Wednesday, March 25, 2015

"But I made it just for you!"

I'm sure by now you've seen Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate Princess's post called "Consent: Not Actually That Complicated".
If you’re still struggling, just imagine instead of initiating sex, you’re making them a cup of tea.

You say “hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they go “omg fuck yes, I would fucking LOVE a cup of tea! Thank you!*” then you know they want a cup of tea.

If you say “hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they um and ahh and say, “I’m not really sure…” then you can make them a cup of tea or not, but be aware that they might not drink it, and if they don’t drink it then – this is the important bit –  don’t make them drink it. You can’t blame them for you going to the effort of making the tea on the off-chance they wanted it; you just have to deal with them not drinking it. Just because you made it doesn’t mean you are entitled to watch them drink it.

If they say “No thank you” then don’t make them tea. At all. Don’t make them tea, don’t make them drink tea, don’t get annoyed at them for not wanting tea. They just don’t want tea, ok?

They might say “Yes please, that’s kind of you” and then when the tea arrives they actually don’t want the tea at all. Sure, that’s kind of annoying as you’ve gone to the effort of making the tea, but they remain under no obligation to drink the tea. They did want tea, now they don’t. Sometimes people change their mind in the time it takes to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk. And it’s ok for people to change their mind, and you are still not entitled to watch them drink it even though you went to the trouble of making it.

[...]

If someone said “yes” to tea around your  house last saturday, that doesn’t mean that they want you to make them tea all the time. They don’t want you to come around unexpectedly to their place and make them tea and force them to drink it going “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST WEEK”, or to wake up to find you pouring tea down their throat going “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST NIGHT”.
The blogger is clearly setting up the mundane analogy with a cup of tea to quite effectively demonstrate how ridiculous it is not to respect someone's "no".

But what struck me when I first read this is that I've seen people actually, in real life, take similar offence to similar mundane everyday things.  This often (but not always) happens with parents and their kids, and often (but not always) involves food.  The offerer (often the parent) does something (often making food) that the offeree (often the kid) doesn't want and/or didn't ask for, then complains that the offeree doesn't want/take/eat/love it. Especially in a parent-kid scenario, the offerer has been known to scold the offeree for not wanting/taking/eating/loving it, or force/coerce the offeree into going through the motions of taking/eating/using the thing. And, especially in a food-related scenario, there seems to be a rather loud school of thought that etiquette requires putting on a show of taking/eating/using the thing, and that quietly abstaining is actively rude.

Now of course as adults, dealing with peers, sometimes we may find it's strategic to make the deliberate choice of putting on a show of appreciation in service of fostering the interpersonal relationship in the long term, and then just quietly go home and make our own damn cup of tea just the way we like it. (Just like, as adults, sometimes we may choose to consent to an act of intimacy that we aren't quite dripping with enthusiasm about in the service of fostering the interpersonal relationship in the long term.)

But, as adults, we understand that this is an option that one may choose to exercise, not a broadly-applicable expectation or a baseline requirement of social behaviour.  Kids are still working out, mostly from example, what constitutes broadly-applicable expectations and baseline requirements of social behaviour.

And when you're dealing with kids who are still developing their framework for what constitutes normal human behaviour and what constitutes reasonable expectations for people to have of each other, it could be detrimental to normalize the idea that you're Being Bad if you say no to something you didn't want in the first place.  And it could also be detrimental to normalize the idea that you're entitled to a positive response to your unwanted and unsolicited solely on the grounds that you presumptuously took the initiative.

If parents want to raise kids who respect other people's "no", and if parents want to raise who understand that if someone disrespects their "no" it isn't an act of love, maybe they should start by keeping an eye on the tone with which they offer their kids a cup of tea.

2 comments:

laura k said...

it could be detrimental to normalize the idea that you're Being Bad if you say no to something you didn't want in the first place.

In other words, we're taught to be compliant and willing, in order to be polite. All children, but especially girls, absorb this message constantly. Then we expect them to know how to say no, clearly and convincingly.

Of course it's everyone's responsibility to respect a clear "no". But the dirty little secret is that often there isn't a clear no early enough, because girls are so uncomfortable communicating no... because they never learn how.

laura k said...

Very good post, btw. Great analogy.