Student Op-Ed Explains ‘Yes Means Yes’ Is Not Necessarily Enough Because Sometimes ‘Yes Means No’

by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | May 5, 2015 9:44 am

This is some very confusing, very twisted reasoning[1] on the part of Jordan Bosiljevac. If she is so mixed up that no means yes, yes means no and neither mean either, maybe she should just stick with no. Normal women don’t think like this or play games like this. When a normal woman says no, she means it. When she says yes, she definitely means it. And putting men in the position of always being the villain no matter the consent, is just repressive, stupid and evil. Sounds to me like this woman is obsessed with sex and with herself and needs deep, deep therapy. If you are so insecure that you always say yes, even when you want to say no, you are weak morally and ethically and need to get some self-respect and grow a spine.

From National Review:

Apparently, you can be “raped by rape culture.”

When it comes to consent, it’s not enough to teach that “no means no” or even that only “yes means yes” — because sometimes “yes” can actually mean “no.”

At least that’s the point of view expressed in an op-ed written by Jordan Bosiljevac for Claremont McKenna College’s student newspaper, the Forum.

In the piece[2], Bosiljevac explains that she and her friends even came up with a phrase to describe someone having sex with you who you didn’t want to have sex with even though you told him that you did, which they apparently consider a form of rape:

“We coined the term ‘raped by rape culture’ to describe what it was like to say yes, coerced by the culture that had raised us and the systems of power that worked on us, and to still want ‘no,’” she writes in the April 30 article, titled “Why Yes Can Mean No.”

Bosiljevac writes that she’s been dealing with the oppression of this culture her whole life — beginning with having to endure relatives kissing her cheeks “even as I winced and turned away” — and that it continues to influence her sexual decision-making abilities, almost to the point where she doesn’t seem to think she really has any ability to make those decisions at all.

She describes one incident in particular in which she had hooked up with a guy who had asked her outright if she was okay with what was happening and she had told him “yes” — explaining that even though she had said “yes,” she had really meant “no,” and it wasn’t really entirely her fault that she couldn’t just say what she wanted:

“Sometimes, for me, there was obligation from already having gone back to someone’s room, not wanting to ruin a good friendship, loneliness, worry that no one else would ever be interested, a fear that if I did say no, they might not stop, the influence of alcohol, and an understanding that hookups are ‘supposed’ to be fun,” she writes.

Bosiljevac also throws racism and homophobia into the blame-game mix, asserting that “consent is a privilege, and it was built for wealthy, heterosexual, cis, white, western, able-bodied masculinity. . . . When you’re poor, disabled, queer, non-white, trans, or feminine, ‘no’ isn’t for you.”

She does, however, clarify that you can actually be a person in one of these groups, or, as she explains it, “a person oppressed in these systems of power,” and still be capable of having “empowering consensual experiences.” Yep — even if you’re a female, you’re still capable of maybe actually wanting to have sex and enjoying it sometimes! Glad she clarified. If she hadn’t, I would have never imagined such a thing could be possible.

So what do we do? After all, there’s no way to tell if a woman is actually wanting to have sex or just saying that she wants to have sex even though she doesn’t because she’s a helpless victim of male oppression that makes it impossible for her to use the right words. Lest you think Bosiljevac is just complaining, she does offer a solution:

“First, we have to realize that all oppression is connected, and all rape is racist, classist, ableist, patriarchal, hetero and cissexist,” she writes. “We cannot make consent available to all if we are not simultaneously disrupting these structures.”

Bosiljevac throws everything in the mix, using racism and homophobia to justify her insanity as well. She puts forth evidently that all women out there are just as screwed up as she is and wealthy, white, western men are animals who are looking to rape women at the first opportunity. She needs to get over herself… that’s one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard. Men should stay away from this woman – she’s nuts. Most women aren’t victims and they don’t need an elitist-in-training to tell them how oppressed they are by white men. She mixes politics and sex in the most confusing way. If this is how liberal college women think, they are broken in the extreme and need to reboot themselves or check into a clinic somewhere.

Endnotes:
  1. This is some very confusing, very twisted reasoning: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417855/student-op-ed-yes-means-yes-not-enough-because-sometimes-yes-means-no-katherine-timpf
  2. piece: http://cmcforum.com/opinion/04302015-why-yes-can-mean-no

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/culture/student-op-ed-explains-yes-means-yes-is-not-necessarily-enough-because-sometimes-yes-means-no/