Master of None (Aziz Ansari, Netflix) TV Show • Page 21

My school health classes when dealing with sex ed were also were focused on pregnancy, STDs, and protection. Little to no focus on consent or assault or rape. My 9th grade honors English class actually ended up talking a lot about consent and assault when we read Speak.

 

If this has been covered before, and it probably has, apologies, but something that's really been on my mind about this whole situation is - how exactly do people expect Aziz to "know" what he was doing is wrong? Men are raised in such an environment that does nothing in teaching us what a good, and bad sexual experience is. Before a lot of these men started getting called out, I think it was practically impossible for a lot of men to have a discussion on proper sexual etiquette, and how to reconcile that with how men are reared, the social effect of not "closing the deal", etc.

Hearing the girl's POV, these are all actions that could be easily written off as just some guy trying to do what's expected of him to "close the deal", or "pulling his shot"- and it typically is! I can already read out how the situation would sound if another guy explained it to me, ("we were just having fun", "I tried but she wasn't down", "she sucked and wasn't moving much", etc.), because I've heard these exact same things from guys, and it comes off as a totally normal story, unless you hear about it from the other party, which you never do.

I don't want to defend Aziz Ansari or anyone else- but I'm curious at where the discussion is at for actually teaching men how to behave. Navigating sex is extremely hard for everyone, and I think that the way a lot of men were taught to act is only now coming out as problematic, so I'm wondering where the education is supposed to come from. Schools won't do it, parents can't do that, peers clearly aren't doing that- it's hard as a man to have positive, same-gender influences who can help guide others on how to properly treat partners.

 

Same here. I've learned a lot about the different sects of Christianity as I've gotten older, largely from a lot of people who post here, and I've come to really understand how damaging white evangelical Christianity can be compared to MENA Christians. It's made me question a lot of things I was taught and I notice it in the behavior of old friends or acquaintances from the churches I grew up in. Sexual shame was practically a curriculum. We were also taught frequently that sex was a deeply spiritual, powerful experience, so much so that I've really begun to notice the correlation in my old community between expectations and disappointment. I know someone in their forties who is still a virgin and they believe that sex actually changes your personality, making you a new person because of how spiritual an experience it is. I think this can be damaging.

Something that I think about from time to time is that no one ever taught the boys about masturbation. Like, we knew what it was and they told us the definition, but we were never taught healthy masturbation. I've talked about this in the Parenting Thread, but suffice to say this all led to a bad habit for me when I was a little kid that I never grew out of until I was much older and it ended up being detrimental to my sex life. Look up supine vs prone position just to get a rough idea.

I'm getting off topic here, but basically sex education for men needs an overhaul.

 

You're raising some good questions. Victims are finally getting their voices heard, and it will hopefully lead to deeper discussions of what is and is not appropriate in terms of sexual conduct.

What Aziz did, whether he realized it at the time or not, was deeply traumatizing to this woman. We all need to be asking more questions, even if we're not quite sure how to articulate them. This site is great for that.

 

Yeah I probably shouldn't have phrased my comment the way I did in that he should just know deep down. I guess it may be predicated on a lot of factors and shouldn't be an oversimplification. It's just hard for me to fathom being in a situation like that and not having one part of your mind screaming at you from some corner YOU ARE CLEARLY CROSSING A LINE HERE JUST LOOK AT HER.

 

he wrote a fucking book about weird dating/romance situations. i can't stop focusing on that.

 

Holy shit what a monster. How did he not get the hint that she didn't want to do anything? Jesus.

 

I know what you mean, though, because I simply cannot imagine myself in a scenario like that either.

I truly want to understand what was going through Aziz's head. It's super difficult to try to inhabit someone else's point of view without it sounding like you're just making excuses for them.

 

I would tend to agree with this but then I remember the other tweet about him shoving a woman into the bathroom and forcing himself upon her but I realize that's not normal behavior and he should know better.

 

See I think that last part is super super important in understanding the pathology of this all. I think society does an appropriate job in shunning abusers and giving voice to the victims, but I think we're failing in doing what's necessary to stop the problem.

Like, historically, society has been able to catch and punish serial killers. It hasn't been until the last 3-4 decades that significant effort has been put into understanding what makes a serial killer. I hope that with the wave of sexual assault going through, we do a similar thing with rapists. When we do that we can see the symptoms much sooner and individuals can identify it themselves and remedy the issue before someone gets hurt.

 

Right, I forgot about that part. Even that though isn’t even “abnormal” behaviour. Bathroom hookups, especially when you’re a celeb any really something out of the ordinary- it’s a situation that’s by definition messy, so I think it’s even easy for men who don’t know better to blur the lines between messy and forceful.

This is a better way of what I was trying to say. It’s really great that everyone is coming out with their stories of abuse, but we treat these abusers like scummy monsters- I think people would be shocked as to how normal the behaviour these absuers display is if it was rationalized by someone on the the “other side”. There’s just so little out there to help men be decent sexual partners, and still SO much misinformation and bad teaching, that it’s no wonder this problem is going always you can’t scare someone’s into not being abusive, especially if the only time they repent is when they’re outed and are faced with the shame and potential career loss.

 

Same with Blade Runner, Han Solo, Indiana Jones etc. A lot of movies from that era have a “take what you want” machismo kind of attitude towards sex and relationships.

 

Opinion | Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader.

The hot takes are out in full force!

 

washington post published a hot one too

 

Funny guy

 

Idk, me personally, I never felt like shoving my fingers down a girl's throat was a great way to get her interested in me

 

Man that was tough to read. There were so many signals that she wasn't into it and the fact that he continued to attempt to coerce her into sex is really awful. I mean the guy obviously had no interest in her as a person. His entire brand is a complete farce. Farewell to anything this guy does. Also, what a terrible excuse for a statement.

 

What we need to learn from the Aziz Ansari clusterfuck

 

This.

The whole situation is terrible, but this multiplies the terribleness by 1000.

 

Also a very interesting piece I read this morning.

KatyKatiKate: not that bad

 

Extremely insightful.

 

Aziz’ behavior is obviously gross, like others have said I can’t get over the fingers down the throat or see in what world that is ok.

But it’s definitely raised a lot of interesting questions about consent and general sex education, this thread has been really interesting to read the last two days. As a 25 year old male I’m definitely thinking about the kind of education I had (basically none). And how I still go into every sexual encounter completely unsure of myself and my partner’s feelings. Like, I’m pretty sure I’ve always put myself in ok situations. And if I ever got into a situation where I felt even the slightest resistance or that my partner wasn’t completely into it I would stop. But damn I wish there was some way I could have been better prepared, or knew how to navigate those situations more clearly. It’s really important that we’re talking about it.

 

What do you guys make of this?

 

Woe

 

Yikes