Even if you say Yes: Sexual Coercion is Abuse

Can we talk about coercion for a minute? Not the kind you see in movies or hear about on the news. I’m talking about the quiet, familiar kind that hides inside relationships, behind guilt, obligation, and the belief that love means always saying “yes.” A few months ago, I shared an old school essay about acquaintance rape. It barely got any attention, 31 views, which didn’t surprise me. Topics like this are uncomfortable. They trigger people. They make others angry. But I’ve learned that just because something is hard to talk about doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be talked about. So here I am again, because I think it's important to talk about sexual coercion. I didn’t know what that was for most of my adult life. I thought what I was experiencing was normal. Expected. My duty. I thought I was broken. But I wasn’t. I was being abused.

                Coercion is when someone pressures, manipulates, or forces another person into doing something they don’t want to do, especially by using fear, guilt, threats, or emotional control. Putting this in the context of sex and this is something I think many, many people have experienced.  I know it’s highly likely that many men have been abused through sexual coercion but because I am not a guy so I’m going to stick to what I know. What I know is that sex or lack of it can easily be weaponized. Have you ever heard that you’re a tease? That you owe because they paid for a date? How about it being your duty because you are in a relationship? Have you ever said no, or not tonight, or I don’t feel like it to have someone touch you until you change your mind? What about saying no and then being made to feel guilty, or silent treatment or your partner is angry because you didn’t want to? This is all coercion.

This kind of behaviours normally start with teenagers? Boy early are taught that no doesn’t mean no, no means maybe. I think that this inadvertently start when our boys are toddlers. Think back to when you were little or when you kids were little. Remember tickling. Remember the laughing and screaming stop and then laughing and saying do it again. This is the perfect time to teach our boys. With my boys when we would play and I would tickle them. They would yell stop while laughing hysterically. The second they say stop or no or wait or no more, hang on, my hands are off. They would of course day again, again. And I would tickle again until they said some form of no and then my hands would be off again. This was something that I would get angry with partners when they didn’t take hands off. “He/she is laughing they like it.” That’s the same as her body is reacting, she likes it. Neither are necessarily true. This playing with 3 year olds is teaching them early that when someone says no you stop, even if they say yes and then no and then yes and then no. Being a teenager is hard because all the hormones are rushing and the body is reacting and maybe she doesn’t want to say no but if she doesn’t she be called a slut and if she does she’s  a prude or frigid. God I hated that. I liked boys. I liked kissing boys but I didn’t want to have sex and more often than not that no was met with guilt and there were definitely times that I gave into the guilt. These lessons both girls and boys learn from toddler to teen carries forward into adulthood and relationships.

Sex in relationship can be healthy and amazing. It can also be a weapon. “You never want to have sex anymore” “you always have a headache” “You don’t want me anymore” “I always have to initiate” “ your my girlfriend/ fiancé/ wife.” Then there are those pokes in the backside when you have already said no, or the “I just want to cuddle”. It’s all bullshit. I feel like I have a doctorate in how to be used and abused. I have literally been told it was my duty. I’ve had many, many arguments about how I don’t want sex like I used to or how I never initiate or that he should ask permission to touch me because I was having a trauma response. I literally got in trouble and was made to feel incredibly guilty. I’ve been punished for saying no. I have even tried to compromise and still been punished. I’ve dealt with a lot in my days but I also, believing it was my duty, but also trying to respect myself tried to compromise one night. I was told he wanted to cuddle naked. I didn’t want to because I knew what that meant even if he said that wasn’t in his mind. I tried to compromise my cuddling topless. He literally flung me off his chest and left the room. He wanted to cuddle naked he wanted skin to skin. Both of us bare chested is skin to skin so what the fuck. This was a huge issue that caused a 2 day argument. Another time I wanted to go to sleep holding hands and because I didn’t want him to “rub me” because it would keep me awake he again left. He said something along the lines that he shouldn’t have to ask to touch me. That was triggering and I said that he should have to ask no matter who I was. Oh my fucking God he lost it. Said I was calling him a sex offender. This caused another lengthy argument. This relationship had “discussions” almost weekly about our lack of a sex life, how I never initiated, how he missed how we used to be. So much guilt. Hours of telling me how I was failing him how I was not meeting his need. Past relationship being thrown at me “ you did that for him” ( I don’t give lots on details about past relationships anymore, even though I could now without punishment).  I remember making it very clear early on that I was not down to be forced to do anything. Meaning I didn’t like my head pushing into a groin. I didn’t recognize at first that a penis thrust in my face was the same thing. Years of abuse lead me to having to be drunk nightly to handle the advances or to have sex. If I didn’t agree my whole house, my poor children, would suffer cuz he didn’t get what he wanted and it was easier to give in because then he was nice to everyone.

