This week, the news cycle has been awash with two names and one of the most powerful and passionate debates to seize the #MeToo movement.
Aziz Ansari – the actor, comedian, star of Parks and Recreation and Master of None and self-titled feminist – found himself the centre of an international furore. A sexual encounter he had from September last year suddenly was fodder for conversation and impassioned op-eds and debate from every corner of politics.
A woman under the pseudonym Grace told website Babe she went on a date with the actor, calling their encounter the “worst night of her life”. Then 22, she told the website she spent much of the night resisting Ansari’s advances with “non-verbal cues”, her body language, she says, extolling how she wasn’t the least bit interested in sex. However, such was the reported dogged determination of Ansari, Grace relented, eventually giving him oral sex.
“Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points,” she said. “I stopped moving my lips and turned cold.”
Most of the conversation that has erupted since has been heavy and muddled, a tug of war erupting between those branding Ansari a sexual assailant and those who assert it was just ‘bad sex’.
Grace did as much as she felt she could to indicate she did not want what Ansari was pushing for. She opened her mouth and spoke, her body language doing a lot of the talking. And in a world where it’s estimated only seven per cent of any message is conveyed through words, should that have been enough?
Top Comments
I think this ALL comes back to a lack of sex education - or “sexuality education” as the Danes call it. Talking about personal boundaries, consent, feelings, how your actions impact on others, proper words for things etc should taught from pre-school (in an age appropriate way i.e. hugging with four year olds) - not just some awkward discussion in year 7 about the mechanics, STIs and abstinence. So having these conversations aren’t weird and unfamiliar by the time we are in our twenties and find ourselves in a sexual situation with an unknown. If we don’t teach our kids from an early age how to communication their feelings and learn to listen to others, how can we expect them to automatically know how to do it when it counts?
I agree with all the respondents. I also read a critique on how it was written & where the source material may've come from, it seems to have been cobbled together from pre-existing reports from the internet & other observers experiences. I agree with DP, what did this woman expect on a "first date,"? to me it smacked of a set up, around this guys race, his naivety & also his "fame," it read like a set up from start to finish.
He may not have read the signals properly in context of a "first date" also the fact that she gave him no real indications that she was having any physical discomfort as to what was going on, if she's supposed to be a modern well adjusted female/feminist (as most millenial's seem to want to prove) then, like my friend says to her 3 year old use your words...As a grown adult surely she would have used the word NO & if she was in great distress" call me a cab". In these types of situations surely we need to pull up our "big girl panties" & take some responsibility (especially by the age of 22) for what is happening to us.