Last week I received an email from someone I don’t know. It read:

Hello, I have for a long long time loved to watch a Female Professional wear Closed Toe High Heel Pumps/Shoes while I Self Pleasure just looking at her but directly watching shoe play. I definitely prefer this over any other sex opportunity. I love asking to do this and would love to pay for a session just looking close up wearing them? Thank you and await! [This message and the following messages are cut and pasted directly from the emails.]

I was on vacation the day I read this email and for a few moments, I reflected on some of the more unusual requests I’ve received over the years. Then I promptly forgot about the email and moved on.

Five days later he sent the exact same message. (I refer to this person as “he” because his email address name indicated he was male.)

Part of my integrity as a professional in the sex field is to be respectful, supportive, and not shaming around sexual topics and requests, even if they are far from the kind of work that I do as a sociologist, intimacy coach, and sex speaker. We have too much shame and sex negativity in the world, and I don’t want to add to that.

So, I responded with:

No, I don't do this kind of work.

Good luck!

A few hours later, he responded with:

Thanks for your reply Doc. I noticed your motto claiming passion, pleasure, & connection. Would give me great pleasure seeing your legs in Pointed Closed Toe Stilettos for self pleasure, wouldn't mind at all paying for a pic? Thanks

And then a few minutes after that, another email:

If the maximum threshold of pleasure is achieved through Self Pleasuring while looking at your legs in Pointed Closed Toe Stilettos, this act triggering the most pleasant feeling of pleasure would compliment you statement of Sexuality OutSide The Box, hopefully you may reconsider a Pointed Closed Toe Stiletto Heel pic request validating your true quest of traditional sex exploration ?

“F*** you, buddy,” I said out loud to myself upon reading. “You coercive mofo trying to use my values and mission against me for your sexual benefit.”

It’s not my first rodeo. I knew that getting “emotionally hooked” and writing a lot in response to “educate” him probably would not work to my benefit and would likely be a waste of my time and energy, in a context like this. Therefore, I replied:

I clearly wrote that I don't do this kind of work. Please respect the boundary that I've placed.

Gratefully, I did not hear back from him.

There is too much coercion and mental and emotional manipulation that I think is normalized around sex and sexual expression. Let’s look at how this played out, as I think it’s representative of how many sexually coercive interactions happen.

He had something sexual that he wanted from me, for his pleasure and satisfaction.
I didn’t respond in 5 days.
He made the exact same request.
I refused, in a direct and compassionate way.
He counteroffered with a smaller request which was still in the same territory of sexual pleasure for him. In his counteroffer, he used what I call mental manipulation or mental coercion, by claiming that his request was in the realm of the “motto” at the end of my email signature.
Four minutes later, he upped his challenge, by claiming that if I met his request, it would “validate” what I state as a tagline and goal in my work.
I say no again, point out that I was clearly stating a boundary, and ask for his respect.

This didn’t harm me physically or emotionally, but it is emblematic of a larger pattern of societal verbal sexual coercion, some of which is incredibly harmful in the short and long run. It’s much harder to stand up to this kind of subtle verbal coercion in person.

I’m curious of my readers – do you have examples of this kind of more subtle coercion, and how you handled it?

(If you’re interested in this topic of the “gray area” around sexual consent and haven’t seen my personal consent violation story, check out: Sex, Consent, & Gender: Sex & the Price of Masculinity.”)

~Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus, Sociologist, Intimacy Speaker, & Communication Coach