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Don’t Ask: A Middle-Aged Man’s Creepy Roadmap to a Woman’s “Secret Garden.”

Escalation to the sex location
Escalation to the sex location

Sometimes I scour the internet for hours in search of material for this blog. Other times it just plops right in my lap. Today, it plopped, in the form of a new visitor to this blog by the name of J.S., a 52-year-old married farmer (he said) who brought with him some very old-fashioned ideas about love and romance and how men can best access the “secret gardens” of the pretty ladies of the world.

No, really, he did,proclaming himself an infallable guide to

the ‘secret language’( sub and non-verbal communication), the dating game, or how very attractive women go about choosing which men they let into their secret garden and which ones they don’t.

The primary lesson he tried to impart: that the “secret garden” is a little bit like Fight Club: The first rule of Secret Garden is that dudes can never ask to enter Secret Garden.

As he put it:

You never ask a feminine woman ‘what she wants’.

If you ask what she wants, you will kill the attraction immediately.

Her desire is to be led by a masculine man.

This is what bad boys do. They don’t really give a shyt about her. It’s all about them and the conquest. Women respond to this because sex is virtually all they think about and nice guys are always supplicating towards her hoping she’ll give them the go ahead to seduce and have sex with her. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You’d might as well let your child drive your car on your next vacation.

Oh, he later amended this a tiny bit. You can ask a woman if she wants to have sex if, like, you’re already married to her or something. But you can never ask to enter her Secret Garden unless you’ve already entered her Secret Garden.

The fact is, you don’t ask women to have sex unless you’ve known them for a good while, or are in a relationship. And you never ask them to ‘have sex’ before you’ve actually had sex with them the first time. Or the only thing you’ll be getting is a cold shoulder.

So if you can’t actually use human language to find out if you can enter her Secret Garden, how can you enter for the first time  it without, you know, being “falsely” accused of rape or something?

As they say in real estate, it’s all about escalation to the sex location, location, location.

Ok, that’s not exactly what they say in real estate. But here’s J.S., explaining the proper way to open her garden gates:

[W]hen interacting with a woman there should be only one thing on your mind… Is it cocky, funny? Is it humor. Is it talking about the weather? Nope. It’s about escalation to the sex location. If you don’t do this, you will be disrespected as a man, and find yourself lonely.

I’m sorry, I’m still stuck on “escalation to the sex location.”

escalation to the sex location

escalation to the sex location

escalation to the sex location

escalation to the sex location

Once you get her to the sex location, though, it’s important to remember not to ask her anything about her Secret Garden, or really anything at all. By agreeing to go to your sex location — probably just your apartment — she basically is agreeing to you groping all over her trying to get into her Secret Garden.

I mean, this is all covered in your basic Being A Human manual, but in case you missed it I’m just repeating it.

Anyway, once you’re both there, you need to keep escalating so that sex will “just happen” without anyone checking in with anyone else verbally or anything, because actually getting some sort of verbal go-ahead for anything sexual is totally against nature.

This is why women are so fond of the expression, it just happened.

Again, nope it doesn’t ‘just happen’. It happens early in relationships because she allows him to be alone with her, allows herself to become aroused, then doesn’t resist.

Then the relationship starts.

Let me just repeat the bit I put in bold there:

she allows him to be alone with her, allows herself to become aroused, then doesn’t resist.

That may be the creepiest, rapiest description of sex (and/or the start of a relationship) that I think I may have ever read.

Remember, dudes, according to J.S.’s Rules of Secret Garden you are supposed to keep escalating (in the sex location), but you are never, ever, ever to ask her if anything you are doing is ok with her.

But ladies, if you want things to stop, you need to answer the question he hasn’t actually asked with a clear verbal “no” or “stop” or, you know, you could fight him.

Because it is so important that men never ask a woman for consent that it’s better for women to be put in the position where they have to literally fight off their dates to make clear they don’t want to have sex, rather than simply have a very brief conversation that would make the issue of consent completely clear.

The evil genius of this “don’t ask, because if you ask she’ll say no because you asked” formulation — which is common amongst MRAs, PUAs, and assorted other rape apologists — is that it puts the responsibility for date rape not on (male) rapists but on their (female) victims by making the issue of consent entirely her responsibility and giving him an excuse to pretend he didn’t know she wasn’t consenting.

I didn’t know she wasn’t into it, the rapist can say, because it’s not like I could just ask.

But of course you could have. You should have. The responsibility for obtaining sexual consent belongs to whoever is “escalating” the sex. If there is any any doubt about anything at any point, ask. Using actual words.

