“She’s such a tease”

Posted by: edgeofeverywhere on: October 13, 2008

• In: asexual rants | asexuality and relationships
• 3 Comments

I’ve been thinking lately about common negative statements used to decribe women, and how they might apply to asexual women in particular. The one that probably bothers me the most is the idea of a woman being a “tease,” because in my opinion, there is no such thing. The word reveals very little about the woman it is used to describe and a lot about the person who uses it; this person is very often a heterosexual man with bruised ego who believes that he has been denied something—usually sex—after perceiving that a woman promised it to him in some way. The ways in which a woman can make this so-called promise can range from dressing sexily or flirting to kissing and engaging in certain types of physical activity but declining to participate in others. By this standard, an asexual woman, just by living her life and doing what she desires but not what she doesn’t, is inherently a tease in that she is likely to make these kinds of implicit promises countless times but never deliver on them.

In high school, a friend of a friend whom I barely knew in person but talked to online sometimes asked me out—over AOL, as a multiple-choice question. Very classy, I know. I declined. Later, my friend recounted a long car trip on which this guy supposedly spent a significant amount of time ranting about how I was a bitch and led him on—”she led me on” being the more PG-rated equivalent of “she’s a tease.” How did I lead him on? By talking to him on the internet and being nice to him, I suppose.

Heterosexual men need to get it through their heads that women do not ever owe them a date, a kiss, sex, or anything else along those lines—no matter what we do that makes it seem like we may want those things. We shouldn’t have to worry that our words and actions will be misinterpreted and lead us to be labeled as liars and temptresses.