Aziz Ansari has responded to the controversial Babe.net article published late Saturday night that has prompted a slew of tweets, think pieces and other responses surrounding issues of consent, celebrity and how to best report on sexual misconduct.
The article/essay-hybrid describes an evening of dinner, drinks, and eventually, Ansari’s apartment. A woman (going by the alias “Grace”) said the date left her feeling “violated” after Ansari allegedly repeatedly pursued sexual acts after she said she tried to slow down and communicate (verbally and non-verbally) her disinterest in having a sexual encounter. The story included details (from the woman’s wine preferences to her outfit to a nickname for a gesture Ansari allegedly made with his hands) that many critics said trivialized the account and were inappropriate for a report meant to tackle such a complicated and sensitive issue.
Babe’s editors said they stand by their reporting, as Joshi Herrmann, editor-in-chief of Tab Media (Babe’s parent company), told CNN after the story went viral.
Herrmann said his team believed they “reported this whole thing out” and verified the information given. However, as Ansari and his camp did not respond to their requests for comments by their deadline, they published the account without including a statement from him (and reportedly only gave just over five hours for him to respond, as The Guardian noted.)
On Sunday, Ansari issued a statement, responding to the story: “In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date. We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual. The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said. I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue.”
Aziz Ansari responds to allegation of sexual misconduct in a statement. pic.twitter.com/Bvl0bULzl8
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 15, 2018
According to Babe, Ansari and Grace met at an after-party for the 2017 Emmy’s and ended up exchanging numbers. She alleged that after their date, they returned to Ansari’s apartment where, despite giving verbal (saying “Let’s relax for a moment, let’s chill,” when she felt he went to get a condom too soon) and nonverbal cues that she wasn’t interested in having sex at that moment, Ansari repeatedly tried to have sex with her. She also said that he ignored more cues, saying she “stopped moving [her] lips and turned cold,” and that she “felt forced” to perform and receive oral sex.
After the discomfort of the night, Grace took an Uber home and told her friends about her experience. Grace said she planned on texting Ansari the next day, but he reached out first saying “It was fun meeting you last night,” as shown in a screenshot featured in the Babe article.
“Last night might’ve been fun for you, but it wasn’t for me,” Grace responded. “You ignored clear non-verbal cues; you kept going with advances. I want to make sure you’re aware so maybe the next girl doesn’t have to cry on the ride home.”
“I’m so sad to hear this,” Ansari responded. “All I can say is, it would never be my intention to make you or anyone feel the way you described. Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”
Just last week, Ansari won a Golden Globe for his role as Dev in the Netflix original series, Master of None. He wore a Time’s Up pin and donned an all-black suit in support of the movement which was started as a reaction to rich and powerful men using coercive behaviors to abuse and assault women. So it seemed to many reacting to the story that his behavior — which didn’t seem to regard the active and enthusiastic consent of his partner or the power he wielded in the situation—was counterintuitive to that movement. It was a symptom of the larger cultural problem of how we frame sexual encounters.
The publication of Grace’s account had pundits, activists and fans grappling with the ways beloved feminist or feminist ally-identifying men can, at times, still demonstrate coercive, violating behaviors that need to be challenged. It’s brought our attention to the grey areas in sexual politics between criminal actions and so-called “awkward” sex. It has made it necessary to examine how an individual’s power and the way they’re socialized to view their partners bodies affects the dynamics at play in sexual encounters. It’s made it vital to look closer at how people (especially men) are taught to pursue a “yes” without regard for whether it’s a coerced “yes” and what those non-verbal cues that preceded that “yes” really meant. And, obviously, it’s beyond time for us to make sure that sex itself is framed as something that you do with another person and not to them.
While several second-day takes and responses to the Babe piece argued that Ansari’s career was at risk because he was “guilty of not being a mind reader” or because modern day feminists lacking the same strength as previous generations when it came to “getting away from a man who was trying to pressure [them] into sex,” they willfully ignored the existence of and validity of discussing those grey areas (and coated that in a healthy dose of rape apologism). All of which did little but dismiss the very real need to put words to pervasive and damaging ways we’re socialized to pursue others (or be pursued) sexually.
Born out of a complicated (if clumsily handled) story, a woman acknowledging how a beloved feminist-ally man is just as capable of falling into those harmful, coercive sexual scripts is a vital start to a conversation that is about so much more than a single celebrity, a single encounter and a single story. And it’s a conversation that we’re determined to continue.