Whatever Happened to Saying No?

In the bad old days under the evil patriarchy, most women had a standard response for male sexual advances. It was “no.”

No extraordinary or specific case was required for this no. If the man wasn’t a husband or at least a steady boyfriend, “no” was the default assumption. Of course, this didn’t mean that no one was having premarital sex, but it did mean that saying no was a common practice.