On the topic of consent

a question from an early 20-something race/gender/orientation is irrelevant:

“Doesn’t asking if the other person wants to be touched or wants to engage take away from the sexiness of it? I’m used to just feeling the vibe of another person and moving in to kiss or touch them, if they say “no” I back away, but I never actually ask for consent because it seems like it takes away from the pleasure of the experience.”

My answer:

In the world of 20 something’s dating, the vast majority of people engaging aren’t partnered. Pretty much everyone makes assumptions about sexual engagement while you’re figuring out how to have relationships and own your sexuality, which is largely repressed because Puritanism runs deep. Romance in media teaches us to lean in and hope for the best. But without consent this runs the risk of engaging in sexual harassment, here’s why:

Let me give you this context to consider:

1. Many women in America aren’t not imbued with the self-worth to say no, they are trained to be uncomfortable and to stay quiet, especially victims of childhood sex abuse. If you don’t know that they want it, you may be putting them in a situation where their sense of worthlessness is triggered and further deepens internalized self-negating tendencies later as they process how they didn’t stand up for themselves or speak up.

2. Many people do not stop once a NO is expressed. That was my personal experience with rape, I was with someone I knew, I thought I could trust, they engaged, and when I asked to stop they didn’t. In some states men have the right to rape their wives, because marriage is considered consent, but if she doesn’t want it that day or that moment, she has no choice and no legal recourse, she simply has to submit, or to quote my favorite line of misogyny ever, “to receive like a woman should.”

3. In my circle of life where the vast majority of people are married (with children)/partnered how do you engage in the energy of your full human expression including your sexuality, say on a dance floor, and still respect the relationships everyone is accountable to? You all want that same sexual energy to flow through you, but you don’t want it to be misinterpreted. We’re grown ass sexually mature adults with sexually active relationships. What if you actually are attracted to that other person in that moment, and in another universe you would totally engage, but you can’t without being disloyal to your person? If you don’t ask first you could challenge a marriage, a family.

Or maybe you put a person in the uncomfortable situation of having to reject you, when it isn’t about the rejection of you, it’s about the protection of someone they love? There comes a point in time in life where you have to know how to control yourself to respect other people and you can’t rely on the energy of the moment, that’s called lust. When you have actual committed love that you don’t want to risk, you need society and culture to respect your space and focus on all of the other aspects of your humanity, while creating a safe space for your full expression without dehumanization. So you have to understand where boundaries are and negotiate them.

For me, I have several men who all know if we’re out together they’re my human shield. If I go anywhere with women we get every level of asshole engaging us. If I anchor myself to a man, socialized male dominance and alpha-male syndrome keeps other men away. So I have several male friends I’m quite affectionate with, but they know they are protecting me and my marriage because we have that conversation. Anyone unwilling to be accountable to my other relationships has to go, no exceptions.

4. Some people, like myself, don’t like to be touched all the time. They are physically & emotionally accessible in some circumstances and not in others. For me it’s because my creative work takes much of my emotional energy, and I’m not always emotionally available. I also pick up a lot of info on people when they touch me because I feel their jubies, and sometimes I don’t want them. Consent at a moment in the past may not apply to the present. Sometimes I just want to be in a space to experience and observe and not express, and I’m not alone. Lots of people don’t like to be touched any time, any place.

It’s a lot sexier to engage someone without triggering trauma, becoming inadvertently abusive, or risking damage to a loving relationship, than it is to make assumptions about another person’s body based off a lustful projection. Lust doesn’t last anyway, it hopefully matures into something more meaningful as depth is achieved.