My notes from the study of the Aziz Ansari fiasco and the reactions to it.
A lot of men take pride in being advocates for the cause of women empowerment. They support equal pay, publicly condemn sexual and other crimes against them, and those in the positions to do so, use their influence to spread awareness about issues facing women in today’s age and time. Aziz Ansari was one of them. He was vocal about his support for the cause.
Yet, he did something not a lot of women would appreciate.
I would not go on to call him an outright pervert, a harasser, a sexist or a misogynist. These are big words and we should not use them carelessly. Today, women are angry. There seems to be a revolution of sorts wherein women have decided to call out men who think they can treat women as objects for sexual gratification and get away with it. As Aziz Ansari said in his ‘not an apology’ note, it is a welcome change and has been long overdue. But we must realise that this is infuriating some members of the opposite sex who are not accustomed to being held accountable. Retorts like #NotAllMen are instant, and victim shaming is a spontaneous response across social media. I don’t want to take credit away from many, many men who have supported the movement and decided to reflect inwards and upon the behavior of their kind. In this context, labeling any man with these heavy words without any due consideration or justification will do more harm to the movement than good.
Having read Grace’s account of her worst date, I realized something. It sure was a bad date. And dates like these are a regular story for every woman.
‘Men want sex, it’s no big deal’ is an easy excuse. For years we have been raised in an environment where we have learned that men have desires, and women help them fulfill those. It is a misleading notion, which has been detrimental to the dynamics of human beings as sexual beings for decades. This has been used to justify the worst crimes of sexual nature, and even ‘bad dates’ like these.
I was scared to get into relationships because of this. I felt a pressure on me to fulfill sexual needs of someone else, disregarding my own, when I needed someone to fulfill my emotional needs first. This never meant that I don’t have needs of my own, but for a lot of men and women, they take backseat in face of needs that are of an emotional and intellectual nature. Maybe that’s how Grace felt. And that’s exactly how a lot of women feel on these ‘bad dates’. The undue pressure to please a guy in order to retain him. And under this pressure, you give in, and do things you regret. It is the worst feeling, like a big chunk of self worth being snatched away from you mixed with feelings of disgust. You feel violated, but most of the times, you brush it off because this is an everyday story, this is how the world works, men have needs you must fulfill. We don’t need Margaret Atwood to tell us of a dystopian future where women are used only as objects of fulfillment and reproduction. Real life is a pretty horrible story on it’s own.
And in THIS backdrop, I assess what Aziz Ansari did. He did something that many men think is the norm. The girl will do it if you ask nicely, if you coax her into it, if you successfully turn her on. Consent in such situations is automatically assumed. Girls throw tantrums at first but they will do it eventually if you try hard enough. If you keep insisting, pushing, asking, insinuating. They don’t see it as harassment, because this is not forced using physical power. Absence of clear verbal cues makes it consensual, according to them.
This is the patriarchal framework within which we operate. It is embedded in the minds of men that it is okay to ignore the initial discomfort and hesitation put up by the woman. In situations like these, they find ways to comfort her and ease her into doing things that seem purely consensual on the surface. After all, she pursued him, she wanted it.
This does not equate to the current definition of harassment or molestation. This equates to having a very toxic idea of masculinity and sex. And many men are as naive to it as women, because that’s what they have seen growing up. However, this does not mean that they have nothing to be guilty about. WE HAVE TO CALL THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR OUT. Whether you are a man, or a woman, or anyone in between for that matter, it is NOT okay to ignore your partner’s discomfort towards sexual activities. It is NOT okay to force them, by your soothing words and reassurances or embraces, into doing what their gut is against.
I am in no manner defending Aziz Ansari. I wholeheartedly support Grace and appreciate her for coming out with her story that made us all question the current dating culture and how we see sex and sexes. I am saying that we need to condemn incidents like these on a bigger scale. We HAVE to equate them to harassment and molestation, so that boys (and for that matter even girls) feel the moral obligation of abiding by the comforts of their partners. We have to expand the scope of words like these to take under their ambit situations like these to hold men accountable and responsible.
It is no concealed fact that sex is basic and simple. Everybody has needs is the number one rule. We have to teach our children better. It is not as black and white as it is portrayed to be. In a two partner activity, it is not like one demands it and one gives it. It is a grey area. It is the in-between where circumstances lead to both the partners doing something with their free will, without any pressure or obligations.
Aziz Ansari does not hate women, he did not physically molest her or abuse her. In fact, he let her go and even apologized to her. He is, like a lot of other men, a by product of the world we have created for our men and women. He learned that his actions have consequences, even if they came from a place of obliviousness or ignorance, the hard way. But to the many men who ignore personal space and boundaries of their partners for ‘its just sex’, it can be a learning lesson.
