by Anne Dickson
Sexuality is at one level just another theme and another context in which we have these three options of expressing ourselves aggressively, passively or assertively: what makes it harder though is that we tend to be more vulnerable. Unless you’re a professional, you’re likely to feel some sensibility when engaging in sexual activity with another person. This is easy to accept when you love the person because the deeper the feelings, the more open you are. Many women still feel anxious about communicating with people who are most important to them and with whom they feel most vulnerable. Let us look at the sort of issues that arise in women’s lives which illustrate how assertive skills are relevant within a sexual context:
Betty, thirty-eight, widowed six years ago, is beginning to relate to a new man for the first time. She has two children, aged ten and twelve, and has maintained a low sexual profile since her husband’s death. Now faced with her new lover, she lacks confidence. She feels like a novice again: she knows what she wants but feels unable to speak up or to find the actual words to ask him to change the way he touches her. She can respond passively as she has up until now letting the situation continue, with her resentment building up steadily. She can let this go on until she explodes about what a lousy lover he is; or what may happen is that, like Ivy, she will find some indirect means of saying ‘no’ to him, cutting him off. She will probably avoid sex by saying that the children are unhappy with him staying the night, using that as an excuse. An assertive option would be to use the skills already described to set a time to talk to him directly.
Heather, forty, has enjoyed her marriage for fifteen years, but feels that sex with her husband has become routine, predictable and dull. She wants to find ways of renewing and reviewing their marriage and exploring new possibilities with each other.
Janet’s marriage finished four years ago. At fifty, after a series of temporary flings, she decides she wants to remain celibate for a while, to step back and consider what she really wants before getting involved with someone else. When she meets a man who asks her out, she hesitates to make her limits clear: she is afraid of being labelled frigid or weird. Her anxiety pushes her into anticipating every encounter as a potential threat. She overacts and leaves both herself and the other person embarrassed. She has to practise making a clear statement at the beginning of the friendship, setting limits so that everyone knows where they stand.
Marianne is twenty three and has not really wanted sexual activity since the birth of her first child, a year ago. Her partner has been kind and understanding but nevertheless has wanted sex so she has ‘given in’, even though it has sometimes been painful for her. She is trapped into believing that it is her duty after all: she is his wife and if she does not give him what he wants, he may go and find it elsewhere. An assertive option is to talk about it to her partner and negotiate a compromise around what kind of sexual activity they both want: for instance, oral sex as an alternative to sexual intercourse.
Meg, unmarried, forty-seven, has recently embarked on sexual relationships with several ongoing partners. Her close friends of long-standing appear shocked by her behaviour. She allows their disapproval to feed her own uncertainty about whether or not she is doing the right thing. She can choose to keep her friends from intruding on her own pleasure and enjoyment and assert her right to choose her own sexual lifestyle, making a clear statement to that effect if necessary.
Before attempting to make any changes in your own life, it is worth considering some rights which apply specifically in a sexual context.
1. I have a right to whatever information I want about sexuality. Sex education in this country still provokes controversy so young people are even more dependent on the internet, their peers and whatever the media portrays. Some information will get through but it is unlikely to be comprehensive and will be low on the dimension of relationship. If you think back to the manner in which you learned about sexual behaviour, you will probably find that, like many people, it was a haphazard process of misinformation and mistakes and learning through trial and error. Many magazine articles give some facts but overwhelmingly claim to have the secret to making you a better and sexier lover for your partner. No pressure then!
Even as adults, there may be things you do not know but are afraid to ask because everyone is meant to know everything nowadays. Talking with other women in a spirit of enquiry rather than competition is a good beginning. Many of us talk to our best friends about important and intimate things but not sex. Yet once you overcome this reluctance you may find you can learn a lot and that sharing your own experiences can be very fruitful with the proviso that you talk with friends you trust and who are not trying to impress you.
2. I have the right to choose my own sexuality. By this I mean the right to sort out for yourself the person you are and want to be sexually. This may mean not being sexually active but remaining celibate; or relating to one man or to one woman, to several men at once or to several women; to both men and women at the same time; to be married and monogamous or to be single and monogamous. Consider your needs in the light of what you want at any given stage of your life: what suited you at twenty may not suit you at fifty.
3. I have the right to ask for what I want sexually. Many women continue to balk at the idea of saying what they want and don’t want. If sex is only for the convenience of your partner then you risk doing yourself a great disservice. You also risk accumulating resentment and then finding a way to express your disappointment in a hurtful and aggressive manner. Despite apparent liberation, it is still tempting for heterosexual women to blame a man for not knowing exactly when and how and what they need in terms of sexual pleasure. Taking a more active role, asking and asserting your right to enjoyment is an important way of learning to take an equal and responsible part in bedtime activities.
