This is a Piece about Consent and Initiating
The first piece above was originally written May 1, 2021. The second two pieces were written December 2025.
The three pieces all deal with my relationship to an urban planner I knew socially and spent the night with. The first piece is written extremely neutrally and very intentionally so. The other two are not.
To my mind, this doesn't conflict. Life is rarely neat, clean and monolithic.
Some guy going by the handle Mastiff whose real life last name is Urban and first name starts with a K -- probably Kevin or Keith -- was extremely open on Cyburbia about being into BDSM and having an open relationship.
Wholly unrelatedly, he generously made an open offer to anyone on Cyburbia wishing to attend the planning conference in question the opportunity to do so cheaply by crashing on his couch at what I believe he described as "his condo" but was apparently something more like a time share because he got there and there was no actual couch.
And I'm the person who took him up on it as a college student and full-time mom going through a divorce etc. Money was tight and no one else asked so I asked PUBLICLY on the forum in question if he was okay if it was ME -- in other words, "Are you okay with a WOMAN taking you up on it?"
We were friends who had exchanged emails and private messages and I think he did me a favor of some kind and I "repaid" the favor by sending him a nude photo prior to ever meeting him.
So it's not like I was unaware he was on the prowl and it's not like I didn't know he was interested in me. But there absolutely for certain was ZERO agenda on his part to manipulate me, trick me, con me into spending the night alone with him etc.
He said publicly if you want to go and cash is tight, you can crash with me. I asked PUBLICLY if it's okay if it's ME taking him up on the offer.
We got to San Francisco and went to dinner with all our Cyburbia buddies and went back to his place and one thing led to another. I didn't care. I wasn't offended. I was fine with all of it except for the detail he didn't supply a condom.
He was the third guy in a row to hook up with me and fail to supply a condom. I was DEATHLY ill and I'm a conflict avoider anyway, so twitty little DOPED to the GILLS me stupidly hooked up with them ANYWAY.
So I made a conscious decision that I'm not doing this anymore. This guy probably has a Master's degree in planning. Another guy was a lawyer who bragged to me he had 160 IQ and these guys are apparently going "She has a genetic disorder! I can't catch that!" Or some shit and LA LA LA NOT listening to the detail that I had a treatment-resistant infection that doctors were failing to identify.
So I'm thinking if college educated, seemingly sexually liberated guys that I think are decent enough to meet with are TOO FUCKING STUPID to get it through their thick skulls that when Doreen Traylor says "A condom is a necessity for medical reasons even if pregnancy is not a concern." that means YOU NEED TO BRING A CONDOM, STUPID ....then other men are probably even dumber.
I'm an uptight White bitch. I've never bought condoms. I don't know where condoms get sold. You want me? YOU bring the damn condom, mmmkay?
Anyway, I figure if Mr. OPENLY trolling Cyburbia as his personal flesh pot and announcing to the world his open marriage and BDSM lifestyle etc. CAN'T supply a condom when told ahead of time BRING A CONDOM, then no man on planet Earth has sufficient functioning brain cells to follow those amazingly complicated instructions.
My recollection is the planning conference was in late April. My ex moved out like two weeks later in early May. I've been CELIBATE in meat space ever since.
I say in meat space because I've had long distance relationships online and by phone and I've seen pedantic conversations on Metafilter about how celibate means ZERO sexual outlet of ANY kind and I don't think planet Earth has yet hashed out concepts and language for making distinctions of that sort.
Anyway, I told a shorter, more PC version of this story several times on Hacker News, an overwhelmingly male forum. It went something like "After the third guy in a row failed to bring a condom, I swore off having casual hook ups until I'm well enough to handle that better."
Because if I had not been so deathly ill and doped to the gills, maybe I would have said "Um, where's the condom we discussed? No glove, no love. I have a deadly medical condition. No can do."
Or maybe NOT.
Either way, this getting jiggy in the flesh deal isn't happening ever again if I cannot SOMEHOW figure out how to effectively communicate with a man "YOU -- yes, YOU -- bring a CONDOM." and magically he does EXACTLY THAT.
My beef with Mr. Urban was that he was later an asshole to me on Cyburbia under circumstances where I had no means to prove "This shitty discussion is subtext for Bitch, you can't dump me for not bringing a CONDOM!!!"
And I couldn't prove that in part because to the best of my knowledge, he kept his word to me and respected my privacy and told no one we had sex.
I got a job in insurance. I stopped trying to get a planning job. My big beef was with the forum owner, Dan Tasman.
As things with Dan Tasman got more ridiculous, I started a FILE titled something like "The WHY Dan Tasman is an ASSHOLE file" and after a few months went "Girl, you're in INSURANCE. You've quit trying to find a planning job. What in hell is wrong with you that you CHOOSE to continue to participate on a forum where you choose to have a file like this about the OWNER????"
So I quietly ghosted. I didn't flounce out. I didn't announce my departure. I didn't tell anyone what my issue was. I just stopped participating and ramped up participation on Hacker News.
I was DEATHLY ill and on a LOT of medication. Had that not been true, I might have handled things differently.
