Sometimes when I am having an argument with a complete twat about consent, they argue that consent is difficult and the fluid nature of it means that life is so hard for people that they might as well just NOT HAVE SEX AT ALL because they’ll never be sure if their partner likes it. At this point I smash my face repeatedly into whatever firm objects there are to hand, and explain to them that before throwing all their toys out of the pram they might like to instead try communicating with their partner, and watching/listening for those sexy clues (verbal, non-verbal, a combination of the two) that someone gives you when they’re keen.
At some point in the conversation, aforementioned twat might say this:
“Oh, I suppose you want me to get them to SIGN A CONTRACT or something saying ‘I declare that I consent to this sex’ before I even lean in to KISS THEM?!”
And it is at this point that my head explodes, spraying passers-by with the messy detritus of the by-product of their twattery. Because there’s a mistake here. A massive and fundamental one.
Good2Go app and consent
This week yet another shiny new sex app was launched. The aim of it was to get people thinking about consent, and the app itself does… well… some things that sort of miss the point. There’s a Slate article here that explains what the app does, but in essence the idea is that you and your partner both use the app to record the fact that you are ‘Good2Go’ (i.e. have sex, although there’s little detail about specifics) and then you have sex. And then… what? Magically everything you do is consensual and nothing can ever go wrong?
The app does flag that consent can be withdrawn at any time, which is useful, but not massively so, because fundamentally the app is based on exactly the same misconception as the idea of a consent ‘contract’: that consent is a tickbox. Once ticked it can be unticked, but it’s a firm and decisive ‘OK.’
How I like to get sexual consent
Perhaps the reason the contract idea sounds so tempting to twats is that it sounds a bit legal – a bit ‘official’. Of course the sex you’re having is official and totally A-OK: someone has consented to it. They have rubber-stamped your sex plans, signed their name on a dotted line at the end of a piece of paper, ticked a box, pressed a button on an app. You’re ‘good to go.’
Unfortunately, this is not the kind of consent I want when I’m fucking: it’s the kind of consent I want when I’m selling someone insurance.
“Do you understand the risks, sir? Have you read the small print?”
“Why yes I do, and I have.”
“OK, please sign the dotted line then prepare for the sexing to begin.”
It is the least sexy thing in the entire fucking world, and sexual relationships just don’t fucking happen like that. If they do, you are either a fetishist with a really niche role-play fantasy, or you’re doing sex wrong. If I want to fuck, here’s the kind of consent I’m after:
“Touch me. There. Oh fuck, yeah that’s it. Bit higher. Mmm. Bite my nipples. That’s good. Oh please put my cock in your mouth. Like that. Bit more gently. Aaah, perfect. Fuck. Fuck that’s good.”
Or, if you’re less chatty during sex itself, here’s the kind of consent I’m after:
“I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to get shagged with a strapon.”
“Sweet. Want me to show you?”
“Umm… would it hurt?”
“Maybe. Tell you what – I’ll use tonnes of lube, and we’ll start slowly and take it from there, what do you reckon?”
Note that he hasn’t explicitly offered a safeword or asked me if I’ll stop if he tells me to because for me that goes without saying. If it doesn’t go without saying for you, then say it. Anyone who thinks you’re a dick for saying it is not worth fucking.
Other forms of consent include guys begging me to fuck them, guys staring at me with sexy, sexy eyes, then raising eyebrows as if to say ‘do you want this?’ as they reach round to touch my arse. They include me telling a guy a story about a particular fantasy in which I struggle a bit against him while he fucks me, and that guy fucking me in that way, but stopping if I say ‘ooh, fuck, ouch, your elbow’s on my hair’ or ‘OK that was hot but can we switch round now?’ They include all of these things and more.
Crucially, consent in all of these situations is individual to me, and to the person I’m with: it’s personal. If any single one of you points at this blog post and uses it as an excuse to raise your eyebrow and grab the arse of a person you fancy, then scream at them “BUT GOTN SAID THAT WAS CONSENT!” you have utterly and completely missed the point.
But what is consent, exactly?
