Enthusiastic Consent
Truth!
Slashdot recently had a story up about Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, being accused of rape (and the charges subsequently being dropped). Slashdot is a very male-dominated site, and any discussion of rape and sexuality usually turns to how men are unfairly targeted by rape accusations, and presumed guilty before any evidence is presented. I wasn’t expecting a horribly well-informed discussion, but I was surprised to come across a comment about Enthusiastic Consent. From the comment:
Here in the US they’ve coined a term for the PC way of going about sex: Enthusiastic Consent. [suite101.com] It is an outgrowth of the PC version of “No means No!” from the 1980′s. In the 80′s in the US they counseled college kids that they had get permission at each step of the way. They actually had role-playing seminars where you’d ask “is it OK if I touch you here?” “Is it OK if I kiss you there?” You really got the feeling that these people had never had a real sexual encounter in their lives, and wanted to make sure that nobody else did either.
The commenter goes on to talk about how the Enthusiastic Consent movement is attempting to create a world where “anything can be considered rape.” Way to misrepresent. My response is below.
As someone who is a fan of the Enthusiastic Consent model, I think you’re misrepresenting its goals. Specifically…
So this [idea of Enthusiastic Conset] has morphed into an “anything can be considered rape” model, where even getting an affirmative “yes” to each of these questions is not enough. The “yes” has to be truly enthusiastic to count. So telling a girl that you love her and want to have sex with her is rape – because you are exploiting your relationship. Have a couple of drinks together? Rape. Tell her “it’s Ok, everybody does it?” Rape. Know somebody who lives in a society that is OK with casual sexual encounters? Ooops, that might be social conditioning – better not try to hook up. ‘Cause that’s rape.
The idea of Enthusiastic Consent is not to rewrite rape legislation out of whole cloth. Rather, it’s to create a social movement where the healthy expectation is that sex should only occur between two people who enthusiastically consent to the activity. To use your example, saying “It’s OK, everybody does it” isn’t and shouldn’t be rape. But I’d sure say it’s an ethically questionable way to get someone in bed with you. Likewise for exploiting a relationship status, likewise for using somebodies social expectations of casual sexual encounters to pressure them into sex. Again, none of those situations are rape but they’re all situations in which the consent of one party was not given enthusiastically.
And as a woman who really enjoys having sex, surrounded by friends – male and female – who also enjoy having sex, why would I want any of us to be having sex that wasn’t consented to with enthusiasm!? Why would you ever want that for yourself, or your friends, or your children? There are enough things in my life that I’m only blase about, sex shouldn’t be one of them. And so no, Enthusiastic Consent does not mean that the situations you list somehow are transformed into rape. It does mean that they’re indicative of a society which sees little wrong with unenthusiastic sexual encounters, and argues that that’s a problem.
As a final note, you scoff at the idea of asking “is it OK if I touch you here?” “Is it OK if I kiss you there?” You don’t get to decide what level of consent your partner has offered. And if you don’t ask, you can’t know for sure.
The two replies, neither form the original commenter, continue to miss the point, that Enthusiastic Consent is less about legal reform than it is about social. Which is frustrating, but I felt good about chiming in and trying to correct the misconception.
What do y’all think about Enthusiastic Consent? Did I miss anything myself, or misunderstood some important point?
I sort of want to buy this shirt...
Themocracy
I can’t say I have a ton of wisdom to share on this right now. Other than the observation that people who think communication about sex will kill sexual pleasure depress me.
But! I wanted to share this link from Yes Means Yes about “affirmative consent” in relation to the laws of rape. It’s a little dense on the legalize, but I think it’s an interesting discussion about how changing the standard to one of “affirmative” or “active” consent versus assumed-consent-unless-NO can shift the way we understand sexual assault not only socially, but also in the world of law enforcement.
I am actually growing to like “affirmative” or “active” consent more than “enthusiastic consent” as a catch-all term for this kind of thinking. After talking with one of my friends who identifies as asexual about consent to sex even if you’re not that into relational sex (but are into romantic, commited relationships) … I feel like “enthusiastic consent” conjures up the idea that every single instance of making love in a relationship has to be like, totally HOT and STEAMY and ripping-your-clothes-off full of lust. I know it doesn’t mean that, necessarily, if you stop to think about it. But I think to people who are hear it without the background of anti-rape activism, that’s kinda how it sounds. And they start to think, “oh my god, these people are saying that the time I made love to my partner ’cause she was horny and I wanted to give her some release, but I wasn’t really that into it myself for the sex because I had a head cold – they’re saying that’s rape! omg!” and so forth. “Affirmative consent” or “active consent” still gets at the agency (putting the onus of confirming consent on the initiator of the activity; requiring that both parties be involved in deciding to engage in the activity), but allows for those more nuanced decisions that come in long-term relationships where part of the “enthusiasm” comes with your enthusiasm for the relationship, your enthusiasm for giving the other person pleasure, your enthusiasm for sharing a life together, and so forth.
