Do Booty Calls Have an Expiration Date?
Wow. What a great little screening last night at The New School. The adjunct prof, Larry Iannotti, an MSW and psychotherapist specializing in Kink/BDSM communities, invited me to present THE LINE to his Gender & Sexuality class. We were delighted by how engaged (and disturbed) the students were after the screening.
Some of the topics we covered:
Where is the line between experimentation/exploration/crime?
Consent is “murky”, or is it?
Coercive sex, that’s transgressive against another person’s will, may be a better term than “rape”
What is “the line” to us, as individuals, is really the issue
We sent them home with a writing assignment for next week’s workshop. Homework: think of a time when you asked for what you wanted, or describe a time when you had to negotiate, when you realized your ideas and boundaries were different than your partners.
The classroom cleared and Larry and I walked outside and found the smoking crew, let’s call them “the peanut gallery”. We hopped on over to French Roast for some red wine (and capirhinas, sangria, wine, and more wine) and here were some of the topics and questions that got asked around the table. In tweet form:
About to kick a screening at The New School to Sexuality & Gender class with very cool prof. We’ll focus on negotiating consent.
At French Roast post New School screening with super cute students + prof talking THE LINE, consent, astrology and origins. Sweet!
Emotional vulnerability impacts your boundaries every step of the way? Does that happen to gay men/women more often their first time?
If the victim isn’t labelling it, are we allowed to label it?
Discussing top/bottom game with anal sex, and how pain can be an excuse for violation or intentional “blurring”
Sociopaths are bad (but they’re kinda hot in bed) says student
Do you know about Glen Marcus? The case is going to the Supreme Court.
22 year old student reminisces about her time as an 18 year old dom, specializing in blood play and her trusty bag of scalpels.
So… Back to rape
Where are your boundaries if you have to fuck your friends? For real.
Do booty calls have an expiration date? They say 3 months…
Convo has devolved into discussion of Daytona biker scene at Denny’s, where youngn was a waiter. Swingin bikers, strippers and outlaws
Closed out bar with 20 y.os. Love that there’s no real power dynamic since I’m not the “teacher”, just fake ID cocktails + convo
Tags: college, communication, consent, rape, sex
As the internet intern, I was devastated to be missing this! I watched the tweetstorm all night.
I think what’s interesting is what defines a booty call. Is it mutual? Can it be? If you’re calling, but I’m down, does that mean I’m getting pleasure at the expense of my respect?
Also, the “victim isn’t labeling it” thing has been one of the main problems with feminism since the beginning. How can you convince women to fight for rights when they don’t really care that they don’t have them, and they don’t feel quite as fucked over as you do?
(I almost went to the New School. Turns out, I picked ‘em well.)
We missed you last night. It seems like booty call can turn into feelings after about 3 months, so if you’re trying to “keep it casual” you best get out sooner than later. We also discussed “friends with benefits”, and some we all sort of agree to that fucking your friends is a bad idea. They are your friends. If you want sex, get sex. If you actually like your friend, in “that way”, then admit it! Everyone at the table seemed pretty comfortable owning their vulnerability, but this was a pretty special group.
Ooh – the victim/labeling issue so complicated. Its no longer frustrating personally for me as a survivor to hear people tell me my rape wasn’t really rape (Whoopi Goldberg style), but it is really frustrating from a political perspective. Better to get motivated instead.
I have to disagree about the Friends with Benefits issue. They can be your friends, and you can enjoy sex with them. I certainly agree that over time that is likely to evolve, and you should be aware of that, but I think it’s a case-by-case basis how bad an idea it is.
Pretending it in no way changes the relationship is silly, of course.
In a way, your tweet post is super-frustrating because I want to hear what the conversations WERE for every one of those subjects.
Such is the nature of late night conversations that feed on each other!
Aye, LC, we actually had separate categories for ‘friends with benefits’, friends, and booty calls. We implied that if sexual and romantic nature is implied, it can never be purely friendly and exists on an entirely different plane than a coldfuck, a relationship or what you have with your homeboy/girl. We were all about creating boxes and boundaries for each of these oh-so-complex relationships so as to minimize hurt, confusion and blurred communication that often exists on the dating/fucking/crushing plane but its probably imperative to state that all of these (defined, or not) still exist on a continuum and there is always room for one defined relationship to progress into another category altogether.
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