I Could Reject an Unwanted Sexual Advance, but Only Because I Was Under the Perfect Conditions
By: Sarah Stroh
Tags: Sex, Metoo, Feminism, Sexuality, This Happened To Me

Later that night, my good friend George and I threw some pillows and blankets on the floor of our living room. We wanted to create a nice comfy space people could lay down on together.

Once we finished arranging the area, George and then Richard jumped on the pillows. Then I jumped in the mix.

George began to touch Richard’s body with his feet as I playfully touched my feet to George’s torso. Then I rolled back and forth on the blankets and pillows like a little doggy. (Okay, this might sound weird to you but this is a regular occurrence in my apartment. Acting like a kid as an adult is highly underrated.)

At some point, I stopped rolling and just lied on my back with my legs stretched in the air, feeling happy and tired.

Then I felt some feet on my legs and noticed they were coming from Richard, the hot guy I’d only exchanged two sentences with.

At first, I didn’t know what to think of it. It was mostly okay with me. But then his feet moved closer and closer to my crotch eventually landing in between my legs. He kept massaging that area with his feet.

I was not comfortable anymore and knew it was up to me to just say something. So as politely as possible I said, “Hey, can you not touch me there.”

But it didn’t do anything. The feet continued to the beat of the music playing loudly behind us. Chatter from the people sitting on the couch just next to us came at me in bursts. Maybe he just hadn’t heard me.

I shifted my torso to a different angle hoping he’d get the message that way. But his feet found their way to my crotch once again. “Hey!” I said again louder. “Can you please not touch me with your feet like that.”

With that, he moved his feet off of me. Phew. Maybe it had just been a misunderstanding. I collected myself and then went back to rolling back and forth on the pillows.

But not long after that, I felt feet on my legs again. It was from Richard. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the message the first time.

My heart started to beat faster. I placed my legs on the ground in front of me. My heart was in my throat as the feet moved back toward my crotch.

Why was this happening? Should I just get up? But I like it here, why should I get up? George was still giggling next to me. Am I being too prude? He’s attractive, maybe I should just go with it.

And the thing is, his foot massage did feel good. I was feeling somewhat aroused because of it.

Someone laughed from the couch just above. I wondered why I couldn’t just have fun like everyone else, and thought about just letting Richard continue doing what he was doing.

And at that moment, a switch flipped.

You didn’t ask for this, Sarah. This is your body and you are the only one who is allowed to decide who touches it. And with that thought, the words finally erupted.

“Hey! Seriously, I said stop touching me with your feet!” There was no mistaking my earnestness this time. Finally, he took his feet off of me again.

I laid back down for a few minutes collecting myself. Not wanting to make more of a scene. I’d wanted to keep having fun, but I soon realized the fun was over for me. And I got up to go to the kitchen.

As I leaned against the counter listening to Matt talk to another friend, I tried to process what had just happened.

I knew what I’d done was a no-brainer. A man was touching me without my consent. And I’d obviously done the right thing by speaking up.

Yet, it had been surprisingly hard to do. And now, I felt kind of guilty about it.

I hadn’t wanted to make an enemy. I hadn’t wanted to be the reason the fun was spoiled.

I am the queen of fun. My Myers-Briggs profile is ESFP, the entertainer. All I really want in life is for me and all my friends to have a good time.

By yelling at someone I had ruined the vibe. I knew this, and for me, this was like peeing on someone’s birthday cake.

Looking back from several months later, the crazy thing about this story is that given the circumstances, it was actually easier to say no to his advances than it could have been.

A lot of the time, saying no is much harder. Here’s why it was relatively easy to say no in this scenario but wouldn’t have been in many others.

1. I was in my own home.

In this situation, I had a leg up, literally and figuratively.

I was on my own turf. I didn’t fear getting told to go home for rejecting Richard.

If it had been 3:00 AM and we were in Richard’s home, things could feel quite differently. I wouldn’t feel as safe to stand my ground in that situation.

2. I had close friends around me.

Along the same lines, I was among good friends when this all went down.

Richard, on the other hand, had no close direct connection to me or my roommates.

There was no question that the group would side with me. I was safe no matter what kind of conflict were to arise between us.

When I was in Italy a year ago, on the other hand, and I was pressured into having a sexual experience I didn’t want to have, the scenario was completely different. There, I was traveling by myself and I was on his turf. (He was a local and I was staying in the hostel he managed.)

I had no close friends within a reasonable distance from me. Thus being tough and potentially making an enemy was much harder to do. So in that situation, I ended up giving into the pressure and hooking up with someone I didn’t really want to hook up with.

3. I had time to think.

When I was lying on the floor that night, I had time to assess the situation and make a reasonable decision about what to do next.

But often this is not the case.

Often sex-related decisions happen in the heat of the moment. And our ability to logically consider how we feel about them is handicapped by our state of arousal.

According to a 2005 study from MIT and Carnegie Mellon, sexual arousal has a strong impact on sexual decision making.

According to the study, subjects were more willing to engage in unsafe sex, find a range of sexual stimuli appealing, and “engage in morally questionable behavior” when they were sexually aroused than when they were not.

When someone pressures us into sexual activity by continually touching us physically, we are more likely to agree to something we wouldn’t allow when we could think more clearly.

Given the nature of my situation (we had some physical separation, were physically clothed, and in a room with many other people), there was less opportunity for him to proposition sex or another more intimate act that could happen more quickly, where I wouldn’t have as much time to answer the question: Is this what I really want or am I just trying to stay pleasant?

4. I didn’t need him to like me.

His approval didn’t have any stake in my life. We didn’t have any of the same friends. Causing a riff with him wouldn’t have made any difference in my day today.

But for the women who dealt with Harvey Weinstein, or Bill Cosby, or basically any of the powerful men who used that power to get sex, that person’s approval would make a big difference to them and their careers.

Thus saying no would have been much more difficult.

5. We weren’t face-to-face.

Although I eventually sat up to tell Richard I didn’t want him to touch me anymore, he was still laying down when I broke the news. I never had to look him in the eye and reject him to his face.

When I was with the other man in Italy, I was looking him in the eye and I could see the fresh disappointment in his eyes when I denied his advances. That made me empathize with him.

And it made it harder to reject him the next time he asked me to kiss him.

Whereas with Richard, it was easier to impersonalize the situation and look out for myself without letting his feelings sway me.

6. I had lived through #MeToo.

If I hadn’t heard all the stories of sexual misconduct, consent, and abuse of power during #MeToo, I don’t know if I would have felt confident enough to raise my voice the way I had.

For anyone who was brave enough to share their stories in 2017 and beyond, you have helped a whole generation make sense of situations that are not black and white.

Because of #MeToo, I had a trove of examples to pull from that helped me understand what was happening in that moment on the floor. There were neural connections already in place in my mind that helped lead me to the conclusion: This is wrong.

What happened in Italy on the other hand happened in the summer of 2017, right before #MeToo. I can only wonder whether things would have unfolded differently had they happened a year later.