When it's no, it's no! Simple and obvious, this rule is the basis of (non) consent. But for women, the reality is often more complicated. This is what Claire wanted to denounce in a powerful Twitter thread.
Claire is a young woman. Claire receives an offer to go for a drink with her Tinder date, whom she has seen a few times before. Claire says no. The story could end there. This is unfortunately not the case.
This young woman, who actually exists, posted a screenshot of a message chat with the famous date on October 1, 2020, captioning the photos with this phrase: "Just say no when a guy insists and basta!" . Enough to illustrate what the "no" implies when it is addressed to certain men …
Under this legend, a long ping-pong between the forcer, who keeps insisting, and Claire, who tirelessly refuses to go have a drink with him. The discussion goes on and on, and the excerpt posted contains the word "no" 9 times. In the comments, Claire specifies: "And right now he's coming back to the charge so, no, he's one of those people who don't understand that word."
If some Internet users believe that this conversation is only an isolated case, and the forcer, quite simply a rude person, others have launched a debate: and if this refusal to hear a "no" was generalized among men cis?
The question is legitimate: as women, almost all of us have experienced this kind of situation, ranging from heavy “flirting” to sexual violence and even rape. This failure to respect our will is even a trope in children's literature, Snow White at The Sleeping Beauty, who are kissed in their sleep, passing by The beauty and the Beast, where Belle falls in love with the one who kidnapped her. It is from our earliest childhood that our society instills in us this cog in the culture of rape, which means that a woman can say no while thinking yes. Worse: negation would be akin to a game of seduction, which the man must win by making us yield … And do not speak of the cases where we are not able to pronounce the "no", by fear, constraint , state of unconsciousness, nor of the violence exerted against those who dare to say afterwards that they were not consenting.
No wonder, then, that Claire is criticized for continuing to interact with her date, as if repeated refusal was an incentive to persevere. "Girls really don't know how to say no mash !! You say no and you stop talking, don't add anything else that opens up the conversation no heat possible, and stop answering when you said nn", writes a surfer. However, Claire, whom we contacted, specifies that what she received "are just messages", and that she knows that the young man "is capable of much worse in reality", explaining that he became threatening as the meetings progressed.
Today, his tweet has been picked up more than 20,000 times, proof that education about consent (and refusal) remains a priority.