Yes/Maybe/No
A few weeks ago, I discussed “Yes/Maybe/No” (YMN) lists as an underutilized tool amongst my peers for fostering sexual communication and consent. The concept of YMN lists came to me through a friend who is a member of Conversio Virium, the Columbia University BDSM club. Catching a spare moment together, we spoke about issues of rough sex, violence, and consent, and she soon told me about the popularity of making such lists in the BDSM community.
To give a clearer idea of what a YMN list is, I’ll give a description by Adult Parlour Games. A YMN list is defined as a master list of sexual moves, categorized by “what’s totally acceptable (everyone says, ‘Yes!’), what’s absolutely forbidden (anyone says, ‘No!), and what’s negotiable (any combo of ‘Yes!’ and ‘Maybe?’)” (Feb 2009). My friend explains that a YMN list makes it easy for an individual to share sexual desires with partners in a way that is open and especially necessary when placed in a BDSM context.
My first question was how such a list provides a space that dissolves the impracticalities that challenge individuals discussing their sexual desires. How easily can a woman say that she enjoys being tied up in leather and whipped? A YMN list reduces the stigma of having such a conversation, but it opens the conversation up further. When my friend said to me that some of her peers in the BDSM community have the healthiest relationships she’s ever seen, I started thinking hard about my own sexual decisions and methods of communication.
After discussing YMN lists with THE LINE Campaign, I suggested to my partner the possibility of creating our own lists to improve our sexual relationship. I was driven partly by intrigue toward how he would respond and partly by excitement of finding out each other’s likes/dislikes in bed. I may not be into what is strictly defined as BDSM, but I like sex, and I like it rough, which entails some hair pulling, slapping, and the odd moment or two of being cuffed or tied down. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to ask my partner that we make YMN lists.
What ended up happening is that he refused my suggestion. No anger or hostility was involved, but we did launch into a huge discussion, in which he laid out reasons why he wasn’t against YMN lists but couldn’t make one himself. His reasoning unseated my own determination, forcing me to look critically at what may be a faulty conviction that YMN lists provide a holistic answer to sexual communication.
The conversation began with me asking what he thinks of YMN lists. He wrote that his concern was how they might be perceived like “a/s/l” inquiries, in which a person’s nuance and existence on a spectrum is eliminated by what seems like packaging. When I asked him to elaborate, he asked me, “Why pick a ‘no’ today, when it may be a ‘yes’ tomorrow?” I realized that he was pointing not only to the problems of packaging oneself, but also the fact that creating a list is also in some ways forcing oneself to establish a particular identity. My partner may like to pull my hair in bed (“yes”), but tomorrow he may not want to do it at all (“no”). To list is to categorize, and to categorize creates an idea that certain things, like sexuality, can remain static and contained.
I remained troubled. If my conviction in the powers of a YMN list is unhinged, then can I still make a list for myself? Do I still believe in other people’s lists? I asked my partner if he thinks that YMN lists are unnecessary, and he immediately answered, “Well, no, I still sincerely believe that the one good thing about YMN lists create consent! They’re just not for everyone.”
My partner and I agree that creating YMN lists won’t do much to change our relationship, but that’s because of who we already are as individuals and how we already communicate. We consent to talking about what we want, what we don’t want, and how and when we will tell each other these things. These are some of the most important takeaways of YMN lists, but we didn’t need one to get there. A greater message lies within an act of list making. To have one is a great tool for people who wish to declare their sexual needs, but it won’t make a difference if there isn’t already the feeling that sexual communication is important. In some senses, the YMN list did help my relationship foster communication, but not through the sheer act of putting a pen to some paper and writing a few bullet points down
Tags: communication, consent, kink, men, pleasure, power, sex, women
Excelent idea! but your boy friend has a good point. a no may become a yes later or you justadon’t want to discuss it now because even if it is yes you don’t want to say it because you are not ready but doesn’t want to spoil a future ocasion when you will have the courage to say yes option. Well, that’s what I understood ^^
But that’s only a problem if you think of it as a commitment for the future. One of the great things about these lists is that you can revise them anytime. If he can think of it as a snapshot of this particular moment, then it can become a really excellent tool for improving communication.
