News of allegations of sexual misconduct against comedian Aziz Ansari broke Sunday. A story first reported to Babe, a 23-year-old New York photographer tells her side of a sexual encounter with Ansari that left her feeling violated and shocked. The woman, changing her name to Grace in the article to protect her identity, explains how she repeatedly gave verbal and nonverbal cues that she felt uncomfortable and they were unnoticed or ignored all together, as Ansari continued to persist in getting Grace to partake in sexual acts. The next day, after receiving a text from Ansari, Grace sent a message explaining how the encounter made her feel. Ansari’s response claims a misreading of signals and an overall misunderstanding of the cues she was giving him.
So much of Ansari’s career has been built around the “nice guy” persona. His TV show characters and his standup have been explorations of the intricacies of dating and the pride he takes in being one of the few, as he puts it, that listens to and respects women. The guy that took Grace back to his apartment seems to be the opposite of what the public has come to know and love. The story that Grace told about Ansari is much of what women encounter every day. These are the type of men that, on the surface, seem to be worthy allies that will stand with us in fighting for causes of equality. All that might still be true for Ansari, but what makes this story important to tell is the very root of the ways men and women were taught to approach sexual encounters, what they perceive as “normal,” romantic even.
As Ansari says in the statement he gave about the story, “everything did seem okay to me.” How can that be? When Grace so clearly felt and tried to express over and over again that night, that she was not enjoying herself and didn’t want to become sexual in the first place. As Jessica Valenti explains, views of sex in our culture, what is seen as a perfectly “normal” sexual encounter, are quite often very harmful toward women. See, patriarchy has created and pushed very toxic tropes of romance onto men; that their sexual pleasure should be the only priority. Society has taught men that persisting after women, not taking no for an answer, is somehow romantic. This is a world where women will partake in sex even if they do not want to, the pressure from someone with this power over them, the pressure to be accommodating and not be too loud or voice how we feel, this is the toxicity of the world we live in. Consent shouldn’t be a tricky thing, but then a 34-year-old man that claims to be attune to the feelings and rights of women did not understand when a woman did not feel comfortable and did not feel like her words were even acknowledged. This is what needs to change desperately, this silencing of women that has gone on for far too long.
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