Let me just give you one word: CONSENT!
Now, I surely don't consider myself a feminist! I love when my guy holds a door open for me, opens/closes the car door for me, plans dates deciding where we will be going and what we will be doing. I also take great pleasure in cooking for him (I love to cook, and I love when he tells me I did a great job with whatever I made).
That said, I still believe that my body is mine....even if he "puts a ring on it"! I spent nearly 16 years with a man who believed that because we were married, he was allowed to grope me whenever he wanted! I'm not talking about a cute pat on the butt as he walked by me in the kitchen, or a little heavy petting if we were alone and close where the feeling was certainly leading toward an intimate encounter. No...I'm talking in the car grabbing my boob just because...not being able to even so much as cuddle to watch a movie, because it ALWAYS turned into a grab-fest! When I expressed my dislike of him doing that...because it made me simply feel like a "piece of meat"...I was told that I should be happy that he found me sexy and wanted to touch me all the time!!!
On top of that, he tried to impose "rules" in the marriage...such as trying to say I had to sleep without panties unless it was that time of the month! He also thought when he worked late shifts that he should be allowed to initiate sex with me when I was out cold asleep and unable to consent to it...simply because I was his wife! In other words, he believed that me simply saying "I do" was a broad consent to allow him to do anything to my body he wanted!
And it didn't stop there! No...he was very selfish in the bedroom, who wanted every encounter to be like a porn video! He wanted me to dress up for him to show that I actually wanted to be with him. He wanted me to yell out things during sex and call him "daddy". Sorry, I have this terrible aversion to calling a lover "daddy" and having him call me his "dirty little girl"! With all the sickness in the world today, something about this seems soooooo wrong!
I felt so relieved and free to be out of that marriage!! I have since met someone else, and we have been in a relationship for some time now. I can say things are very passionate...without all the dress up, rules, and he doesn't want me to call him "daddy"! I feel like I have the ability to express who I am, and I surely don't feel like a piece of meat...which only increases my desire to be close to this person and give him parts of me no one else can have...CONSENSUALLY!
Again, CONSENT! In the book and movie...she CONSENTED to the relationship! Granted, she never signed the papers, but she read the contract and knew what he expected of her...and she still walked right in to the relationship! Even the "punishment" that made her finally leave....she told him, "Well, then punish me!" She told him to do it, and then decided that she didn't like it, and that she wanted out. Some women like the intrigue of the story...and there are some who practice the type of relationship it describes...either as a dominant or as a submissive. Even then, it is CONSENTING!
What Donald Trump said is not just naughty words! What he described was forcing himself upon women. That is NOT CONSENT! THAT is what us women have a problem with! It is this idea that too many men have, much like my ex-husband, that a man can basically do whatever he wants to a woman...that she doesn't matter! Remember, one of Trumps lawyers has been noted as saying that a man cannot rape their spouse...in other words, it doesn't matter if a wife says she isn't in the mood, doesn't feel like sex for whatever reason...her husband can take her and she must submit regardless! This was the thinking of my ex-husband, and I had been told many times that it was wrong for me to deny him sex. It's the idea that simply saying "I do" gives blanket consent until divorce, and that is WRONG! A woman has the right to refuse sexual advances from ANY man at ANY TIME! It is her body, and she gets to decide if she wants to be grabbed or penetrated!
I don't normally get into these political things, but this one hits home way too much after living in the marriage I did. And guess what? It is no surprise that my ex-husband is a Trump supporter!!