4. I have the right to sexual pleasure. The emphasis here is on the word pleasure. Enjoyment. Fun. Frolics. Laughter. For this, of course, you need to feel friendly and relaxed towards the person you are with. If either of you is nervous, tense, intently concentrating on a goal or putting on a star performance, then fun will usually be in short supply. Instead of making it all a chore you can consciously decide to let go and enjoy yourself. This has a lot to do with your body, understanding how it works, how you respond and essentially trusting yourself enough to let go.
5. I have a right to choose my form of sexual enjoyment. Again, the experts, the gurus and the mass media tell us which positions, which type of orgasm and how many are best, how long and where to do it, what to do before and after. Take time to find out about your body, learn about your responses: become familiar with what turns you on a little, what blows your mind and what definitely turns you off. The ‘zipless fuck’ (casual sex with a stranger) may be exactly what you want: on the other hand, you may be a woman for whom this remains an exciting fantasy but in reality you need the safe and familiar to turn you on.
Vicky was twenty-eight and, after a couple of serious boyfriends, was feeling isolated and confused. She described how what mattered to her was not only the physical act of sex but also affection and tenderness. Once she voiced her thoughts, she found many others echoed them: she was not alone in seeking something different, more concerned with relationship than only the mechanics. She hadn’t liked one boyfriend watching pornography: it made her feel uncomfortable and without being able to articulate just why, she felt it made a difference in his attitude to her somehow. She felt he wasn’t the same person he was at other times. She didn’t trust him as easily and therefore felt less able to relax herself when it came to sex between them.
6. I have the right to change my mind. There is a psychological pressure which makes it almost impossible for us to get started into something sexy and then realise that our hearts (and bodies) are not really in it, that what we would really prefer might be a cup of tea or a good sleep or to sort out the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting. If this happens, can you acknowledge your right to change your mind?
It d
oes not help that there is an assumed line of inevitable progression towards the goal of intercourse. You may start with a kiss and enjoy it and maybe you are happy with a cuddle but the last thing you feel like is sex. So what do you say? Can you assertively extricate yourself and say you really do not want to make love? Can you assertively set your limits in this way? Do you even know what your limits are in the first place?
Sometimes it is necessary to find the words, however awkwardly, to communicate clearly instead allowing feelings of guilt that you are going to let someone down or worries that you will be considered disappointing or be accused of being a prick-tease to keep you silent. There is always an emotional cost in going along with sex when you don’t want to.
Saying no
Most women I have met admit that they have participated at times in some kind of sexual activity without really wanting to. They have done so feeling reluctant, half-hearted, sometimes in physical pain, yet have still agreed to have sex rather than make a clear refusal. If you recognise this to be true for you, that you have said ‘yes’ or said nothing (assumed to be a ‘yes’) to some kind of sexual activity when in truth you really wanted to say ‘no’, then see if any of the following reasons are similar to your own:
• Fear of being accused of being frigid or a tease
• Fear of it meaning that you are frigid, that there is something wrong with you
• Fear of provoking an argument and then having a grumpy partner who turns over in a huff and fidgets through the night so you don’t get any sleep
• Fear of rejection if you do not say ‘yes’ and then feeling lonely
• Anxiety that your partner will look elsewhere for satisfaction
• The belief that it is your duty because of being a wife or partner or because you have to repay a favour
It is not only women who fall into this sexual compassion trap. Men also fall into the trap sometimes and end up making love with someone when they are not really interested in sex. Mechanical sex of any kind usually hides other feelings. Not wishing to hurt the other person’s feelings by rejecting them or appear uncaring or not wanting to lose them to someone else . . . the trap is the same: assuming that the other person’s needs are more important than your own.
Sometimes we think we will ‘warm up a bit’ and ‘get in the mood’. This can and does occur and, with luck, your own enjoyment will neutralise any feelings of doing it for the other person. Very often, however, the warm-up does not get quite warm enough, nothing takes off and you don’t ever really feel as engaged as you could do.
We can act on false assumptions not only about female sexuality but about male sexuality as well. Two myths in particular are relevant to our subsequent responses.
Man is a sexual beast: in other words, a man has uncontrollable needs. Once he is aroused and has an erection, he has to find some relief, otherwise he will explode or implode: either way it will do him untold harm. Although there is no evidence to support this, men and women continue to believe it and women feel guilty and can be made to feel guilty enough to ‘do something’ about an erection. Another common belief is that as you have ‘caused’ the erection, it is your responsibility to do something about it yourself and provide relief. This unquestioned assumption is so prevalent that it feeds into accusations that women are responsible for their own rape.
The question of arousal and erection is not as straightforward as it appears. A man cannot control whether or not he has an erection. The mistaken belief that a man can ‘get it up’ at will can cause a woman to feel rejected if her partner fails to get an erection when she wants one but distinctly offended if he gets one when she finds it inappropriate!