Consent may be hard to explain, because it’s individual, but that doesn’t mean it is hard to do. You communicate with your partners about what they want, what they need and what they are absolutely dripping hot for, and you keep listening. As you kiss them, touch them, fuck them, and cuddle afterwards. And yes, I am fully aware that this blog post is in no way helpful to someone who is stuck in the ‘contract’ mindset: someone who wants a blogger to give them a list of words and body language signals and phrases that they can tick off and feel comfortable that they definitely did all the right things and established consent.
But that’s deliberate. I haven’t done it for the same reason I haven’t told you how to have the perfect conversation or work out whether this person you’ve approached in a bar definitely fancies you: sometimes things just don’t work like that. I need to stress wholeheartedly that I am not an expert in this. I am an expert when it comes to negotiating the kind of sex I want from my own partners, but I am not an expert in what you should do with yours. If you want some more considered, expert advice on this, do what I do and learn from Bish.
What I do feel qualified to tell you, though, is what consent is not: it is not a simple rubber-stamp ‘OK.’ Saying ‘should I have a contract?’ or ‘should I have an app?’ is based on the fundamental misunderstanding that because we have a legal definition of ‘consent’, that gaining it should be done in the same way as you’d go about gaining planning permission, or something equally tedious.
Do not ask your partner whether they’re ‘Good2Go’, like you’re a dodgy car salesperson trying to get them to sign off on a ropey deal. You’re not looking to get them to agree to something, you’re looking to find out if this is something they actually want. Ask them: is this fun? Do you want this? What’s great and what’s not working? Ask with your eyes, your hands, your mouth, and every tool you have to communicate. And keep asking.
That’s not just how you get consent, it’s how you get good sex.
23 Comments
Unfortunately the law in California means that all of those things we know indicate consent might not be enough if the person you’ve had sex with decides to claim that they didn’t actually consent. People (mostly men) are scared that they’ll have consensual sex then end up in court because their sex partner decides he/she is a bit pissed off. The app is a crass attempt to find a solution. It clearly doesn’t work but is there another option? I don’t know the answer.
Are you suggesting that, rather than a means to get people to consider the issue of consent, this app is actually providing a service whereby suspected rapists have a means to defend themselves in court? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.
GOOD question. The stats for false rape accusation is 2-8%. It’s very, very, very low. It is far, far less a thing to worry about than, say, date rape. The stats for that are very, very high.
Not so much in court as at college “kangaroo courts” that use bogus definitions of rape or assault. For instance, such an app could very well have helped this guy.
I agree that using the app is not sexy, but it’s the nanny-statists who are making it necessary.
OK, jdgalt and possibly TW, depending on what you were implying with your original comment, I’m really hacked off about this.
The issue under discussion here is consent, and whether you can effectively use an app to establish sexual consent. The whole issue is framed around tackling the (I hope you’ll agree) not insignificant problem of rape, and ensuring that people only have sex when it is wanted. What you’ve done is leapt into this discussion and gone “but what about accused rapists?”
Yes, I 100% understand that what you’re trying to talk about here is false accusations. However, the rate of false accusations is incredibly low, and there’s a reason why I haven’t yet written a blog post on false rape accusations: it is because they are not even close to as common as instances of rape. If your first thought – your VERY FIRST thought, mind – when presented with a discussion on how to establish consent and have excellent, mutually desirable sex is “but what if the person I shag later falsely accuses me of rape?” then I despair, then weep, then despair some more.
Here’s a truth that you’re not going to like: there is absolutely no 100% surefire way to guarantee someone is never going to falsely accuse you of rape. Nope, sorry! That’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that if you never rape anyone, the chances of you being accused of rape at all are almost vanishingly small. Yes, being falsely accused of something is awful, and that is why we have courts to weigh up evidence (imperfect though they might be). But can I ask you something? If you, for instance, borrowed a friend’s car to drive over to the shops, would your first thought be “what if they falsely accuse me of stealing it?” Or if you housesat for a person from work, staying in their apartment for a couple of weeks while they were on holiday, would your first thought be “what if they accuse me of squatting?” Why, basically, are you so intensely concerned that someone is going to falsely accuse you of something? So concerned, in fact, that in a discussion around consent you give it more weight than actual rape?
