Society and Culture
No Means No, David Choe
Good afternoon folks! How many of you are David Choe fans?
He’s a pretty fascinating dude. A Korean-American hailing from Los Angeles, Choe is an artist, an author, a reality TV star, a podcast host, and he’s spent time in prison. He got his start as a graffiti artist in LA — an angsty, rebellious teenager if ever there was one. He dropped out of high school, spent a few years traveling the world as a hitchhiker, and then returned to spend a few years in formal art school.
Since then, he’s gone on to become a wildly successful and subversive artist. Facebook commissioned him to paint murals in their first Silicon Valley office, making him a millionaire when they paid him in stock options instead of cash. Now, Choe’s work graces every Facebook office, as well as the White House. He stars in a Vice show called “Thumbs Up!” that documents his life as he hitchhikes all over the place, and he hosts a podcast with porn star Asa Akira where they talk about sexy things. Plus — added bonus — he’s a ballin’ gambler who did jail time in Japan for punching a security guard. Truth.
Lovers of bad boys, rejoice. David Choe is kind of your dream. He’s artsy, he’s rebellious, he can’t deal with authority figures, and his entire career is like a giant middle-finger to the concept of respectable and gainful employment.
But don’t get too excited. Because dude doesn’t seem to understand the concept of enthusiastic consent.
In a recent podcast, Choe recounted an eyebrow-raising sexual experience to his cohost, Akira, that he says he had with a masseuse called “Rose.” The podcast went relatively unnoticed — WHY THAT IS I DON’T KNOW (throwing shade at you, patriarchal rape culture that doesn’t bat an eye at this shit) — until xoJane unearthed it and asked the Internet a giant WTF. Thank you, xoJane, for being awesome. You win the Internet this week.
According to Choe’s own account (which he has since stated was an extension of his art and not fact), he was getting a massage and started masturbating right there in front of Rose, without asking her or informing her of his intent to turn this massage into a sexual experience. Here’s how he described the incident:
“It’s dangerous and it’s super self-destructive. I’m at a place and there’s potential for a lawsuit… and she has given me no signs that she’s into me or that this is appropriate behavior. In my head I go, Do you care if I jerk off right now? and it sounds so creepy in my head that I go I can’t say that out loud … So I go back to the chill method of you never ask first, you just do it, get in trouble and then pay the price later.
…So then her hands get off my leg and she just stops … I go ‘Look I’m sorry I can’t help myself — can you just pretend like I’m not doing this and you continue with the massage?’ And she’s like ‘All right’ and she does … I’m like ‘Can I touch your butt?’ and I reach out and touch her butt and she pulls away. She doesn’t want me to touch her butt.”
OK dude, so you should stop it. When someone doesn’t want you to make sexual advances, you need to stop making them. Obviously. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
His cohost, Asa, picked up on that little detail, and clearly says to him in response to this awful story, “So, you raped her.”
He responds:
“With the rape stuff…I mean, I would have been in a lot of trouble right now if I put her hand on my dick and she’s like “F**king stop I’m gonna go call security.” That would have been a much different story. But the thrill of possibly going to jail, that’s what achieved the erection quest.”
So by his own account, this is a guy who describes getting off by pushing someone to do something she’s not comfortable doing. That’s the personification of rape culture, folks. It’s a culture where women’s bodies are viewed as objects, as property to be handled and exploited. Women don’t have to say yes for other people to feel entitled to us, and even when we say no, it’s often not enough.
Whether or not Choe is confessing to actual rape, he describes knowingly pushing Rose to do things she said no to. And that’s really, really not OK.
Folks, rape doesn’t always look the same. There are lots of different ways to rape someone, or to be raped. It doesn’t have to be a strange man in a dark alley. It doesn’t have to be someone who beats you. It doesn’t have to be someone who’s got a knife to your throat.
Sometimes rape is less dramatic. Sometimes it’s a partner who doesn’t take no for an answer. Sometimes it’s a person who takes advantage of you when you’re disempowered. And sometimes, it’s a random creep in a massage studio.
None of these things are, or ever will be, OK. No means no, David Choe. Fucking stop it.
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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.
Featured image courtesy of [jm3 on Flickr via Flickr]
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