The Blurred Lines Of Sex

“Please?”

“No.”

“Let us just try. I’ll stop if you don’t like it.”

“I’ve never done it before.”

“Then why are you refusing straightaway?”

“But I’m not comfortable with it.”

“Try it once. I promise I’ll stop the moment you want me to.”

I wanted him to stop the moment I said no.

As he took the silence that followed as my consent, I could feel control over my body slip with every piece of cloth that came off.

I loved him. He did unspeakable things to my body that left me moaning for more. Was he not entitled to get his share too? Or was he? And at what cost? Had I coerced him to do the things he did? Had I begged and pleaded till he fell silent and gave in? Then why did I?

I felt dirty going to sleep next to him that night. I was in pain, but not the normal kind. My entire body repelled to what I had just allowed to happen to it. I loved him, is what I told every inch of my skin. He had undressed me and I had been naked from the waist down for the first time, in front of another person. He had unleashed something too coarse for my understanding, on me.

For that half hour or so, it wasn’t him that was ravishing me. Gripping my thighs, pulling them apart, pulling me to him from my waist, squeezing whatever skin touched his hand. It HURT. I screamed. He took it as a compliment.

He put his tongue all the way into my throat and that was that. For a long while I lay there, trying to enjoy it. Trying to accept it, at least. He finally stopped when he was spent and finished. He gave me a peck on my lips and rolled off of me. He then looked into my eyes, as if starstruck.

“How was it?”

I smiled.

“I told you it’ll be out of this world!”

“Yeah.”

“Lets get cleaned up and then order some food. You go ahead and clean up, I need to rest for a second here.”

“Ok.”

“You didn’t bleed or anything, no?”

“No. I’ve heard people who are into horse riding and all usually don’t.”

“Yeah. I figured. I LOVED it! I LOVE YOU!”

Was I raped? I seriously don’t know. But did I give my consent? No.

For what did he have my consent, and for what he assumed it?

These are some questions that the young and the restless today should really be asking. Consent, let me tell you, is to be taken at every step of the way.

Think of it as online shopping, you’ve got to add-to-cart each item individually. Okay, maybe this is a bad example. But this is good advice. Consent to kiss does not automatically mean consent to run your hands on my breasts, dear men.

But taking consent for every little thing is just too much, you say? It really isn’t. If you have us in your minds instead of your needs, it will not be.

Two years after my first swashbuckle with sex, another man proved this to me! I had given up on sex, and my extremely eager boyfriend had dumped my ass now that he couldn’t plead me into doing it with him.

My best friend had set me up on a phenomenon called a ‘blind date’, and I had actually liked the conversation so I was on my third dinner with him when he sought my permission to kiss. This was a first in itself. I was used to men leaning in, and that is how you knew you were about to be kissed. And if you did not lean in too, that’d be the end of THAT man in your life. But this was a gentleman, raised by parents who knew consent themselves, perhaps.

Was it anti-romantic to be ASKED for permission in that moment? Au contraire! It was beautiful. Here, decide for yourself-

He slow-walked me to my apartment, which was not far from where we were dining. As we reached my building, I turned towards him and stood there, lingering into a conversation.

I hardly knew what I was saying, because the sexual energy between us was too loud to understand anything else. He moved a step closer, ideally brushed a strand of hair off of my face and tucked it behind my ear, ran his eyes through my face and lingered his gaze near my lips. He then put his fingers under my chin and lifted my face up.

“Look at me.”

I did.

“You have the most beautiful set of eyes, you know?”

I smiled.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked, as he lightly brushed a bit of my jawline with his thumb.

I smiled. He waited.

“Yes.”

I had never been kissed like that before. While extremely exhilarating, the kiss made me feel like a person, and not a pair of lips. It made me think of MY needs thereafter, and not feel like HE needs all of ME.

Furthermore, this was my entire time with him. Whenever he touched me in any place he hadn’t before, he’d ask and wait for me to reply. He would talk things over before wanting to do them. I had turned so sensitive to his gaze and touch that I felt like maybe I was falling in love again.

Why?

Because I felt loved and taken care of. But was i? No. I had simply felt like a body in bed, and not an individual, before him. This man was not doing anything extraordinary. The OTHERS were simply not doing the bare minimum. My participation and willingness in bed was as important as his, and that was the thing that had been missing in my life.

A mere fling taught me that sex is a two-way street in every aspect. He taught me that I d have to be in love to be loved. He loved me with all his heart for a few nights and we moved on. But those few nights made themselves count. They opened me up for more and better. They helped me see sex in the right perspective. While I was never raped, I knew now that simple gestures of tenderness, like checking each other’s comfort zones, went a long way in creating magic.