Thoughts about Social Cues and Sexual Assault

I was inspired by Lock's blog post, Social Cues I Just Keep Missing, to write this response. My intended response seemed too long for a comment.

Lock discusses how those of us who are asexual, and especially if we are neuro-atypical or have mental illnesses or disorders, can have some difficulty interpreting sexual social cues or can be surprised at finding that we give off cues by accident. Lock also writes about how there are those who take advantage of cues, though they may be unaware of the miscommunication in some cases.

It reminded me of how, during my freshman year of college, I found myself in a situation that I'd been completely unaware of stepping into. Late one evening a male acquaintance invited me to his dorm to hang out with him and his girlfriend and have some drinks. They were both already drunk, and his girlfriend was on the verge of passing out. We conversed for a while, and I don't remember too much of the evening. I do remember that just as I was leaving he said (with disappointment and frustration), "I invited you over because I thought you were going to have sex with me and my girlfriend. Why did you come over?" To this day I am totally baffled at the possibility I gave off some cue or failed to pick up on his cues. I have no idea how this happened.

It's also possible though that there were no cues, and his statement was a last desperate attempt to guilt me into having sex with him and his (by then unconscious) girlfriend. As a side note, this person also claimed to be a feminist, which is horrifying in a very special way.

I think that people who rely on sexual cues and nonverbal communication are treading dangerous waters, particularly when approaching new potential sex partners. If they're trying to get someone to have sex without asking for consent, they risk sexually assaulting someone.

Also, the tendency to ignore rejection I think not only has to do with wanting sex desperately, as Lock suggests, but also with masculine imperialism or something of that nature. I'm not suggesting that people go around thinking, "I'm going to ignore this rejection because I want to bolster my confidence and sense of power by conquering this person sexually," but I think that kind of attitude is subliminal culturally.

The more I think about social cues, and how confusing they are and how they vary geographically and culturally, the more I am convinced that they actually hinder intimacy rather than promote it when we rely on them. The cues that we each learn vary so widely that it's unlikely that any two people will use and understand the same set of nonverbal cues. While the cues themselves do not hinder intimacy or cause sexual assault, the cultural attitude that there is a universal code which we can learn and interpret rather than communicate verbally is a serious problem. We can't help it that we send nonverbal signals. But it is problematic that we sell books and magazines and have television programs that claim to instruct on social cues so one can get intimate without asking, taking short cuts to avoid being uncomfortable.

If you have to seriously question whether someone's facial expression or way of looking at you is sending a message about wanting to perform a particular act, it's probably time to start asking questions. And if you can't ask questions because you won't accept rejection, then you shouldn't try to engage at all. If all you have to go on when you advance sexually is social cues which you've interpreted in your own favor, and you haven't asked for consent, then you could be sexually assaulting that person. It doesn't matter if you feel like your intentions are harmless when you touch someone without asking first, not asking is a way of dominating even if all you are doing is giving a hug.

I'm not suggesting that you should ignore nonverbal cues if you think that someone is hinting something to you strongly, whether it is "come closer," or "get away," but that you should also check in and verbally confirm your suspicions. While those of us who have more difficulty than others noticing social cues may have heightened awareness of how confusing they are, I think that this confusion only confirms the necessity to not rely solely on nonverbal communication, because social cues are different for everyone.

Attraction versus Desire, Why It Matters For YOU

The idea that sexual attraction and sexual desire are completely different types of emotions is something that asexuals have hashed and rehashed over and over again. Seemingly, one of the big difficulties in coming out/having any discussion about asexuality with nonasexuals, is bumping into the association that sexual attraction has with sexual desire.

Certainly they can intersect. If you are nonasexual or in a gray area (like I am), you may want (desire) to have sex with someone because you are attracted to them. But maybe there have been situations where you have not been attracted to someone and still wanted to have sex with them anyway. Maybe you were experimenting, maybe you enjoyed being desired, maybe you needed comfort, maybe you were having a night on the town and wanted to have some fun with a stranger, maybe you thought that sex would be physically plesaurable, but you weren't attracted to the person you had sex with.

Here's a scenario. A woman has multiple sexual relationships with men, and then one day she realizes that she is a homosexual. Homosexual lesbians experience sexual attraction to women, and they lack sexual attraction towards men (I'm talking cissexual men here especially). So what are some possible reasons that the woman in this scenario could have wanted to be sexual with men? Experimentation, physical release, assumptions about attraction, to be more connected to her partner, because she thought it would be the thing to do, opportunity, etc.

It's important to understand what motivates someone to have sex, rather than assuming that all sex is based on sexual attraction. The above scenario can also illustrate another common issue faced by LGBTQA persons, which is the "I cured you!" dilemma. It doesn't matter if you are asexual or not, if you don't understand the difference between attraction and desire, then anyone can claim that your sexual orientation is false and you will not be able to defend yourself.

If the woman in the above scenario were a so-called gold star lesbian and had never had sex with a man, she might be able to say that she knows she's a lesbian because she's never had sex with a man. One problem with this argument is that it equates a lack of sexual experience with a lack of sexual attraction. Therefore, a counter argument could by someone who is ignorant of the difference between attraction and desire. "You just haven't had me yet," or "if you tried it you'd change your mind," are both instances of assumption that experiencing sex and being sexually attracted to someone are the same thing. It's also typical to argue that if a heterosexual man is experimenting sexually with another man then he must experience homosexual attraction that he is hiding from himself/others. What if the opportunity arose and he was just horny, or he was curious, and doesn't feel sexually attracted to men at all? If he's a queer ally, is it really fair to say that he's in denial if he still identifies as heterosexual? Are we so insecure with our own sexualities that we have to accuse him of being gay or bisexual, hypocritically using the same arguments made by homophobic people?

Thus, even experiencing sex (nevermind wanting to have sex for any reason) gets confused with sexual attraction because people have not learned the importance of differentiation. If you think that experiencing sex and sexual attraction are the same thing, then you must also think that a victim of rape was sexually attracted to their rapist. Totally ludicrous. Even if a rape victim is in a relationship with their rapist and is sexually attracted to them, that doesn't mean that they will always desire sex because of this attraction/that rape is excusable. This conflation also lends credence to the argument that rapists always commit rape because they are "overwhelmingly sexually attracted" to someone. Again, totally inaccurate. Rapists desire sex because they want to control/express violence, and whether or not they are sexually attracted to the victim is irrelevant.

I bring this subject up because I am an asexual-identified person who sometimes desires sex, even though I either do not experience sexual attraction or experience low-intensity sexual attraction. In any case, I think it should be clear that sexual attraction and sexual desire are incredibly important concepts to  differentiate in coming to understand sexuality. Sexual behavior is not an indicator of sexual attraction, even if one often follows the other.