Yes, potential partners are likely to be turned off by neediness. But the idea that getting consent is the same as supplicating is ridiculous. And the idea that it is inherently unerotic will come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever engaged in cybering or phone sex or dirty talk in bed.

Are there really women out there who are so turned off, so offended, by the idea of a man asking for consent that they would reject a man they were interested in just because he asked, possibly in a charmingly filthy way, for a “yes” before he put his hand up her skirt?

They must exist. Louis CK has a famous bit about a baffling and unconsummated encounter he had many years ago with a woman who had what you might call an extreme “don’t ask first” fetish. I can only hope she eventually managed to find her way to a local BDSM group so she could explore her submissive fantasies in a safe, sane, and consensual way, as they say.

It’s bizarre to have to point this out, but, dudes: If a woman is into you, and into sex, she’s going to want to have sex with you even if you ask her first. Indeed, if her attraction to you is so fragile, and her sexuality so dependent on fantasies of being “taken” that merely asking her to have sex is enough to kill the attraction, well, you’ve probably dodged a bullet, to be perfectly honest.

Making consent clear is good for both partners. Not only does it, you know, prevent rape, but it makes for better sex. The partner who “escalated” the sex knows that what they’re doing is ok with their partner, who, in turn, knows that they’re with someone who respects their boundaries.

When you talk about sex — before, during, and after — you can find out all sorts of things about what your partner likes and doesn’t. You can share your own personal kinks. This actually enables you to do a lot more sexually than people who don’t talk, even if the man in that relationship is the most alpha alpha who’s ever alphaed, because you don’t have to guess.

We have language for a reason. Use it. In bed.

194 Comments
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kittehserf
10 years ago

What? You mean teh manly menz should be expected to do more than grunt and grope? Isn’t that wasting their great manly brain intellects on mere fucktoys?

Kootiepatra
10 years ago

I know, right? It’s almost like these particular toys in question actually like to have input into what they do with said manly menz.

Equivamp
10 years ago

of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent

kittehserf
10 years ago

There are other ways of finding if one has enthusiastic consent, and “not able to give/receive verbal consent” isn’t an excuse for the rape tactics this post’s about.

hellkell
hellkell
10 years ago

Not buying it equivamp. Go try to sell your consent workaround somewhere else.

weirwoodtreehugger
weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

If a person is not able to consent, it’s rape. Yes, a person can give consent nonverbally. That doesn’t it isn’t possible for the consent to be verbal. What are you trying to say here?

LBT
LBT
10 years ago

RE: Falconer

Argh. I hope his dick falls off.

I would not be terribly sad if that happened. My consolation is that even if I was unable to do anything legally, I still managed to make that grown man cry like a child when I finally got rid of him. (He said I made him stop believing in the concept of love, and if it means he never tried to fuck teenagers again, I dearly hope so!)

RE: Equivamp

of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent

You know, it’s amazing, but there are people on this planet who can’t speak or hear. They have this astonishing invention called SIGN LANGUAGE, which has in fact existed for centuries and centuries! In fact, in isolated communities where in-breeding causes a high amount of deafness, the children will spontaneously make their own so they can communicate with each other, allowing them to state their desires and preferences!

Humanity’s just FULL of cool ideas, ain’t it?

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
10 years ago

of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent

If you can’t tell whether or not your partner is consenting, the non-rapist thing to do is to assume they’re not. Anyone who thinks not getting laid is worse than possibly committing rape should remove themselves from civilization until they learn how to human.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Equivamp: It is, of course, always possible and necessary to receive consent before sex. Otherwise, as auggzillary said, it’s rape.

RandomPoster
RandomPoster
10 years ago

“Because I know I have to be polite to get clients.”

vis-a-vis

“I am so cut throat in my personal life”

Ah, you affirm indeed my jaded cynicism of huWOmanity’s inherent and intrinsic deceptiveness and duplicity. That is partly why I stopped patronizing working girls as I could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what I viscerally sensed as the fantasy and what I cerebrally knew to be the reality, and thus I then became wholly celibate (with the economy the way it is, it got too costly as well).

Still, I commend you for your skills as an actress. At least that counts for something.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

The fact that the man who runs the local coffee shop is nice to me even if he’s having a stressful day proves that men are inherently duplicitous and not to be trusted. Behold, as I apply my confirmation bias to every instance where people who belong to the sex that I dislike interact with me while doing customer service-oriented jobs!

PS Your misogyny is showing. Might want to cover that shit up a bit better.

katz
10 years ago

“Of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent. Like when I tie someone up and put duct tape over her mouth. How am I supposed to know whether she wants to bang me then?”

weirwoodtreehugger
weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

I imagine male sex workers are polite to potential female clients as well. Does this make men inherently duplicitous?

