as efficiency culture meets sexual entitlement, cooked in the crucible of dating apps and an attention economy that schools us brutally to see clicks and swipes where we once saw human beings.
Something is happening where certain forms of sexual communication (if you could even call it that) have started to feel like I’m being asked to complete a homework assignment for a stranger. Or, more accurately, like I’m being asked to put in writing, in no uncertain terms, what a man can get away with doing, without the possibility of reproach or renegotiation. And I’m increasingly concerned that certain kinds of language are replacing actual communication.
It's not that I don’t want to talk to my lovers about what I like or want sexually. I do.
And I want them to talk back. I want them to care deeply about what turns me on, what excites and delights and maybe even scares me. I want them to lean in, and lean in deeply, when I start expressing my sexual needs, thoughts and desires. And I want them to listen with the intent to really hear me when I do.
I also want that to happen once they know how to pronounce my name and I know them as something other than YesSirBrooklyn. Call me old-fashioned.
What I don’t want is sexual opportunism and laziness to be masquerading as curiosity.
I don’t want a stranger to think that just because we matched on an app, even a fuck app, that they can presume the right to some kind of sexual cheat code to my body.
But Jessamyn, how are guys supposed to know what you like if they don’t ask??
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be having actual conversations about what we do and don’t want and do those wants and desires align. And I know that in some contexts, on some apps (Play Parties, Grindr, for example) this level of transactional directness may be more of an expected norm. But I still don’t think that we should be assuming this tenor of transactionality from the jump. And in particular, I’d like to ask straight men to take a step back and read the fucking room (virtual or otherwise) before they come out swinging with this kind of ask. Not a single one of these men who I’ve done this dance with online would ever cold-open an in-person date with:
“Hey”
“Hey there”
“Nice to meet you!”
“You too. So, tell me more about how you like to get fucked?”
So. Before you slide into those DM’s with an unsolicited request for sexual preferences, please know that this kind of behavior risks and, in my opinion, conveys a few things:
You are more invested in assessing quickly what you can or cannot do to me than discovering what we might enjoy doing with each another together.
You think that if I put something in writing, it’s automatically going to be on the table.
And this misses a few key things:
Just because I know what I’ve been into in the past or with other partners, does not mean that I’ll want to do any or all of those things with you.
It’s vulnerable as fuck to try and distill something as big as “what are you into?” into a concise, text-savvy sentence, and perhaps you haven’t earned that trust yet.
Some of the most thrilling, peak sexual experiences I’ve ever had have involved trying things that I had never done before, that I didn’t know if I was into but that I got to a point of trust with someone enough to try out.
Because here’s the problem with trying to turn a human being into a sexual listicle:
It leaves no space for specificity and spontaneity. It also leaves out space for developing a unique and particular chemistry or dynamic with a new person. And it most certainly leaves out the space for true accountability if and when something doesn’t actually feel good or safe in the moment.
As someone who spent several years teaching models of affirmative consent, I worry that we are letting fall by the wayside our nuanced ability to hold consent as an active, ongoing process, one that is built to contain both certainty and enthusiasm, but also a curiosity towards the unknown and a commitment to earnest, authentic repair in the face of fuck ups. In the binary of a No-Means-No/Yes-Means-Yes landscape, affirmative consent, with its focus on the presence of a yes rather than the absence of a no, was both necessary and, disappointingly, still quite radical in some spaces. But I also believe in teaching to our higher selves, not simply the bare minimum. And already, in the years since I began teaching affirmative consent, I feel like I have seen a disturbing trend towards using the language of consent as a sort of insurance policy; an indemnification against any or all critiques from a partner in the aftermath. The idea being, “well, they consented to it, so it was fine.”
This is not it, my dears.
Much of the problem here stems from the carceral model we operate in. Folks have become so hobbled by the looming terror of jail time, sex offender registries and the criminal legal system that a cut and dry “rape/not rape” binary is such a temptingly clear thing to fixate on. But, in this model, “Was it consensual?” often becomes the first and last question posited in the aftermath of a not-so-great feeling interaction.
But something being consensual, especially in a world where we’ve started to conflate “consensual” with “allowed”, is actually a far, far cry from something being positive, pleasurable or even “fine”. And we can do so, SO much better by each another sexually than a lazy, “Hey, tell me what you want to do so I don’t accidentally rape you.”
There’s a painfully blunt moment in Liliana Padilla’s stunning play, “How to Defend Yourself” which follows a group of students in the aftermath of a sexual assault, where a character proclaims to his friend, “If you fuck a woman well enough, she won’t complain.”
This is the subtler logic that I’m tuning into and turned off by in these less than subtle versions of “So, tell me about what you’re into?” on these apps. I do not want my pleasure to become an insurance policy for your fear and entitlement. In the years since Tarana Burke’s powerful #metoo movement gained mainstream traction, I’ve witnessed the distressing bogeyman of false accusations and men’s fear of being “metoo-ed” find handholds in this perversion of a supposed “she comes first” attitude.
It’s not that I don’t want you to care about what turns me on. I do. I want you to care so much, you’re down for the discovery. I want you to care enough that you’re willing to do the vulnerable dance of learning and asking and discovering what works and what doesn’t in real time together, with humility, patience and a bit more bravery than the internet is teaching us. I want you to lean in so hard to all of that that Sheryl Sandberg could never.
So. Ask the question. I’m not saying you shouldn’t.
But maybe wait until you’ve actually earned the kind of vulnerability and erotic charge it might take someone to disclose the intimacy and intricacies of their desires.
Because I promise, you’re only gonna get to the really juicy stuff that way. The stuff that maybe they haven’t even totally figured out themselves yet. The stuff that makes their cheeks flush and their thighs clench and their breath hitch in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, there might be a new desire peeking around the corner.
If only you’ve got the patience to learn about who they actually are before you try and skip on ahead to what they can give you.