Halted Assault (NSFW)
Observing and preventing assault through analysis of one man's actions and words
“I’m not a rapist,” he said.
“That’s what rapists say.”
Thick mustache naturally curling upward at the ends; fistfuls of grey-spattered black hair; compact, muscular body - he was stunning altogether. But here he was, doing rapist things.
The rapist behavior began when he didn’t order a drink, only sat himself in front of me and my sweating iced coffee and notebook. One interpretation of that inaction is that he was prioritizing achieving an unstated need1 that had nothing to do with the coffee or conversation we had explicitly agreed to via text.
I noticed.
I told him that his mustache was beautiful, that he was beautiful. Because he was, and men don’t hear that enough. (De-feminizing that adjective and recognizing beauty in other people are part of the revolution.) Interpreted through the lens of his subsequent actions and words, it would seem he regarded my compliment as an invitation to escalate his efforts toward satisfying his unstated need.
Because a few minutes later he alluded, “Wanna get out of here?”
“Where would we go?” Consent is built on explicitly stated intentions.
“My brother has a place nearby.”
“What would we do?” Again, I needed precision.
“You know, maybe…hook up or something.”
He smiled with bemused discomfort. The stilted back-and-forth demonstrated his inexperience in clearly stating his needs and methods for achievement. This inexperience wasn’t a negative in and of itself, but it did allude to a history of one-sided negotiations based in ambiguity.
Rapist behavior.
Interested in practicing my assault-halting skills, I informed him of my sole interest in conversing in order to discover or create intellectual and emotional connections between us. Said I was amenable to seeing his house and meeting his brother as invited, but I was not interested in developing a sexual connection unless and until these other connections had been established. Explained that as a sapiosexual, this method was the only way for me to develop sexual attraction, if at all.
Refusing to invest more than ten minutes in my request and instead focusing on meeting his need under dishonest tactics, he was revealing himself a rapist. The initiator of a battle between his sexual need and my need not to be raped.
No longer interested in potentially exploring a sexual connection with him (rapists are unattractive to me) and instead interested in practicing self-defense skills and teaching him something about consent, if possible, I walked with him to his car.
He said he was surprised I wasn’t afraid to meet a stranger at a coffee shop, that most female-presenting (well, he said “women”) he spoke to through social connection apps were highly reluctant to meet up. I explained that I refuse to limit the pursuit of my interests or meeting my needs out of fear for the next violent act; that assaults happen all the time no matter how I conduct my life; that I choose to expect violence to occur and am constantly prepared to prevent or minimize damages to my body and mind. If I cannot satisfactorily minimize those damages, I explained, I choose to recognize that I did everything in my power to defend myself, thereby minimizing the likelihood that additional damage - deep emotional damage (e.g. PTSD) - will develop.
Or I’m dead, and there’s no problem for me to solve at all.
At the house, I hesitated a second for him to sit down on the couch first so I could seat myself several inches away. Seconds after, he closed in on those inches and pressed his thigh against mine.
“Wow, you’re right up against me.” My incredulous expression. He didn’t seem to possess the social skills to understand that I was using my face and tone to say he had violated a space boundary that we had both upheld until now.
As I adjusted my crossed leg, he reached his hand over and placed it on my thigh as he moaned something about strong legs. Considering how physically attractive he was, I might have invited those efforts had we discovered an intellectual and emotional connection before exploring a potential sexual one. But he was clearly not interested in honoring my request. He didn’t care that I didn’t desire the same sexual connection on the same time frame as he did.
Rapist behavior.
It was simply a hand belonging to an attractive body, albeit rendered unattractive by the lack of consent. Before I could formulate a statement about this topic, he leaned over and pressed his lips to my bare thigh. I chose not to react with an arresting strike because I wanted to use words and the power of shame instead of physical force to educate him. I allowed him to pull himself upright, spoke clearly.
I told him he was engaging in rapist behavior by not asking consent before breaking our physical boundary, by kissing my leg.
“I’m not a rapist,” he replied. I denied calling him a rapist. I again informed him that he was engaging in rapist behavior, offered him a slow pitch. No reaction.
“You don’t want to meet my request to build an intellectual connection through conversation at all, do you?”
“It’s been nine months, it’s all I can think about right now.” Finally some honesty. He grabbed at his crotch and I asked him to clarify: “it” meant sex.
“So meeting your sexual need is your only goal right now?” He emphatically agreed, unaware that he just revealed his dishonesty about agreeing to continue talking at his brother’s house, to continue investing time and energy into developing other connections first.
“Do you want to see my dick?”
Silence for a few moments, let’s let this sentence echo.
“You’re not big on consent, are you?” A lecturing tone.
“No,” he gleefully smiled. Proudly?
