Bend Over, Boyfriend

Here's a guy who's obviously studied the how-to manual Sexual Abuse For Dummies: Albert (his middle name), a good-looking 29-year-old who’s fairly well-known in the music industry, says he asks the women he dates to have anal sex with him because it raises the level of intimacy in the relationship. He doesn’t demand anal sex—especially not if it’s a one-time hookup—but he won’t commit to a woman who refuses to grant him a backstage pass. “I had a girlfriend who I was with for a long time and she wasn’t into it,” Albert says. “There was definitely a thing in the back of my head like, ‘I can’t marry her.’ How can I, knowing I can’t go to all the places I can go with her? The physicality of it, being painful or whatever, shows how comfortable the girl is with you.” Here, he pointedly stops short of romanticizing screwing a woman rectally. “Ideally, every girl is a disgusting pig who wants it,” he says. “But only with you.” Thirty years ago, when I moved from New York to Connecticut, my first job was at a paper recycling company. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a shady operation that was rumored to have connections with the mob. There was no union, I wasn't paid much, the work was boring, nasty, and dangerous, and some of my co-workers were there only because they couldn't get a job anywhere else. One evening I gave a guy a ride home and during our conversation he mentioned that he'd did time in jail. He raped his girlfriend. After a long, awkward silence he said, "Wasn't no big thing, y'know? It wasn't as though I took something that wasn't mine." Even now, the casual brutality behind his words still disturbs me, and this punk "Andrew" creeps me out the same way. The only difference between him and the guy I gave a ride to years ago is that "Andrew" hasn't been arrested yet. He's objectifying her to get what he wants. If a man doesn't listen to the word "No", and doesn't care that he's hurting his partner as they're having sex, then he's a rapist. If a man is calling what he's doing "making love", he's a damned liar. And dangerous. A tip of the derby to Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon for bringing this hateful article from Details magazine to our attention. It's only fair that Amanda should have The Last Word on this topic: "Let’s all pray to the Great Cat that one day Albert asks a woman for anal sex and she pulls out her strap-on and says, 'Sure baby. You first.' And when he blanches, she sighs and says that she’s going to have to move on to find her husband."