With all due respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I doubt there’s a man in the USA who hasn’t had some female threaten to falsely accuse him of either rape or domestic violence. It’s a perfect way to ruin the guy’s life, starting with him being thrown out of his home before any attempt is made to find out whether the accusation is true or not — and there are no consequences to the woman if it’s not. (Indeed, prosecutors have been known to tell the woman that she’d better stick to her lie all the way to sending the man to prison, on pain of her being charged with perjury.)
It must have been nice when the world still had free countries in it.
OK, apart from feeling really sorry for you I’m not sure there’s a huge amount I can do here. You haven’t answered any of the questions I asked you, which makes me suspect that you’re just here to spread what you think is a serious and important warning message to men about women: I’m clearly not going to change your mind. So my response here is mainly for those who might stumble across your comment on this page and wonder if you have a point, which you don’t.
– First thing’s first: I thoroughly doubt that all men in the USA have had someone threaten to accuse them of rape or domestic violence. Here are some stats for the UK and – in fact – a far greater problem than false allegation is the problem of people spreading the myth that there’s a substantial number of false allegations: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/13/rape-investigations-belief-false-accusations With this myth comes misinformation, which often makes it harder for victims to come forward. It’s far more likely, in fact, that someone is raped and doesn’t report it, than that someone reports a false allegation of rape.
– Secondly, it’s telling that the commenter says ‘there are no consequences to the woman’ and then *in the very next sentence* mentions accusations of perjury – a pretty serious consequence in anyone’s book, I’d have thought. What’s more, there are clearly plenty of other consequences to women who report rapes: many of them stemming from the fact that she is often not believed. Police harassment, for instance. Family/friends turning against them. Having to live in a DV shelter/leave family/uproot children potentially (I’m not sure why the commenter mentions ‘getting kicked out of the house with no attempt to find out if the accusation is true or not’ – there are legal processes when a rape or domestic violence is reported, and support for victims who may need to leave a violent perpetrator). The tide is turning on this, and thank goodness, although more support is required by rape charities and DV charities who are helping people.
– I reiterate the point I made in my first comment about false allegations: there is no way you can ever guaranteed you’ll not be falsely accused of rape. Just as there’s no way you can ever guarantee you’ll be falsely accused of burglary, or drug smuggling, or assault, etc etc. But the chances of you being falsely accused of rape are almost vanishingly small. In fact, even if you *actually are a rapist* the chances of you being accused are low, because of the myth that the comment above is helping to spread that women routinely accuse men of rape, resulting in a fear of reporting rape and sexual assault, a culture that is sceptical of claims about rape, and thus a real and genuine difficulty in prosecuting rape cases (see link above, but I’m not going to bombard people with links and stats because there are thousands of them).
– Next point: rape is not just committed by men to women. Rape is not just committed by strangers. If you need help with anything like this, visit Rape Crisis, or any of these places that give support for men and boys.
– Final point, and this is the most important one to anyone who is reading this: if your main thought the moment you’re about to fuck someone is ‘how can I 100% guarantee that they can never accuse me of rape? How can I GUARANTEE that they have definitely said yes and they’re not going to withdraw this consent or claim otherwise after the fact?’ then I would advise you absolutely do not have sex with them. It is possible, if this is genuinely your consideration during foreplay or chatting up or the start of sex itself, that you in fact do not have their consent. It’s also possible that you are incredibly nervous and worried about this because comments such as the above have made you concerned about these possibilities. In either case I’d recommend you stop, have a chat with your partner, and put sex to one side until you’re both totally comfortable and happy with the situation. The vast majority of sex does not start from a position where one partner is anticipating that the other will do something appalling to them.
I have OCD and I’m overthinking everything with respect to initiation so much I’m rarely considering it. This law is both helpful and horrible for men with that condition: it helps because it forces people to communicate more, but it’s also a nightmare because now there’s not only the question whether *she* wants it, but also whether it’s ok under the law. So, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t try to have sex were I enrolled in California, for my own mental health’s sake. I realize that most women who ever kissed me without asking for it first infringed that Californian affirmative consent policy. I may not have complained, because I wanted it and consented, but they still had to guess that, and so I could have complained about it ex post, and – here’s the difference to prior policies – it would not even be a false accusation: my consent to that kiss wasn’t necessarily what matters under the new policy in case of a complaint, what matters is that she convinces the board that she did everything *reasonable* to ascertain she had my consent. I doubt it will take long until only explicit verbal ex-ante consent is considered “reasonable” in disputed cases, despite what’s written in SB967.