Also, if something’s a no today and a yes tomorrow, I think that makes it a maybe.
Here’s a bit more about my thoughts on these lists and how to use them.
So I happen to be incredibly indecisive, more so lately- (stress? fatigue?) and reading Charlie’s expanded list of options, where you can rate your maybes from 1-10… ahhh… terrifying. I’m also a Pisces – we are at best, empathetic/intuitive, at worst, “wishy washy”.
That’s not to say I don’t “know my boundaries”, and I’m not open to them shifting, and don’t enjoy exploring their edges, and trying new things, but rating my inbetweens is like hitting a large U.S. suburban super market after being anywhere else. My nightmare.
However, I’m pleased to see we’ve been intuitively following Charlie’s advice about not discussing sex while horny, naked and in bed. My partner and I have great conversations about sex – likes/dislikes, turn ons/offs, new fantasies, usually in weird places like Asbury Park, NJ Italian restaurants where we have to keep our voices low (although the hair is extra high).
In some ways, if I proposed making a Y/M/N list and my partner said no, I’d be disappointed that he wouldn’t play along and indulge me. On the other hand, if asked, I may be resistant, too. Something about committing words to a page seems far more permanent that words exchanged.
Hey fellow sexwebsurfers!
@Charlie, I’ve been thinking about what you were saying about this list being a “snapshot” of a particular point in my partner/my sexual relationship. Solid point about the fact that these lists are meant to be Modified. I’m right there with you.
To jump on @Nancy’s point, though, I think that I am also “wishy washy” about my sexual options in that I am a little impulsive about when/where/how I want to talk about them. My partner and I launch into discussions about sex almost anywhere (on the subway, in a restaurant, most recently in between two opera acts at Lincoln Center), thus making the act of recalling our (hypothetical) lists a bit of a hindrance to the conversation. On the other hand, you’re right, what am I afraid of? Why not just try and make one? I have a feeling that while both my partner and myself sincerely believe in modification, we also perceive a list as turning our sex into a “project” rather than a “process”, thereby taking the excitement out of the sex.
While a YMN list is an amazing tool, it doesn’t necessarily fit my personality or my partner’s. I love communicating with him about sexual needs, and we make a great fit doing so, but we also communicate so often and on such an unplanned basis that to launch into a list making endeavor would result in both of us working on them like school projects fueled by our desires to make them “perfect”. We’d end up drained and not wanting to engage physically anymore (anecdote: after I had the conversation that stemmed this entry, my partner revealed to me that he had wanted to have sex but was left wanting for stamina after all the intense mental probing that I gave him).
Now that I think further about this, maybe I should just write another entry.
That made me laugh, Marilla!
“Draining Mental Olympics of Discussing Sex Renders Actual Sex Unlikely”
Yes, one more blog post, please!
I am a therapist and have worked a lot with women who have a history of seexual trauma. In session, we often make a “zone” list: green, yellow and red – similar to yes/maybe/no. This is for the indiciual to share with his/her current partner sot aht they can talk about safe vs. unsafe kinds of intimacy. For example : GREEN – rubbing my feet; YELLOW- touching my breasts; RED – touching my neck. I have hfound this technique to be extremely useful in many ways. The first is in allowing that dialogue to happen and therefore empowering the individual to share her needs and limits. He/she has regained control in a situation that often is associated with feeling out of control. It also minimzes traumatic responses to touch since the individual now knows that they can enjoy the “foot rub” (or whatever it is) without being worried that it will turn into a “neck touch”. So the moment is more enjoyable and less anxiety producing – there is less bracing for the discomfort to kick in. People often find that provding themselves with safe limits for a while and getting more comfortable in the intimate situation, that those zones can be changed and adapted because they are having a corrective emotional/sexual experience.
[...] I’ve never done with a partner before. On a lazy rainy Sunday, we camped out in bed and created “Yes/No/Maybe” lists categorizing our comfort levels with different aspects of sex play. I’m an adventurous kinda [...]