I had substantial friction with the forum owner as my primary issue with the forum. Had that not been true, I might have handled things differently.
I have a DEADLY genetic disorder and had an unidentified, treatment-resistant infection. Had that not been true, I might have handled things differently.
I'm a huge conflict avoider anyway. I don't like fighting with people. I saw no real reason to fight with anyone about any of this.
I later returned briefly for about six months after applying for a community development job. I got my main question answered. I determined it had changed and wasn't the forum I remembered and it was a waste of my time.
When I was ready to leave, I publicly left a comment that I fully expected would be deleted by a moderator saying "Hey, if any of y'all are still in contact with Mastiff, tell him to get checked for trypanosoma. I believe that is what I'm infected with."
I was so sure it would be deleted, I kept a copy of it for my records. To my SHOCK, I was banned as well for that.
I'm OUTRAGED that the ASSHOLES running Cyburbia felt that was a ban worthy offense but some MALE moderator openly trolling Cyburbia as his personal flesh pot is FINE.
That's the essence of sexism and corruption.
To be clear, I never saw any evidence of activity from either Mastiff or Dan Tasman in the months I briefly returned. To the best of my knowledge, neither was involved in that SHIT decision.
I started this piece thinking about how my relationship to my ex-husband began.
We were both sixteen and in typing class together and he picked a fight with me over the pronunciation of some word. He ended up being my best friend the following year and I asked him to sleep with me after his girlfriend dumped him.
I think we were both twenty-seven years old, had two kids together and had bought a house recently when something I said was casually rebutted with (that stupid fight he picked the day we met) "was an excuse to talk to a pretty girl."
I'm an ABSOLUTE MORON who routinely imagines men are having a COMPLETELY platonic conversation with me for completely innocent reasons with ZERO agenda and then I feel bamboozled when once again some guy decides me talking to him is an opening for him to hit on me.
I'm SIXTY and can't figure out how to sort out exactly when, where and how a "relationship" becomes a romantic matter.
He was apparently interested in me romantically on day one and I had absolutely no idea whatsoever.
I mean I'm a victim of sexual abuse in childhood and I'm DREADFUL about not taking subtle hints and was worse in my teens.
But I spent a DECADE believing I initiated our romantic relationship and then was casually informed, no, sweetie, you didn't.
There is a huge, huge societal, cultural and historic weight and context shaping heteronormative romantic interactions.
Ideally, two people come to some kind of mutually consenting understanding and agreement.
There's no clear, bright dividing line. People say "Hi! My name's Joe Bob. What's yours!" And maybe he's already thinking"I would hit that." And maybe he's not.
The very first piece linked at the top of this piece was written as stated in that piece because some piece was being discussed on Hacker News by some woman who, like me, attended a conference and like me was able to afford it because she crashed at some guy's place on his dime.
My recollection is he offered her in specific, so it's possible he had an agenda from the get go and expected her to pay on her back.
My recollection is they both were using a lot of recreational drugs.
Sex happened and she screamed rape.
Historically when women were expected to be homemakers, no decent, self-respecting woman would stay at some guy's place and be alone with him, much less use recreational drugs.
My experience in talking to people online is WOMEN who want to imagine they are liberated women will have your head on a pike stupidly fast if you suggest they not drink if they don't want to end up in bed with a guy under circumstances where they are not sure if it's date rape or not.
See also: Age differences in relationships.
I got an ugly email hating on me and accusing me of harming the woman who shacked up with some guy for the weekend and got high while alone with him and then screamed rape for telling my tale of accepting a friend's public offer to anyone we mutually knew to crash on the couch and then one thing led to another and my only beef is "I TOLD you to BRING A CONDOM."
A failing ALL my hookups during that time frame were equally guilty of and I'm a grown assed woman, so in spite of how extremely impaired I was between medical stuff and prescription medication, I took responsibility for my life and decided I'm done playing this game under these circumstances.
Women ROUTINELY want men to open doors for them, spend money on them etc. in ways that further her career just because they know each other and men make more money than women etc. and act SHOCKED when those men imagine they were basically paying for sex with her.
I decided in my teens that I am not going to "date" in a fashion that involves men spending money on me and expecting sex. I wrote about that recently.
If you are a woman and trying to establish a career, please STOP imagining male colleagues should give you amazing career opportunities as his plus one at some professional function or letting you have a free ride on his coattails to get to a conference or similar and then acting SHOCKED, outraged and screaming RAPE when it turns out he figured the money he was spending on you made this a date and sex was expected for the amount he spent.
And if you can't do that, maybe quit pretending you are a career woman and sign up for some website that helps HOs like you arrange a marriage and embrace being the little wifey and cook and clean and blah blah blah.
Because you stupid bitches annoy me to no end with your BULLSHIT like you don't KNOW men spend money on women like you hoping to get laid and NOT because they are on a personal mission to promote women's equality and fund this ideal out of pocket no strings attached.
They don't do shit like that for MEN. You KNOW they do it for YOU "because you're cute."
And if you aren't FIVE years old, you know that means their goal is sex, not the privilege of watching your cute little self eat the expensive steak dinner they paid for as the highlight of their evening.