Vicki Duncan

“Stacy simply says no and leaves everyone unscathed and unimplicated. Me, I opt for the hard way every single time, with all the stricken faces and the “I’m so sorrys” this implies. I take guilty, grim satisfaction in being able to blamelessly detonate this grenade in the lives of strangers. It is a cruel and ungenerous leg sweep in response to a question born only of fellowship and human curiosity. “Yeah, I had a fucking kid. She died. Have a pleasant afternoon.”
― Jayson Greene, Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir of Life and Love After Unimaginable Loss

“If a female student says no to an offer of sex or visiting a stranger’s apartment, it’s not automatically a reflection of low libido, but an assessment of danger. Males are bigger and stronger than females; in scientific terms, humans have a body-size dimorphism of around 1.1 in the male’s favour. This isn’t accidental, it’s the result of male competition. In species where males compete for females the strongest are more likely to win and share their big genes with the next generation. This worldwide physical advantage has historically been used to justify the superiority of men, justify why they should be respected and obeyed, and paid more in virtually all vocations.* But if you flip this around, the reason women are smaller and weaker is that men weren’t worth fighting over.”
― Sara Pascoe, Sex Power Money