Why Some Men Don't Get "No"

Some of us women through our life experiences and shared stories have learnt the importance of saying "No" clearly and firmly. We have learnt that our "No" should be respected. We expect it to be respected.

We say "No" in different ways. Some of us do it directly and verbally -- "I am NOT interested." "Please do NOT call me again." "NO, I don't want to sleep with you." "NO, I need you to leave now."

Some of us do it indirectly by not responding to messages/emails/calls. Some of us ignore concerned persons in group meetings and public events. Some of us walk away. We do this in the hope that our lack of interest would serve as our message, "No." Yet others glare/stare/swear/slap/scream as a way of shooing the person away.

Yet, many men don't seem to get our verbal or nonverbal, direct or indirect messages. It is as if we spoke to wooden doors with steel bolts. It is as if what we say simply doesn't matter.

And it is not only men who are strangers or who are not "well-educated" or confirmed "creeps" who don't understand consent. It includes highly educated men, who are socially conscious, will stand in candlelight vigils and who will publicly claim to be feminists.

This inability to understand consent across the board puzzles me. Lack of consent is not limited to sexual intercourse but goes beyond to social courtship. Why is it when you tell some men that you are NOT interested, they don't give up chasing you around?

Let me clarify, I have personally encountered a growing number of men who understand consent and respect it. It is wonderful and peaceful when you realize your wishes have been respected.

But I have also encountered, as have many women acquaintances, that this is often not the case.

In an earlier article, I had reflected on the same issue and written thus:

"Yeah yeah, I know men will say—we are hunters. Please yourself, sweetheart. I say you are a hunter whose entire self-worth is pivoted around hunting—if you don’t get a hunt, you are lost and your sense of being is threatened. How terrible the day, the week, the year and the years when you did not have a hunt! And when you finally do get a hunt, and she wiggles out of your control like jelly and does not behave as the prey that you shot down-- ouch, it hurts, doesn’t it? You snare her, beat her, force her like a hunter who cures the meat of his hunt.

Sweets, the problem was never her nor your ability to hunt. The problem is where you were looking for self-worth. The problem is how you defined your identity and how you gained your self-esteem. And the more you try to dignify yourself by your hunt, the more powerless you will feel. You see, the Universe made us women to teach you that power and love and joy are within you, not us. If anything, we are your spiritual teachers. Instead of hunting us, you need to love yourself fully."

I have over the years reflected on this issue further. And I am beginning to see the intersection of our culture of competition and must-haves with inability to understand consent.

Within the Indian context, young students are pushed to get high grades in their board exams. Those high grades are celebrated on social media. The teens are pushed into Engineering/Medical colleges or sent to Commerce stream to become a Chartered Accountant or study Cost Accounting. Their sweet sixteen is the beginning of a two-year horror of preparing for these exams and scoring enough marks to get into prestigious colleges.

Their failure is hard both on themselves as well as their family. The shaming is public, "Oh Maya's son didn't get through IIT. Okay, maybe he will study in some local college." The shaming is indirect. "Look, Giridhar's son and daughter are both in top engineering colleges. Lucky parents! Now they don't have to worry about future."

The mall culture has grown in parallel. Kids now want the latest gadgets, the coolest shoes, new expensive clothes, glasses and parents bend over backwards to get it. The kids also grow up chasing the latest fad -- the coolest car, the latest mobile phone, the most exotic of vacations.

Everyone is chasing after something. And there is so much to chase after. There is so much to desire and most importantly, get.

In this process, we have lost the ability to not chase, not want. We are unable to accept not acquiring what we desired. In this process, we have lost the ability to make peace with momentary failures, momentary denials, momentary losses.

If it exists, we must have it. There is something lacking in us when we don't have what everyone seems to want.

For men, it is exacerbated because of existing longtime cultural patterns of privilege and ownership. Women, I observe in my immediate environment, are unfortunately also catching up. Their inability to respect boundaries is also becoming fuzzy. In men, this can turn into stalking/harassment/sexual and physical violence.

When we say "No," it is simply an exam that one has to pass. You work at it, never give up till you pass the exam and get an "Yes." When we say "No," then you figure out new ways till you get what you want -- the woman.

So a woman saying she is NOT interested in going out with you, that she does NOT want you to contact her in any form, translates to nothing. She is (as always) an object of desire. Not a human being whose responses carry weight.

I am beginning to believe that if we want to decrease the rates of stalking/harassment/physical and sexual violence in the country, we have to culturally begin to nurture acceptance of failure, nurture ability to confront and understand failure, to respect failure. That failure can talk to you and show you a different path. That this failure is not the end of world. That failure is not denial of "your right."

I also believe when we begin to enculturate the economy of saying enough -- I have a phone and that is enough; I have a nice dress that I bought last Diwali and it is enough; I have a sweet apartment and that is enough; I had a great dinner two weeks back and that is enough -- we will also be able to curb our obsessive need to get what we want.

If there is anything we need more of, it is care for our environment, care for the Earth, care for fellow beings, to be able to give and share what we have.

For all the men who are reading this post, I ask sincerely -- please respect a woman when she says "No." If she doesn't want you to contact her, email/message/call her, see her, please respect it. If she says she is not interested in you sexually or romantically, please respect it.

You are the product of this culture but you can also be the cause for change in this culture. Respect "NO" for all of us.