(From a FB post)

You know why women don’t scream bloody murder and then leave when we’re in an Aziz Ansari situation? Because we don’t know we’re in the middle of an assault. We wrongly assume that we are in a room with a person who views us as human who is equal and worthy and whose feelings you care about in a basic decency sort of way.

We don’t want to hurt your feelings because we have basic human empathy and we know getting rejected is hurtful. So we say “I don’t think it’s gonna happen tonight” or “I don’t want to feel forced” or we walk away or put our clothes back on or remove your hands from our bodies or our hands from wherever you put them. Because we (again, wrongly) assume that you have even a tiny fraction of the amount of basic human empathy for us. If you did, you would care about whether we’re having a good time. And if you cared about that then those signals would be huge to you. It’s only when you don’t actually give a shit about how we feel that those signals can be so easily overlooked.

Really imagine yourself in that situation. You are trying to hook up with a woman and she keeps walking away. She tells you she doesn’t want to feel forced, because that will make her hate you. She says she doesn’t think it’s gonna happen tonight. She puts her clothes back on. Every step forward is initiated by you and every step backwards is initiated by her. This is all in under a half hour. Does that sound like she’s into it? I bet it doesn’t. So...don’t you think it’s pretty shitty to keep trying to get her to fuck you? How many times do we have to push you off before it’s assault? You don’t know? Neither do we. Which is why we don’t know when we should have left or screamed. We’re just hoping if we say or do the right thing you will realize what you’re doing and stop. But the trick is that there is no right thing to say. There is nothing that will make you show us respect in that moment if you don’t want to.

Is it the same as Harvey Weinstein? No. But “Not an Actual Rapist” is a pretty low bar. And if you find yourself standing up for someone because “Well they treat women like shit but at least they aren’t a rapist,” then Maybe examine why you think it’s ok to treat us like that.

Women are telling you that this kind of behavior hurts us. It is traumatizing for us to be treated this way. So you can say “Oh wow I will try to seek enthusiastic consent and encourage that in others” or you can admit that you don’t really care whether we are traumatized, because as long as you’re not legally a rapist you can pat yourself on the back as one of the good guys. Congrats on not being a 100% Certified Rapist, and meeting the lowest minimum requirement for living in society.

And congratulations for knowing better than every woman who has gone through this exactly how to deal with this situation. If only men were women, because apparently they’d be WAY better at it.

As painful as it is to see so many men standing up for Aziz’s right to treat women shittily and never have it spoken about, I’m glad to see it. Because I know who to never ever ever go home with."


Aviva Pressman