h2>Dating : Twitter Takes, Vol. 1: On Heather O’Neill, Sex And Consent
I don’t usually write posts about a tweet that I see, but I did find this particular tweet quite controversial. The tweet involves sex and consent, and it came from a woman named Heather O’Neill. I have never heard of O’Neill before today, but she appears to be quite accomplished. To be fair, my only real metric for whether someone is “accomplished” or not on the Internet is usually just seeing if they have a Wikipedia. She does. She is not just a writer — she’s a poet, a screenwriter, a journalist, and much more.
I have immense respect for screenwriters and journalists, and if you can do both? Wow. I do not doubt that O’Neill is brilliant. She is also much more than just a Wikipedia page. She is quite incredible at collecting awards, as well:
A tweet of hers went viral. I may not be as accomplished as Heather, but I must admit — I found the tweet quite disturbing. There have been countless instances where I have seen a woman tweet something about sex that I disagreed with, and went on about my day. However, this tweet was particularly wild, to me personally. Here is the tweet:
I have witnessed men have some of the worst takes on Twitter when it comes to sex and consent, and I genuinely feel for women that have to deal with some of the “reply guy” responses that come their way. However, I immediately thought of the women I know who have been sexually assaulted and felt like this was an insult to what they experienced.
To be clear, I understand that there are shitty men out there that go out of their way to have sex with women and then “ghost” them. I also think that there are women that do this, too, and that’s fine. I have not ever been in a situation where I felt like I somehow “agreed” to a relationship, had sex with that person, and then decided not to have sex with them again.
If I did do that, or if I had a friend that did that to someone else, I would never describe the sex as “non-consensual.” In my opinion, it’s a wildly fucked up way to describe that experience. I wasn’t too surprised to find that I wasn’t alone in this opinion.
A Twitter user by the name of “Chinchillazllla” pointed out that this was equating “ghosting” to “rape” and then mocked the fact that the original tweet had brought up the fact that she mentioned this at “dinner parties.” It is, by far, the most “popular” response to the original tweet:
It’s not that difficult to be a shitty person when it comes to sex and relationships. If you aren’t someone that has cheated on a romantic partner, you likely have a friend that has done so, and he or she may have felt incredibly guilty about it. They may have told that partner or they may not have — and either way: cheating is incredibly shitty. As someone who has cheated before — it’s terrible. There’s no real way to deny that.
Many people are “shitty” while they are dating, and it’s a part of life. I’ve dated women that were “shitty” for a variety of reasons. I am sure that women have gone on dates with me and thought that I was out of my mind. I have never been in a situation where sex happened without consent, though.
“Neil, what is your point?”
We know that it’s easy to be “shitty” to someone, and that also includes the concept of “ghosting.” I have dated women that blocked my phone number. According to Heather’s logic…if I had sex with them, and then they blocked my phone number….was the sex non-consensual?
When I dated these women, I didn’t anticipate it to be a one-time thing. So, if a woman knew that she only wanted to have sex with me once, and did so, and then “ghosted” me…apparently Heather thinks that this is completely “non-consensual.” That’s what she is saying.
Women, of course, enjoy having sex, as well — so let’s frame it that way. I’ve never gone on a date with someone and thought immediately, “This is someone I need to be in a relationship with. I should have sex with them and then immediately begin a relationship.” It seems very fast, strange, and, in all honesty, I feel like if I said this to a woman, they would think I am an absolute psycho.
Let’s play this out.
I have somehow persuaded the woman of my “dreams” to meet up with me for a drink. Let’s say that she hasn’t had sex in a while and has decided to play along and have sex with me that night but never plans on speaking to me again. In my head, I believe that this is much more than just a one-night stand.
If she had sex with me and never spoke to me again, would it be “shitty”? Sure. It’s the kind of thing where I would wonder exactly what I did wrong…but it’s not something that would derail my entire life. I certainly would never, if asked, describe that sex as “non-consensual.” However, Heather thinks that this sex would be non-consensual.
How is this okay? Is it not disrespectful to women that have been sexually assaulted? Should we start thinking more about a gray area, where sex can be non-consensual, but also NOT be sexual assault?
Look: both men and women are lured into fucked-up games. In college, you may have hooked up with someone to make an ex jealous, only to find that you care about them and want them back. You may have cheated on your boyfriend or girlfriend with a co-worker during a drunken happy hour and did it because you knew that he or she has always been attracted to you — only to feel guilty about it later. I’m sure many of those reading can probably relate to these experiences.
These aren’t things that should be praised…but they certainly aren’t things that should be described as “non-consensual.”
There’s another bizarre aspect to this. Who the fuck decides when and where you will have sex again? How the hell is that established? I understand that married couples might schedule sex, which is completely understandable, but how does it work outside of that?
Let me take a step back if you are confused.
If we are going to talk about sex and consent, let’s not just talk about my own experiences. I do have female friends. I remember one particular friend that had a massive crush on someone for MONTHS — and would talk about it often. She didn’t have many male friends, and she would ask for my advice regarding how to flirt with him, text him, or how to tell whether he was interested or not. We would meet up for food or drinks, and I would let her vent, and I would speak about whatever was going on with me and my current relationship.
Let’s call this friend Amy. One time, we met up, and we started drinking in the East Village. Amy began flirting with the bartender, but I didn’t think much of it. When the flirting got a bit more intense, I asked her about the guy she had a crush on. She wasn’t too keen on talking about it, so I left it alone.
