No means Yes?

[mak_trouble891]

So during a recent discussion, I discovered that the word ‘no’ among young people more often means ‘yes’ when it comes to sex. To me this is quite worrying, especially if no is really meant to mean no. So why is this the case? why does no mean yes?

[Aunt_Flo]

I honestly have no idea. No means no for me, as it also does to my partner. Do you mean they say no and are then coerced? 

[Zah]

Hm… definitely concerning! I reckon that it probably stems from issues communicating about sex with young people- e.g. not knowing how to ask for what you want, pressure to do certain things but at the same time facing stigma and shaming for it, etc. That’s just my guess though! Is this from like, talking with school aged people? Or older?

[mak_trouble891]

So @Aunt_Flo and @Zah I’m talking more about teens and up into their early 20’s. From what I have been told, they are often coerced, or feel pressured to say yes even when they truly don’t want sex, for fear of rejection, or facing the stigma associated with being considered a prude.

[v4wanndii]

From my personal experience, (it might not apply to teenagers here or in the western countries) for asians we shyly say ‘no’ but we mean ‘yes’. I’m not sure why it is like this.

When i first dated my boyfriend, i said a lot of nos to a lot of things (not only for sex, skinship or intimate relationship), though i somehow meant yes. I think there are queues/hints when we (asians) understand if ‘no’ is ‘yes’. It is difficult to explain. However, there’re times that no means no.

[mak_trouble891]

Thanks for the insight @v4wanndii. How do you and your partner not ever get confused? Does this mostly apply to women?

[v4wanndii]

@mak_trouble891 I can’t say it applies to all women because i can’t actually prove it. However, this experience is very similar with some of my friends’.
It’s difficult to explain of how he could understand my no. I guess it might all related to our eyes contact, our gestures and language that we used. (very personal) I tend to have less eye contact and the tone of the language is diffierent, and i think that was how he caught up that my ‘no’ meant ‘yes’. Of course there’re times that we didn’t understand. Those times, I would just go along with his misunderstand or once in a while i talked it through.

[NickiPower]

I feel the this whole “No means yes” has been in the media lately but I also agree that it’s more worrying if it’s becoming the norm.

[Author]

Posts