I didn’t fully realize that this wasn’t ok until I was out of the relationship. I didn’t realize that having to be drunk to have sex or crying when it was done wasn’t normal. Those are things that should never happening in a healthy loving relationship but they were happening to me all the time. I didn’t understand why no matter what I did I was getting more and more depressed. That no matter how many past traumas I was working through I was still feeling the same and not wanting sex. I thought this was all my fault. I thought it was happening because I was broken, because he was right and it was my duty and I should shut up and put up, put out or get out. I blamed it on my past. I told him it wasn’t him it was me. I was damaged, he’s done nothing wrong. I apologized for not wanting to be touched, and he continued to lay on the guilt. I was broken, I was damaged, I was not ok. But it wasn’t me, it was him. He did this, this was how he wanted me to feel. Weak, vulnerable, subservient, broken, mailable, and his to do with what he wanted without complaint. I guarantee you that that piece of shit is still out there telling people that I was the problem, that I was the one in control, that I used sex against him. Fun little side note. I transcribed an audio argument ( in BC there is a one party permission, which was me, but he also knew I had started recording arguments and I encouraged him to as well.) and I put it in to chatgpt as speaker 1 and speaker 2 and asked it to analyze the conversation/argument. I have not felt so much validation in all the therapy or groups I have done. It broke it down to all they ways that it was coercion and guilt and not ok. It even said at the end that if I was at the receiving end of that conversation I should seek help.

This along with the other types of abuse that I survived in that relationship tore me down to a shell of the person I was. I was so depressed, I was suicidal, I was lost and I was stuck. I felt like I was a failure in everyway. At one point in the relationship there was a lot of sex but there was so much that happened that changed all of that and I was always blamed. I felt so ashamed. Times that I gave in, I did what he wanted I felt gross. I put on a show so he would think I was enjoying myself. Sometimes I didn’t do a very good job and he knew it. I thought I was broken, that my body was broken, that my mind was broken. The second I was out of that relationship I knew it wasn’t me. I did want to be sexual and intimate, just not with him. My the end of the relationship I found myself making faces of disgust every time he walked away from me. I was worried he was going to catch me but I wasn’t in control of it. That should have been my clue that it was him and not me.

This is the kind of abuse that people don’t want to talk about. Its something that has been ingrained in us that sex is a part of relationship even if it has to be scheduled. I remember Dr. Phil, I think it was on Oprah, saying when a sex life in a relationship is not going well it is the focus of 90% of the relationship, when its not an issue its 10% of the relationship. That for me is continuing to push that sex is a must. What I have learned since that is that there can be intimacy without sex. Don’t get me wrong sex now is euphoric experience of epic proportions, my partner and I were made for each other he is by far the best sex I have ever had. It doesn’t have to be bells and whistles to make it good it just is. Both of our lives have gotten very crazy and insanely stressful and so the actual sex doesn’t happen nearly as much as either of is would like. And even still I have never felt so close and so intimate with anyone before. I am never guilted I am never shamed and I am never punished.

Being in a relationship does not give someone ownership over your body. Enthusiastic consent is a must every single time any kind of physical touch is initiated. Consent is not always verbal. I don’t want my partner to ask every time he wants to kiss me or hug me or strokes my face. The consent come when I lean in and kiss him back or I hug him as tightly as he is holding me or when I lean in to his touch. When someone goes stiff when you touch them or pulls away this is not consent. This does not mean try harder. This is probably a good time to ask can I…It is ok to say no, even to your partner. It is ok to be touched out or to just not want to have sex. It is never ok to be made to feel guilty about that and it is not your duty. You own no one but yourself and a partner that truly loves you will never put you in a position to feel like you owe them. We need to teach our sons and daughters this too so this awful cycle of sexual abuse in relationships ends.