I saw this TikTok and I lost it. At least once a year, we have this weird conversation on this app about dating, and how some people will exclude certain people from their dating options, and whether or not it is okay to discriminate people in said fashion.
This is such a stupid conversation.
It’s stupid because you don’t need a reason to say no. You don’t need to justify your boundaries. No one is entitled to your time, your space or your body.
No means no. Anyone trying to demand something beyond a no is predatory.
If your answer is no and that person says “well, why?” your response should be “I. Said. No.”
You may not even know why you’re saying no. You just know “that makes me uncomfortable.”
That’s. Reason. Enough.
Anyone that would demand you be uncomfortable for their sake? Predatory.
Comment: “everyone has preferences and noone should have to explain that to anyone else. you are so right”
The word preference gets overused a lot in this conversation, and honestly, I think we’re using it wrong. I think we use the word preference to kind of placate when what we really desire is not a preference, it’s just what we desire.
I’m a heterosexual female. I don’t prefer men. To say I prefer men implies that women are an option, and they’re not.
Now, I prefer a man over six foot, as opposed to a man under six foot, but I don’t prefer tall men over short men. I desire men who are taller than me.
Everyone has a list of things they would settle for, and a list of things they would never sacrifice.
People just need to pick up their courage and say what they mean. Stop trying to placate people in an attempt to not offend them.
I can give you a list of my standards, but I am not required to justify them or try make them make sense to you. Half the time it doesn’t even make sense to me, a lot of it’s just natural, it’s just the way you’re wired.
Evolutionary biology with respect to attraction, it’s a real thing.
This conversation would go a long way if we all learned the difference between what we prefer and what we desire. And then be honest about it.
We already had this conversation decades ago when we switched to the term sexual orientation instead of sexual preference as it applies to heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality. But at some point, it reverted to preference, maybe not in definition, but at least in application. And more insidiously, genital preference. What’s most disturbing about that is where it came from.
Your (legal) attraction, your desire, is not a subject for a committee or activism or a hashtag campaign. It’s yours, and yours alone. (By the same token, it’s also not something to be making into anyone else’s business.) Your discomfort is not something to be fixed or re-learned. Anyone who tells you that you need to re-learn your desires regarding yourself and other consenting adults is an authoritarian and an abuser.
Our parents taught us that if we found ourselves in positions that we were uncomfortable with - e.g. drugs, sex, personal space, etc - it was okay to leave, and not to cave to peer pressure, not to be coerced by someone else into doing something we don’t want to do. We are now being told that advice is not only wrong, but bigoted. This is the tactic of a predator and an abuser.
If Xians, with their god and their hellfire, don’t get to dictate someone’s desire, why should some random online freak? This isn’t about your none-of-their-business attraction, it’s about their need to control others.
If someone tries to shame, guilt or harass you, don’t let them get away with calling it a mere preference, tell them “no means no” and call them a sexual predator until they fuck off.
