Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control

by Amanda Montei

We become possessed by what Febos calls that “specter” who “squeezes a yes out of my mouth when my body tells me to say no.”

misogyny is not simply the hatred of women or even sexist attitudes toward them; rather, it functions like a shock collar, keeping women in line when they break away from patriarchal order or don’t give men what they think they are entitled to. Often this coercive form of control looks simply like the imperative to be “good,” and for women, good means giving. “She will tend to be in trouble when she does not give enough,” Manne writes, “or to the right people, in the right way, or in the right spirit.”

but I was so used to asking for love by giving sex,

had spent my whole life making my body do things it didn’t want to do and so I continued doing what I knew best.

But in the early years of marriage, I didn’t know what I wanted. I only knew what I did not want. My love language was refusal.