A couple of shots later, she said that she had invited him over one night to have sex and that he had a micropenis. They had sex, and she didn’t enjoy it. In other words, the “mystique” was now gone, and she was no longer attracted to him.
Before this experience, she would speak about the young man as if he was relationship material. Now, she wanted nothing to do with him and was trying to get the bartender’s number.
Was she evil?
No. She’s a lovely person that wanted something different sexually. This poses a strange threat to Heather’s assertion — Amy was actually interested in a potential relationship, but she hadn’t had sex with the man in question. Once she had sex with him, her concept of him changed. She had imagined he would have a different penis, and she also thought that the sex would be different.
There is literally no way she would’ve found out unless she had sex with him. It’s one reason women scoff at the people who criticize premarital sex — sexual chemistry is important. It isn’t essential to everyone in the same way, but I think that we all can agree that terrible sex can lead to a failed relationship. It’s also one of the reasons why I’ve never had a failed relationship (This was my attempt at a joke…sorry…I have had failed relationships).
Amy didn’t plan on “ghosting” this guy, but she did. I have no idea how he felt. Maybe this guy knew about Amy’s advances for weeks, and he thought that she was relationship material, too. It might also be the case that he ended up meeting up with Amy because he was her friend, and Amy’s initiation took him by surprise. I have no idea, and I didn’t ask.
However, what happens if Amy was INTO the idea of continued sexual encounters but then decided that she was no longer interested? According to Heather’s definition — what exactly is that? Heather didn’t PLAN on ghosting him, but she did.
Amy might also have, that entire time, been planning on having sex with him JUST ONCE. How would I know? Sure, she talked to me about being attracted to him, but some women enjoy having one-night stands. If this was the case, and the young man thought that the sex would continue, the sex would be “non-consensual,” according to Heather’s definition.
The main problem here is that what Heather is saying doesn’t translate to real life. The idea that people decide, “Okay, I am going to have sex with this person more than once,” before having sex is a bit strange. What if one person feels guilty for having sex too quickly and decides to leave in the middle of the night? Is that now “non-consensual”? What if a woman had a one-night stand with a man but decided that other red flags made her question whether she wanted to see him again? If the man had the expectation of repeated sexual encounters, was that previous encounter now “non-consensual”?
Heather here apparently believes that before you have sex, there should be some agreement where both understand: “We will be having sex repeatedly.” It, kind of just..assumes that “bad sex” isn’t a thing when it is. She makes it sound as if there’s a contract that can’t be broken, and that is disturbing and arcane.
Maybe I am being too hard on Heather. She did mention “a relationship.” Okay…sure. Let’s say that a guy out there has convinced a woman that they will remain in an exclusive relationship once they have sex and then never talks to that woman after they do.
Yes — this sucks. The idea that this sex is now “non-consensual”? I mean — it seems like it’s a reach.
Would I do it? No.
Is it pretty fucked up? Yes.
Would I describe that interaction as non-consensual? No.
There’s a woman named Nylah Burton, and I believe I had read something of hers on Medium. I enjoyed it, so I followed her on Twitter. As I was considering writing about this topic, I saw a tweet of hers pop up on the TL. It was referencing the Heather O’Neill tweet.
I responded:
I added:
I am aware that “Woke Twitter” likes to play certain games…and I’m not even one to normally criticize “Woke Twitter.” It’s often a term used by people who don’t want to be sensitive or compassionate. I recognize that.
However, I was blown away by the next response, where Nylah Burton decided that my use of the word “insane” was the real problem here, and not the fact that she had just insulted rape victims to the point where she was getting angry messages from them (her words).
None of that matters because I had used the word “insane.” And…18 people liked the tweet (lol).
I wasn’t a fan of this, and said so:
I was genuinely hoping that we could have a conversation, but Nylah couldn’t address my original tweet. It’s absurd to claim that a woman that chose to use me for sex had “non-consensual” sex with me…and to me, it’s okay to call people shitty or manipulative without acting as if there wasn’t actual CONSENT. This was my point.
My goal honestly wasn’t to piss Nylah Burton off. She has an audience and is entitled to her perspective. I checked back to find that hours later, she seemed to still reference the tweet, our exchange, or both — who knows — and it was pretty ridiculous. See here:
Nylah doesn’t have to “debate” me, and that’s fine. After all, this is a woman who would rather criticize my use of the word “insane” than self-reflect about why she complains that actual rape victims are “weaponizing trauma.”
This was a strange moment where, in real-time, I realized how controversial and divisive something I was about to write about, actually was…but salute to Nylah Burton and her opinion. Some advice to her: put your profile on private if you don’t want to “debate” people on Twitter (just a friendly suggestion, since she has over 20,000 followers and could probably still utilize the platform effectively). But hey — maybe you are reading this and you think that I’m the one in the wrong here. That’s fair, and you’re free to tell me so in the comments.
Okay — so…I made my opinion pretty clear. I didn’t write this to “dunk” on Heather O’Neill, who will likely continue to win awards and sell plenty of books. I was relieved to find that many women also felt the need to respond to her take. I will also include responses that defend Heather, as well, because it’s only fair.
Some point out that “consent” is different from “sexual assault”, which is fair. Others point out that framing it this way is disrespectful to actual rape victims (something I agree with). Other tweets touch on more aspects of sex and consent that I didn’t initially think of.
Here are some responses, some of which continue as whole threads:
(These tweets continue, as a thread)
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