One in three women and one in six men in the United States experience sexual violence in their lifetime. Yet there’s conflicting understanding of consent and what constitutes sexual assault or rape. To help advance the conversation around consent, Healthline has collaborated with NO MORE to create a Guide to Consent.
Indeed, behaviour might be inappropriate and potentially dangerous for both partners but it is present and quite prevalent.
Consider the act of flirtation: it’s conscious projection of ambiguity aimed to see oneself as desireable partner. In that regard, it’s self gratifying – people might not even want any relationship/friendship. They just like the act itself. Which makes it even messier – people flirt in any age, not matter how mature they could be in other areas of life.
If you take it at face value, you’d see what it is: a dating game. We implicitly project our enthusiasm (consent?) to a stranger and yet given plausable deniability if things go south. We play pretend and wear masks all the time. It’s been this way for thousands of years – and that alone throws consent theory out of wack.
On top of that no matter age, maturity, or any other characteristic, noone is rational 100% of the time, some people are unable legally to consent at all. Are we going to be that kind of society that jails (both of) 17 y.o. teenagers for few years just because they slept together? Or married couple who each sipped a glass of wine before sex? – they’re no longer able to consent therefore technically it’s a double rape
Lastly, many cultures (not talking about individuals here) even within one society are very different. For some asking about consent is a sign of weakness, for others expressing sexual consent (especially publicly) is associated with promiscuous behaviour. Simply enrolling this theory on such people may cause a lot of turbulence between\within generations and cultures.
Define flirtation? How do you separate it from just having a nice conversation with someone? I’m also not sure how the ambiguity of interest when talking to someone is related to the conversation about consent surrounding sexual activities.
The law also doesn’t criminalize consensual sexual activity between similarly aged minors. Certainly not a couple 17yo’s. Sipping wine doesn’t mean you can’t drive a car so it doesn’t incapacitate you from making a consensual sexual decision. Besides the fact that the law is not really what we’re talking about here. The law will always be imperfect. We’re talking about being real here. Being a real human being who sees other people as human beings and wants to do the right thing.
And to your last point, I can’t speak to different cultures. But I would be against sexual acts that don’t confirm enthusiastic consent no matter what culture someone is from. Ultimately your language comes across like that of someone who has studied dating academically without much practical experience. I’m not really sure what your point is after all of this. That we shouldn’t worry about consent from our partners? It feels a little trollish to expect anyone to just be like yeah ok
With your permission, I’ll ignore this bc I feel I cannot address the actual core point of what you’re saying in there. I can write thousands of words and most likely you won’t be convinced.
I think the theory of consent is a bad tool for the job. Instead of contextual, implicit, natural, inherently risky decision making, it is trying to assign the blame for breaking “the rule of consent”. Rather than worrying of your partner’s consent, I suggest listening to your partner’s state. I invite people to acknowledge and embrace risks of communication; to carry the burden of potentially being wrong; to learn how to be more in-tune with your partner.
Specific words and general rules of thumb just don’t cut it for that purpose. Chances are your partner is complicated person with her/his own ways of expressing oneself; And as a good partners you both need to learn emotional languages of each other.