Am I Still A Feminist If I Am On Aziz’s Side?

Perhaps by now, the social media storm around a 23-year-old woman named “Grace” and Aziz Ansari's sexual encounter has reached you. In case it hasn’t I’ll give you a short recap. They met at a party in LA, exchanged numbers, text-flirted, went on a date, Aziz tried to have sex with “Grace,” Grace didn’t want to (though she did let him eat her out and suck his dick twice), then went home in an Uber he called for her crying, feeling like it was “the worst night of her life.” She’s saying that he sexually assaulted her based on the fact that he didn’t pick up on her “nonverbal cues” that she didn’t want to have sex.

(Aziz Ansari at the Golden Globes, via Facebook)

So much has already been written about this in just a few short days since her account of the situation came out in Babe, so maybe hearing my opinion will be redundant if you’ve already read the New York Times article, The Atlantic article. or the article in The Stranger by a lesbian (that is important to the story, actually). However, if you haven’t read them, or you have and also want to hear my take, just keep reading.

I’ve been a victim of sexual assault, and a victim of sexual harassment more times than I can count. My point here is not to demean the account of “Grace” and the feelings she had as a result, but to discuss what I think constitutes sexual misconduct, which I do not think Aziz is guilty of. Many of the people siding with Aziz are calling the encounter he had with “Grace” simply “bad sex.” Some are saying that the original Babe article was wrongly framed, and instead of trying to clickbait us all into reading it, it should have pointed out a much more important issue, which is that the power dynamic between men and women is grossly unbalanced, often causing women to become victims of discomfort and awkwardness in non-threatening sexual situations because of their prescribed role in society. This is definitely something worth talking about, and I agree with The Atlantic, would have been a much more helpful and accurate angle to look at this situation from. Then, there of course are others who think “Grace” is completely in the right, and that Aziz’s behavior was downright immoral.

For me, it isn’t a question of whether or not what “Grace” said happened actually happened. It seems like it did happen, and that the situation was not a cool one to be a part of. I for one have never liked it either when guys are pushy about sex. But there is a huge difference between being pushy and violating someone. Being pushy is not a crime, not even close, not in terms of sex or any other behavior. Yeah, it is fucking annoying. Yeah, men are generally hornier than women, so they are usually the ones being pushy about sex. And yeah, in a perfect world, no one would be pushy about sex. Yet, when someone is being pushy with you, you have to stand up for yourself and say no. It’s not an excuse to say that you didn’t feel like being uncomfortable, and therefore a man trying to have sex with you should be considered sexual misconduct because you never told him no to avoid feeling uncomfortable. And if it wasn’t discomfort that “Grace” was avoiding by providing nonverbal instead of verbal cues, what were her reasons for not saying out loud the messages she was trying to convey through body language, especially considering his “persistence?” I would be curious to understand that further, to better understand the reasons why women allow themselves to become victims of men’s pushy sexual advances to the point that they end up crying.

I also think it is a little fucked up to cry sexual misconduct when sexual activities are consensually happening. If “Grace” didn’t want to sit on the counter and get eaten out, that would have been a clear time to say no thanks brah. And if she didn’t realize she was uncomfortable until after he ate her out (which is a little suspicious, but still, it happens), that would have been another great opportunity to say, I’m feeling uncomfortable. But she gave him head instead. So getting to the next time that she sucked his dick, having both been naked for some time at that point, it starts to become a little strange to hear that through all of this, she was not wanting it, making it clear that she didn’t want it nonverbally, and feeling super uncomfortable . From my perspective, her account indicates that she was not providing clear nonverbal cues at all.

Flirting is notoriously playful, in part because sometimes we’re not sure what we want to do or not. It seems super possible that her nonverbal cues (like moving away from him) were being interpreted as playful because of the fact that she did keep giving in to his advances. In my personal experience, men are notoriously bad about reading nonverbal cues, though that is 100% my biased perspective. Of all the articles I read about this, and I read a lot because it was really bothering me that Aziz was being “torched” for his behavior simply because he couldn’t read a girl’s mind, somewhere in one of them it said that actually, all humans are not great at reading body language (I wish I could find where, but I can’t seem to pinpoint it at the moment). Perhaps that is why we evolved to use spoken language instead?

The point for me really is that the story about “Grace” and Aziz published in Babe is a sort of false whistle-blowing that I think, in the end, is exactly the kind of thing that is detrimental to MeToo movement, to women’s rights, to feminism, to human equality at large. Why? Because Aziz acted annoyingly, not illegally. Because women have agency, and Aziz at no point tried to non-consensually force himself on “Grace,” so accusing him of assault when he did not assault her, and causing suck a ruckus in the news, leading people to take sides because of their honest moral feelings about it, does not help cultivate an societal environment of the destruction of the imbalanced power dynamic between men and women that often leads to real sexual assault and not simply uncomfortable situations. If we want to lessen those uncomfortable situations, we have to talk about these issues more frankly, more honestly. All of us who have been in Grace’s situation, while it might not be fair, have a duty if they really want to provide a better future. When a man is being sexually pushy, we need to verbally announce that we don’t want sex, we want to keep our clothes on. Further, we need to explain to the dude that they are making us uncomfortable right then and there, even if that situation itself, the one of denying (a negative action), is uncomfortable. In order to change things, we kind of must do that, so that someday, society changes and those conversations are no longer necessary.

Is Aziz still a feminist as he claims to be (he is an outspoken supporter of the MeToo movement and feminism in general, as can be seen in so many of his comedy performances as well as in his book Modern Romance) if he acts this way? Well, I guess only time will tell. It seems genuine that he didn’t think he had violated “Grace” in any way, based on the fact that he texted her first the next day saying he had a great time. Maybe now he will try to pay more attention to nonverbal cues so that it doesn’t happen again. If he truly hears that this woman felt violated by him because of his pushiness, I think a feminist would try to be less pushy in the future.

And what about me? Am I a bad feminist because I am morally compelled to “side” with Aziz? I don’t think so. “Grace” told Babe, “It took a really long time for me to validate this as sexual assault.” She told Babe, “I was debating if this was an awkward sexual experience or sexual assault. And that’s why I confronted so many of my friends and listened to what they had to say, because I wanted validation that it was actually bad.”

It was an awkward sexual experience, not sexual assault. To me this is clear. I do not think it is fair to expect a man, or anyone, to read our minds, and so claiming sexual assault when you spent a night naked in a man’s apartment, performing oral sex on each other, then acting as if your nonverbal cues were clear, is actually the bad feminist act here, if only for the simple fact that it discredits the movement for gender equality in the same way that any cry-wolf situation would.

I think I wrote this today more for myself than for anyone that might read it. I have been trying to figure out exactly how I feel about it and why, and writing it down has really cleared all of that up for me, as you can probably see in my conclusiveness. Even more, it has made me realize the actions I need to take to become a better feminist. Now, I see that while it is not my “job” to teach men how to behave in ways that do not exploit women or use their power in inappropriate ways (even if they don’t realize they are doing it)—this is a position I have voiced in the past, that it is not my job to do this—I should do it anyway. If I want to be part of the vehicle for change, not someone idly standing by waiting for it, I should do my best to make men see why certain actions (for instance, that sexual pushiness, but there are many) are detrimental to gender equality. I need to verbally show them how to be the change whenever possible.