Just say no!!

I read an article some time ago. It’s a rather influential (and old) article and as a matter of fact it was sitting on my computer from 26 Oct 2010 until I finally managed to read it in mid Oct 2011. Yeah. Better late than never. Anyway, I think this article is not just of interest to academics but has implications for the wider society (probably why it’s so influential already).

Therefore, I want to encourage people to read it.

Kitzinger, C., & Frith, H., 1999, Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal.

It basically discusses why it may be problematic for females to simply just say ‘no’ to sexual invitations, and how insisting on females to just say ‘no’ to do sexual refusals is socially not the most appropriate method. They argue that refusals in other areas of life are not done by simply saying ‘no’. You seldom witness:
- Do you wanna come over for dinner?
- No.
The situation is more likely to unfold as:
- Do you wanna come over for dinner?
- I’d love to but I can’t.

They, therefore, argue that:

‘[b]y contrast, we would suggest that young women are communicating in ways which are usually understood to mean refusal in other contexts and it is not the adequacy of their communication that should be questioned, but rather their male partners’ claims not to understand that these women are refusing sex’ (p. 309).

My favourite point in the article must be when they say that:

‘[i]f there is an organized and normative way of doing indirect refusal, which provides for culturally understood ways in which (for example) “maybe later” means “no”, then men who claim not to have understood an indirect refusal (as in, “she didn’t actually say no”) are claiming to be cultural dopes…’ (p. 310).

‘Cultural dopes’. Love it. Wonder if I can use that somewhere in my thesis?

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