Do you understand that someone’s right not to get raped always trumps your desire to get laid? Because it sounds like you’re putting the latter on at least an equal footing with the former.
This blog post doesn’t mention the law you’re talking about but I’m guessing you mean the ‘yes means yes’ law that’s just been passed in one state in the US. To be 100% clear on this: if your first thought about an anti-rape law, and the one thought so important it moves you to comment on a blog post, is ‘but how will I get laid though?’ then you are part of the problem the law is trying to solve.
You’re not entitled to sex. Sorry.
Thanks for your reply. I recently discovered your blog and I honestly enjoy reading it.
No, I’m really not part of the problem. I’m a middle aged virgin, partly because I was socialized into believing that I am part of the problem by 70s feminists. Women had to put my hands on their breasts in order to make me understand they wanted me to touch them. I’m aware that no one is entitled to sex, and that’s how it should be. I agree that the right not to be raped is more important than anyone’s right to positive expression of their sexuality. But it really annoys me that it’s not even possible for people to say they’re afraid of something without being told they’re part of the problem or being ridiculed. That’s unfortunate, and it plays right into gender stereotypes.
Jdgalt, you are a lying, misogynyst swine. Sit down and shut up.
@SP (There’s no ‘reply’ button under your comment and I’m not very good with comments in this format, sorry)
Please read this all the way through as I’ve taken a lot of time out of my day to try and help you. Please don’t stop as soon as you hit something you don’t like as there is information in this comment that I hope you will find useful. If you really are too lazy, then scroll to the end.
I understand that there are many difficulties associated with OCD. But the reason that GOTN said that you are part of the problem is the fact that you prioritised your own needs over the prevention of rape. Even if it is horrible for anyone with OCD, as someone who has survived rape (and has 2 close friends with OCD), I hope you agree that it’s a small price to pay to prevent rape. And sex without consent IS rape, so it would be breaking the law regardless of the Affirmative Consent Law. I’m really glad it wasn’t thrown out in the preliminary stages because someone said, “But what about men with OCD?” as if confusion due to OCD is worse than rape.
I’m pretty sure the problem was in the way you phrased yourself, not because you believe your OCD trumps the right not to be raped. You said as much in your follow-up comment. But you are not being ridiculed and it does not play into gender stereotypes, as your gender is irrelevant in this. In fact, any gender is irrelevant. In your scenario, the genders of Person A (with OCD) and Person B (who doesn’t want to be raped) are fully interchangeable. The fact you are a middle-aged virgin has nothing to do with 70’s Feminists socialising you to into believing you are ‘part of the problem’. If that were the case then all middle-aged men would be virgins. It’s an easy cop-out to blame Feminists fighting for equality when you were a baby for your current predicament as it means you don’t have to do anything about it. The answer is a lot closer to home.
I’m also concerned that potentially breaking the law seems more of a concern for you than whether or not ‘she’ wants it. So while I’m not an expert on individual consent either, I’m going to help you out here.
– The women who kissed you DID have consent. You said so yourself. They also knew they had consent, so the Affirmative Consent Law would not have been applicable. I guess your OCD might make it confusing for you to understand how they (and I) knew that. It’s really very simple. As they leaned in, you didn’t pull back. You didn’t break the kiss off, or made sure that it was a fleeting kiss on the lips rather than a passionate kiss with tongues. But it started way before the kiss. They didn’t just come up to you on the street and kiss you, did they? They didn’t guess, they were already 95% sure before they leaned in. Consent is not about using legal language to draw up a contract. It is about stopping immediately when you feel/are told that they don’t want you to continue, rather than ensuring you have an air-tight defence after the event which would legally allow you to continue regardless. The police would have also had to believe your story over theirs, which as any rape survivor will tell you is far from a forgone conclusion. This is in spite of the fact that there is very low incidence of false rape accusations. The myth holds more sway than the reality.