“I don’t need or necessarily want to see your dick. I’ve seen thousands of them at this point. I like looking at dicks every now and then but I don’t particularly care about yours one way or the other.” Because it was true.
He pulled out his dick. I was absolutely not enticed to pursue any sexual needs with him.
“Do you want to try it?” He asked vaguely. Again, unable to state his sexual needs. Again, attempting to manipulate consent to an undefined act.
“What does ‘try’ mean?” I felt sad for him, a person bereft of a vocabulary with which to express sexual needs and negotiate a satisfying reality for himself.
“You know….try.”
“What does ‘try’ mean?”
This repeated for a few cycles.
“Do you mean slap it, suck it, fuck it - what?” Seeking clarity on his vague language again.
“Yeah!” He brightened like a german shepherd picking out the command from a stream of nonsense.
“No, I don’t.” That full-stop sentence would have collapsed me into a pile of rejection and embarrassment, but not him. Not this person who didn’t respect my humanhood and therefore could not feel human feelings with me.
I told him I was getting bored, that I supposed I’d head out now. He straightened his slouch, his potential sexual resource about to disappear from proximity. He put his dick away.
It seemed he hadn’t learned anything yet about consent and I was prepared to deliver an escalated tactic if needed in order to do so. I remained on the couch.
He complained that I was teasing him. I asked him to clarify this term, “teasing.” He couldn’t bring himself to answer and instead said something about needing to go “take care of it” in the bathroom. More vague language.
He asked if I played video games and I said no, I never had been interested. Finally, conversation instead of coercion! He lifted a controller and turned on the flatscreen, handed the controller toward me. “You’ll like this, try it.”
I explained with a casual smile that I didn’t play video games, but thank you. “Try it, here, take it,” he waved the controller in front of me. I resisted again.
This exchange continued with little variation for four solid minutes. Maybe five. He said this video game was important to him, that playing it would help me understand who he was.
I was surprised he thought I was interested in pursuing an emotional connection after subjecting me to an escalating threat against my autonomy for the last 45 minutes.
Eventually he learned that I would not acquiesce. He defeatedly dropped the controller, lamented my resistance. Attempted to convince me that I was missing out on something, that he possessed superior knowledge regarding the value of video games and that I should have followed his command. Attempted to manipulate using the illusion of authority.
Whined.
I was ready to head back uptown. In the car, he again complained about my non-participation in playing the video game. It seemed he had no limits in his tendency to enforce his needs as a sole priority.
Rape, as defined by the cultural lexicon represented in news stories and pop media, appears to occur the moment the assailant’s body invades another. But in reality, rape is a stream of escalating tactics of manipulation and other violent acts, including murder, used by a person to diminish another person’s (or peoples’) autonomy in order to meet that person's need.
A person’s belief that their need (of any kind) is more important than another person’s needs (especially the need for autonomy), leads to deep pain, self-defeating reprogramming (which may never be un-programmed), rape, murder and genocide, all of it on one scale. Often men against women, this dynamic equally applies to the rich versus poor, white vs everyone else, the government vs indigenous people.
I imagine the person I resisted and attempted to educate is one who also escalates tactics for meeting his needs until he is kicked out of fast-food establishments. The same one who claims he “hates drama,” but it’s resistance he hates, accountability he hates. He is the same rapist who complains for many hours or weeks about his unmet need until his target decides to acquiesce in order to terminate the flow of negative feelings his words are intended to elicit.
It is likely he was eager for a second meeting in which to employ new or stronger tactics - escalated force - built upon the experimentation of the previous meeting. Unwilling to invest additional resources educating someone unwilling to learn and uninterested in meeting any of my needs with or through this person, I closed the car door and looked for a coffee shop so I could begin writing, could begin the process of sharing knowledge.
Knowledge sharing is a direct action one can take to fight oppressive forces, whether those forces exist outside or inside your head. This article serves several purposes:
1) it is an attempt to raise awareness as to the early signs of rapist behavior before the legal definition of rape occurs, a message intended for a) persons prone to experiencing this form of oppression and b) persons who are unaware of their own rapist behaviors;
2) it is an attempt to demonstrate that cultural programming surrounding US-American heterosexual/hetero-romantic sexuality and romance normalizes coercion and manipulation as tactics for meeting human needs, a message intended for both groups a) and b);
3) it depicts how one person who is prone to experiencing this form of oppression navigates meeting their own human needs while minimizing damages, intended for group a).
And for the record:
Yes, mustache man, you are a rapist. Some day, you will learn and stop your rapist behaviors; there is a place in society for the remorsefully reformed. Or you will continue to damage people in an ever-expanding ring of negative influence, a tragic waste of your energy.
Or you will be dead, and there’s no problem for you to solve at all.
For succinctness, the terms “desires” and “needs” are used interchangeably. Differentiating between the two terms is beyond the scope of this essay.