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Aug. 18th, 2010 11:03 pm
Advice on consent
Looking out a second-floor window earlier today (I spy on the birdfeeder that way sometimes), I noticed some strange body language from the parking lot of the park across the street.
I couldn't hear what was being said, but it looked like a young couple was having some sort of mild argument/disagreement. Not unusual in itself, but for what was happening physically: He kept trying to hold her/kiss her, and she kept backing away, shrugging him off, etc. It wasn't necessarily abusive/violent in itself, but it did unsettle me--enough so that I watched carefully until they got in their car and left, to make sure that nothing worse happened. (The park was otherwise empty, so there would've been no other witnesses had something bad gone down.)
Only slightly related, I also saw today that some of my favorite actors have been participating in a "Real Men Don't Rape" campaign. Which is awesome, of course. But in combination with the earlier event, it made me realize something: Many--maybe even most--people who rape don't realize that that's what they're doing, because they've been conditioned to expect resistance as part of a "normal" mating dance.
It took me years to learn this, of course, but now that I have, it seems so very simple to me, and I wish this was the message we could get out:
Consent obtained via wheedling, bribing or threatening is not actually consent. If you have to try to convince someone to have sex with you--regardless of the method you use--you're not getting real consent, and you need to stop.
Granted that a jury isn't likely to convict you of rape just because you were an asshole who convinced your girlfriend that she'd be breaking your heart if she didn't do the deed, but still: If the other person involved isn't equally excited to be there, then that's definitely something less than full consent. You don't want to just not hear "No"--you want to hear "Yes! Yes! Yes!" And without the slightest hesitation.
Granted that some awful people actually get off on violating consent, so that's what they go for, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who do this don't realize that that's what they're doing, and it's because they don't understand that the only true consent for physical intimacy is when everyone involved is 100% happy for it to be happening.
I don't know whether that guy today had or would have ever done more than what he did, but I'm guessing he at least saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing. The woman he was with wasn't specifically saying no to his attempts at physical intimacy, nor was she seriously resisting. She just wasn't welcoming those attempts--she wasn't returning his affection in any way. She kept increasing the distance between them, crossing her arms over her chest, etc. And I doubt he even saw that, because he'd been conditioned to believe that that sort of avoidance was normal.
( Short meta postscript: Entitlement )
I couldn't hear what was being said, but it looked like a young couple was having some sort of mild argument/disagreement. Not unusual in itself, but for what was happening physically: He kept trying to hold her/kiss her, and she kept backing away, shrugging him off, etc. It wasn't necessarily abusive/violent in itself, but it did unsettle me--enough so that I watched carefully until they got in their car and left, to make sure that nothing worse happened. (The park was otherwise empty, so there would've been no other witnesses had something bad gone down.)
Only slightly related, I also saw today that some of my favorite actors have been participating in a "Real Men Don't Rape" campaign. Which is awesome, of course. But in combination with the earlier event, it made me realize something: Many--maybe even most--people who rape don't realize that that's what they're doing, because they've been conditioned to expect resistance as part of a "normal" mating dance.
It took me years to learn this, of course, but now that I have, it seems so very simple to me, and I wish this was the message we could get out:
Consent obtained via wheedling, bribing or threatening is not actually consent. If you have to try to convince someone to have sex with you--regardless of the method you use--you're not getting real consent, and you need to stop.
Granted that a jury isn't likely to convict you of rape just because you were an asshole who convinced your girlfriend that she'd be breaking your heart if she didn't do the deed, but still: If the other person involved isn't equally excited to be there, then that's definitely something less than full consent. You don't want to just not hear "No"--you want to hear "Yes! Yes! Yes!" And without the slightest hesitation.
Granted that some awful people actually get off on violating consent, so that's what they go for, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who do this don't realize that that's what they're doing, and it's because they don't understand that the only true consent for physical intimacy is when everyone involved is 100% happy for it to be happening.
I don't know whether that guy today had or would have ever done more than what he did, but I'm guessing he at least saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing. The woman he was with wasn't specifically saying no to his attempts at physical intimacy, nor was she seriously resisting. She just wasn't welcoming those attempts--she wasn't returning his affection in any way. She kept increasing the distance between them, crossing her arms over her chest, etc. And I doubt he even saw that, because he'd been conditioned to believe that that sort of avoidance was normal.
( Short meta postscript: Entitlement )
