The Power of the Word "No"
I didn’t recall inviting him to put his arm around me
Much less for him to slide his hands along my thighs
station his palms over my hips
tease my chin and my neck with the tips of his fingers and lips
as I cringed and cowered like a sensitive seismonastic flower
I tried to push him away
With a barrage of livid vernacular as well as a frenzied grip upon those encroaching wrists he simply
Laughed
Told me I was just being
Innocent
Adorable
Shy
And it shocked me how repulsed I was by every single syllable
The only possible reason for me to reject him
wasn’t because I didn’t like him
Or because he was coming on too strong
Or because he was at fault in any way at all
No
The only reason I could possibly ever turn down his advances
Was because I was
Innocent
Adorable
Or shy.
At the time I didn’t dare argue with him further
Because I knew all that would elicit is ridicule and slandering instead of apologies and profound regret
For fear of being labeled “over-sensitive”, a freak,
or their favorite,
A bitch
When they asked me in elementary school what I wanted to be when I grew up
I didn’t occur to me that I would only have those three unspoken options.
As we talked it became more evident that he genuinely saw nothing wrong in commanding physical retribution when it was apparent I did not want to grant it
He truthfully could not fathom the idea of being turned away because his target felt entitled to her own body not because she was simply too bashful
He didn’t understand that women shouldn’t have to feel obligation as if they owe him something for his counterfeit kindness towards them,
that women are more than just creatures fashioned to gratify him
when you pull the right strings
And he’s not alone
So many individuals have been raised the same way
With absolutely no comprehension that any girl actually has
the authority
to decide for herself
He told me he was disappointed
That he wasn’t going to hurt me
That I was beautiful
That I should trust him
And a wealth of other adages worn thread bare and routine to coax me into satiating his carnal demands
He said to relax
He moved his hands to a respectable location on my body
Smiled and said I didn’t have to be so tense
The one thing he didn’t do was actually back off.
I didn’t realize that at some point in time
My “no”
had stopped meaning “no”
There are both men and women reading or listening to this right now
With utterly no conception of the fury and dismay I feel
How appalled I am by the way today’s youths have been cultured to operate
Disgusted by the behavior society condones
And even more so by what it actively preaches
Up until personal experiences like this one became commonplace
I would have rolled my eyes upon reading the title of this poem
Just like them
Like him
I pray these statements are not interpreted as contemptuous
Or clumped with other feminist “prose” or should I say “whining” and cast aside with vexation
My goal is not to antagonize men or any subgroup of the populace they are not solely to blame
Or force concepts of gender equality upon anyone who chooses to ignore the fact that such a thing still does not exist
I was just told that here I could speak my mind
Truthfully I had never even considered myself any sort of feminist.
Even now, I’m not entirely sure I do
A feminist sounds like someone who would burn lingerie at a women’s rights march
Jab voodoo needles into crudely crafted miniature replicas of men condemning their objectification of other human beings
Retaliate with a bitter diatribe when the word “guys” is used to colloquially address a group that includes females
And blaming them when we know their insolences were learned and when we should be challenging the silence and acceptance of their conduct instead
I don’t exactly fit the former picture.
But I do believe in choice
I believe in autonomy
I believe in the power of the word “no”
That’s all
I really and truly just believe
that everyone has the right to those ideals
I guess I’m just disappointed
that there seem to be so many others
who no longer do.