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Wait, RandomPester employed the services of sex workers, then was disappointed that the sex workers did the job he hired them to do, rather than be his BFF and forever cater to his fantasy of some kind of deep interpersonal relationship?

And somehow that makes all women everywhere deceptive and duplicitous?

Is he also pissed that the mechanic that fixed his car that one time didn’t send him a birthday card?

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
10 years ago

@Sparky, I’ve seen that complaint about sex workers before. “Strippers will smile and pretend to be nice to you, but really they just want your money!” I mean, yeah, they’re at their job. I’m pretty sure these are the same guys who think their cashier/barista/waitress is flirting with them, because they’re either too self-centered or too entitled to realize that women in the service industry, especially the ones who work for tips*, smile because it’s literally their job. And yes, if their mechanic was a woman and was nice to them, I bet they’d think she really liked them, too.

*Which, btw, includes most exotic dancers. Did you know that, in most cases (at least in the US), the dancers pay the club for use of the stage? The tips they get from customers, as well as any private dances they can sell, are literally all they get paid on a given night, and they have to pay for the stage and tip the DJ/bouncer/whoever else before they get to pocket any of it.

weirwoodtreehugger
weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Getting mad at someone for doing the job you hired her for makes no sense to me. If what strippers, sex workers, and adult actresses did was so objectionable to men, how come there’s such a huge market for them?
There’s always that don’t go to the strip club option that can be exercised.

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
10 years ago

I mean, there are people who look down on service people for being poor while simultaneously arguing that they don’t deserve to be paid any more. You can hate your mechanic, your waiter, your cleaning lady for their job while doing your damnedest to keep that job cheap so you don’t have to pay more for it, because humans turn out to be quite adept at cognitive dissonance. I suspect that’s half of what’s going on with men who simultaneously patronize and demonize sex workers (the other half being misogyny, obvs).

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
10 years ago

A big chunk of my job is customer service and trying to sell our services to the general public, which means I’m being courteous and friendly to you, even if I don’t feel that way. It continually astounds me how many people (male and female, actually) think they have a close, personal relationship with me.

Dude, talking to you about our product is my job. DO NOT approach me in the grocery store, or at a restaurant, or at my FUCKING HOME to ask me questions about it. If I’m not at work, then I’m not getting paid to talk to you. Fuck off and leave me alone.

trans_commie
10 years ago

Ah, you affirm indeed my jaded cynicism of huWOmanity’s inherent and intrinsic deceptiveness and duplicity. That is partly why I stopped patronizing working girls as I could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what I viscerally sensed as the fantasy and what I cerebrally knew to be the reality, and thus I then became wholly celibate (with the economy the way it is, it got too costly as well).

huWOmanity? That sounds like something from an Islamophobic weirdo who finds pleasure in repeating Muhammad’s name by saying “Mo-HAM-ed” as an insult to Muslims.

Also, you might want to tone down your bigoted, pretentious writing. Or,even better, drop it entirely.

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent

I’m struggling here. If one of you is profoundly deaf, for example, it is still possibly to give/receive verbal consent. The only scenario I can envisage is if you have no language, spoken, signed or written, in common. In those rare cases, you better be getting some damned enthusiastic non-verbal consent before proceeding.

Bina
10 years ago

of course, it’s not always possible for a person to give/receive verbal consent

Oh? Well, then, if that’s the case, the person seeking sex should expect not to get any, and the person from whom it’s being sought should expect not to give any. That’s always possible, too.

Ah, you affirm indeed my jaded cynicism of huWOmanity’s inherent and intrinsic deceptiveness and duplicity. That is partly why I stopped patronizing working girls as I could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what I viscerally sensed as the fantasy and what I cerebrally knew to be the reality, and thus I then became wholly celibate (with the economy the way it is, it got too costly as well).

Well, aren’t YOU just a peach. Assuming they should be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, when you patronize them with no real goodness in your own. Go fuck thyself.

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

@randomposter, if you prefer treated with contempt during sex, you just have to tell your sex worker, you know.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

I suspect that he comes here for his fix, as far as being treated with contempt is concerned. Why else would he keep coming back? We really should start charging for it.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

emilygoddess: I don’t get that mentality at all.

I mean, I’m pretty sure it comes from feeling entitled not only to women’s time and sex, but also to their inner emotional life as well. But I don’t understand how anyone can be that arrogant. Or ignorant.

contrapangloss
10 years ago

Am I the only one disappointed that random poster’s posts aren’t truly random?

It’s not even like random list generators are that hard to find.