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.
  •  graphito   ( @graphito@beehaw.org ) English
    1•9 months ago

    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.

    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’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

    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.