Anyway … long-winded response.
Cheers,
Anna
Thanks for your thoughts, Anna! (And I hope you don’t mind – I edited your comment to fix the first link.)
I think “active consent” does sound better, for the reasons your saying: the consent doesn’t need to be excited, necessarily, (although hopefully people will only be having sex if they’re excited about it…) but it absolutely needs to be a conscious and deliberate choice. (All meanings of the word “conscious” intended…) I’ll need to mull on the wording, but I’m pretty sure you’ve convinced me to switch from enthusiastic consent to active.
Whether you’re calling it “active consent” or “enthusiastic consent” I think it’s a valuable model and I’m a big fan. Talking about what you want to do, or might like to do, and asking your partner what they want are things that *promote* and *increase* sexual pleasure. Talking about this stuff can be hot! (though I also completely understand it can be difficult for a number of reasons)
And especially with a new partner, or a new activity, they guarantee that people feel safe, a good time is had by all, and that everyone knows everyone is ok/having a good time, which also helps people build confidence a lot more than not being sure if something is working for somebody, or worrying that someone is unhappy or humoring their partner. Obviously with a familiar partner one may know reactions well enough to be able to tell without as much (or any) explicit communication.
“Active consent” may be a more useful phrase. I can consent to an activity I’m not 100% sure I’ll like by saying “let’s try that,” or “I’m not sure how that will feel, but I’d like to try it,” which doesn’t sound the same as “OMG YES!!111″ but indicates useful information: 1) I consent and 2) I’m not sure about it, so we should go slow and continue to communicate about whether or not it’s working for me. (I might also communicate all of those things explicitly, depending on the situation).
Note: I come at these things from a kinky perspective, but I think the idea of negotiating activities and talking really explicitly about consent is something that can be valuable for everyone.
I really like the idea of a Red/Yellow/Green system, something I think comes from the kink community. That allows, in the heat of the moment, the ability to say “yellow,” which isn’t withdrawing consent, but is giving a heads-up that things need to slow down.
I’m glad I’m reading this blog again because of posts like this. I think you covered the subject well and it takes a lot to comment in places where some people seem unable or unwilling to see where you’re coming from.
As someone who does a lot of sexual assault education work at my college, I really appreciate Anna’s point about calling it “active” consent. I had never really discussed this issue with people and had seen various terms used. I’ll keep that in mind.
I wrote about active consent on Feministe and when I cross-posted to my blog, I kept getting comments about how “unsexy” it seemed from someone who indicated that they practiced a strictly “no means no” policy of consent. Because apparently if you practice active consent, you have to come to a full stop and get dressed every time you want to discuss your next move.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about consent (at least in the USA) that make it difficult for people to come around to ideas like active consent that put more focus on asking and getting affirmative answers. I think a lot of people are taught that sex is supposed to be this smooth, sexy thing that would only be interrupted if you took a second to ask your partner if something was ok or if they liked what you were doing.
It takes a lot of effort for some people to understand these things, so discussing it is extremely important.
Thanks, Amelia! I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
As for ‘sexiness,’ I agree with you: there’s a misconception that active consent requires a deescalation of intimacy with every step. Which simply isn’t true.
Hey there! First-time reader, and I’m really feelin this post, so thank you.
I’m wondering whether anyone can recommend relatively easy-to-get pornography or sex scenes within films that showcases appealing active consent? I feel like so much of the misconception could be cleared up (for folks who are unfamiliar but not hostile toward the concept) through diverse examples of lovely/warm/hot/gorgeous/relatable visual narratives. Sometimes written explanations only go so far, you know?
Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and videotape different sexual encounters of mine, and then do like a side-by-side comparison: “This is active consent — and see how happy everyone looks? And this is kind of relenting consent: see how it looks sort of overly serious, or like a disingenuous performance of sexiness?”
I know this slides back toward the “enthusiasm” problem, which occludes some of the more nuances situations that folks have pointed out, but I also think that having some visual examples would have helped 18-, 20-, and 22-year-old me.
Welcome, Katie! Thanks for stopping by.
I think you raise a really interesting question, and not one I’ve considered before. In general, I’ve heard good (feminist-politics-positive) things about Crash pad in general, but haven’t explored it myself. Anyone else have any porn that’ll show off active consent sex scenes?