The man must initiate and orchestrate: despite our claims to be equal, this sexist assumption has not disappeared and continues to contribute to women’s difficulties in making clear refusals or taking responsibility for articulating their own needs. The idea that the man should be basically in charge and know what he’s doing lingers on. Even if a woman is happier to initiate when she feels like doing so, thinly disguised expectations can still obstruct a genuine sense of shared endeavour: our capacity for disappointment seems not to have diminished at all.
Keeping it equal
Reviewing your sexual attitudes, needs and priorities can take time and certainly requires interest and motivation. How can assertive skills be applied and put into practice in sexual situations? Consider Agnes, Dulcie, Ivy and Selma in action:
You have been out to dinner on your first meeting with a man then gone back to your place for coffee. You come face to face with the classic assumption that coffee is merely a euphemism for sex. It is getting late and he is getting amorous. This leads to a caress which leads to a grope which leads to him getting noticeably aroused. You are tired and want to go to bed . . . alone.
Agnes’ tactics: she turns round and yells, ‘Get your hands off me! You must be joking’: message loud and clear and designed to be humiliating.
Dulcie’s tactics: she may attempt to push his hands away and mutter something like ‘I really am very tired, it’s getting late’. Her confusion and perhaps misplaced guilt keep her locked in passively. So she allows herself to submit to sex right there on the sofa.
Ivy might attempt an indirect repulse like ‘I’d love to but it’s the wrong time of the month’. Or ‘I don’t feel very well’, (like Dulcie, feeling afraid to be called a prick-tease or frigid and afraid to make him angry). She may go ahead anyway but get her own back later, for example, by spreading defamatory rumours to mutual acquaintances: ‘He was lousy, all talk and no action; he couldn’t get it up to save his life.’ These put-downs can temporarily relieve the feeling of unfairness and bitterness and anger at allowing oneself to be used.
How would Selma deal with it? She could say ‘no’, for a start, which is a word missing from many women’s attempts to refuse. The conversation might go like this:
Selma: Look, it’s late, I would like to go to bed alone.
Man: But you’re really turning me on. (Manipulative bait)
Selma: I don’t want sex with you right now, I want to go to bed alone.
Man: But wouldn’t it round off the evening nicely?
Selma: It would for you, but no, I don’t want sex with you and I think it is time for you to leave.
Man: What’s the matter? Are you frigid or into women? (Argumentative bait)
Selma: There’s no point in being unpleasant. Please go now. No, I really don’t want to have sex with you.
You can acknowledge other lines of reasoning but still maintain your refusal, as in the following examples:
‘Yes, it has been a nice evening, but no, I don’t want sex with you tonight.’
‘No, I am not a prick-tease, I don’t want sex with you tonight.’
I can see that you are aroused but you could always masturbate: I don’t want sex with you tonight.’
I can see that you are angry, but I don’t want sex with you tonight.’
No, it is not something you did wrong. It is just that I don’t want sex with you tonight.’
Of course it’s unlikely that you would find a man who persisted so strongly but we are often so indirect and ambivalent that the clear message of ‘no’ has a chance of slipping away unheard.
When matters have escalated in a long-term relationship, the problems are more acute. Let us take the example of a woman in a long-term heterosexual relationship where sex has been generally okay but she no longer feels like having intercourse. She is worried, tense, feeling overburdened and consequently distracted from pleasure.
Agnes’s tactics: she might shrug aggressively as soon as her husband touches her and say ‘Not now, for heaven’s sake, stop pawing me’ or start a row knowing that sufficient distance would stave off enthusiasm and physical contact.
Dulcie goes along impassively or resorts to indirect means like going to bed early or pretending to be asleep when he comes to bed or leaving in a tampon after her period has finis
hed because she knows that this will put him off so he’ll hopefully leave her alone.
Ivy might opt for a ‘headache’ or a combination of the above mentioned tactics. Perhaps, as he makes the first move, she mentions his mother to deflect his interest or she pointedly gets engrossed in an erotic novel quite enjoying his exclusion and obvious discomfort.
Selma makes a statement of how she is feeling: tired, unenthusiastic, lukewarm or whatever. She might suggest ways of changing the household arrangements so that she could have some help so as not to be so tired; suggest that they make time to sort out together what was happening to their sex life; offer an assertive compromise like wanting to be close and affectionate but not sexual or happy to stimulate orally or manually but not intercourse. Whatever is negotiated is negotiated as equals with respect and care for each other’s needs.
Assertive compromise or ‘prostitution’? Even without an open financial transaction, many women ‘sell’ sexual favours for something other than cash. When you reach an assertive compromise with a partner, it is not the same as using sex to bargain for the bathroom to be redecorated at the weekend or distracting him from getting angry with you or keeping him hooked and happy. It is important to be clear whether or not you are involved in some unwritten trading agreement. If you are not clear, then you won’t be able to communicate assertively: you will have too much investment in controlling the situation to follow the guidelines of constructive criticism.