Believe it or not, consent is more than ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Before we get too far, let’s dig into some key terms.
Consent is permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. Often in sexual, intimate, or erotic spaces we approach consent as a binary process that is givenor received. This tends to encourage one or more participants to take the passive role (waiting for consent) and the other participant(s) to step into the active role (offering consent). Using a binary approach to consent too often creates a limited and unrealistic experience of consent or nonconsent. When we purport that there are only two options available to those engaging in sex, the only other option available is ASSAULT. Assault, simply defined, is a physical, psychological, or emotional attack or concerted effort to do something demanding.
If consent and assault are the only available experiences, where do we place the multitude of sexual encounters that fail to meet the criteria for assault but nevertheless leave us feeling transgressed, disrespected, and/or disempowered?
The tendency to approach sex and consent as a binary process results in varying degrees of miscommunication, confusion, and even trauma. Consent is so much more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and just because because we gave consent does not mean we feel enthusiastic, engaged or empowered. Popular sex advice columnist, Dan Savage, introduced the idea of the grey spectrum that exists between assault and consent. This spectrum highlights an experience that most, if not all, of us have had at least once in our sexual history:
VIOLATION. Violation encompasses all the ways that we fail to adequately create consent but don’t clear the threshold for assault. Most importantly, anyone can be guilty of sexually violating a partner regardless of one’s intention to do so. Anyone can feel violated despite giving verbal consent.
Why does this matter?
Violation is the result of living in a world where we are given mixed, confusing, and shame-based education regarding our sex lives and intimacy. We are refused the opportunity and encouragement to feel empowered in our erotic identities, discover our sexual wants and needs, negotiate boundaries, and create dynamic consent. In the absence of awareness, comfort, and communication, we find ourselves too quick in assuming and too scared to express. Instead, we enter sexual encounters disconnected or disembodied as we struggle to deconstruct feelings of pleasure with feelings of embarrassment, ignorance, or disgust. We fail to distinguish our fantasies from what we want to experience in reality. We proceed from a space of expectations or obligations rather than considering what we want and need for ourselves.
The consequence of using the consent/assault model and making consent a simple matter of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is that people are left feeling invalidated and without an appropriate space to work through their experience. This leaves too many falling far below the enthusiastic consent and liberating sex life we aim to achieve. Consent requires a dynamic and contextualized approach. It requires comprehensive sex education. It requires examining all the ways a person can experience a sexual encounter and creating safety to discuss when consent does not fall neatly into black or white. Consent requires us to engage to complexity that is sex, desire, initiation, pleasure, freedom, and play.
Consent requires so much more than just ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