– Kissing is not the same as rape. It’s not the same as sex either. It’s the opening of your front door as you leave as opposed to you seven hours later, 10 minutes away from your destination. If someone tries to kiss you because they thought they had consent when they didn’t, but stop immediately (and apologise profusely) once they realise their mistake, that isn’t the same as being raped. It’s an honest mistake. So even if you hadn’t given consent or claimed so after the event, they wouldn’t have been charged with rape if all you did was kiss. Therefore, you being kissed with consent is not remotely comparable to the violation and degradation of rape. I’m shocked that you think it is. NB, if someone forcibly kisses you, knowing that they do not have consent, that is a different scenario. I was referring specifically to yours.
– Consent is an ongoing, two-way process, (assuming two people are involved). I know your OCD makes this difficult because what constitutes ‘ongoing’? – how many affirmations of consent do you have to have? Do you have to stop every 30 seconds and ask if you still have consent? I can only refer to my own experience here, meaning that I am have a woman and I have only had sex with men. Sex for me (and I assume I’m not alone in this) is not about men getting consent from me to allow them to ‘do’ various sex acts ‘to’ me. I’m not a computer game that accepts cheat codes. It’s about learning what the other person likes sexually by responding to their reactions. You don’t read out a statement saying you’d like to kiss their neck and ask them to sign a consent form before proceeding. Some people love it and some are ticklish and don’t. It’s obvious from their reactions which camp they fall into, so if they don’t like it you stop immediately and try something else. If they stop responding positively altogether, you stop immediately and ask if everything is ok.
This is where gender stereotypes ARE a problem because men are portrayed as always up for it, so women assume there’s something wrong with them if the man they’re with wants to stop. If you’ve never had sex, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where a man might what to stop. The fact that he doesn’t want to do it is good enough. He doesn’t have to have reason. But as with women, there can be a myriad of reasons in addition to just not wanting to, like feeling tired/ill/in pain, concern that someone may walk in, too much alcohol preventing an erection, thinking they were ready after a break-up/bereavement and realising they’re not, or guilt from knowing that they/their partner are in a relationship with a third party. Or, as happened to a guy I was with, it was the first time he’d attempted sex after his recent circumcision. On paper, it was supposed to be fine, but his penis told him otherwise.
– Consent for one thing does not constitute consent across the board. If they’re kissing you, it’s probably ok to stroke their hair as well as it has the same equivalency. It’s not ok to shove your hand down their pants. Some acts require more advance communication. I can only speak for myself here, but all the ‘first times’ I’ve had with men were…..I’m struggling with the best way to phrase this….straightforward, what-you-would-expect sex. There was nothing kinky or outside of the box. I think it’s a way of establishing trust. Then as the relationships progressed, we had conversations beforehand along the lines of ‘Have you ever/Would you like to try?’. For example, some heterosexual men would never consider any anal play (I mean their own here) because they are worried it might mean they’re gay. This is completely unfounded of course, but it’s still their prerogative to say no. Others absolutely love it, or are at least open to it due to what they’ve read. So I wouldn’t just do it without discussing it with them first and the first time is not the time or the place. I wouldn’t just do it at the first opportunity and when they asked what the hell I was doing, say “Hey, you gave consent, love….”
– In your particular scenario, the Affirmative Consent law is irrelevant. As GOTN said the key is communication. Asking every 3 minutes if you have consent will absolutely kill the mood. The answer for you is that it will take much longer. By that I mean that a one night stand is out. You will need to build a relationship of trust before sex is even an option. If you find someone who is patient and genuinely cares about you, you will be able to tell them all about your OCD and how anxious it makes you. They will be able to give you the reassurance you need that they are giving consent. You don’t have to do it all in one go either. When most people become sexually active, they do so in stages. This is why Americans have the baseball analogy. No one hits a home run the first time they try, regardless of what they might tell you. It’s ok to hang around a base for weeks before you move on to the next. If you take it one step at a time your anxiety will be significantly reduced.
Finally, I am also middle-aged. I have had sex with 40 men and that doesn’t include the ones I didn’t have full p in v sex with, or men who are my platonic friends. Not one of them ever said that they were falsely accused of rape or domestic violence. So please ignore what jdgalt and TW said. I’m not American, but I find the notion that every man in America has experienced false accusations or lives in fear of being falsely accused by a woman (not female, we are talking about humans here) who was, and I quote, ‘a bit pissed off’.
The evolution of the Affirmative Consent Law started in the myth that women ‘play hard to get’, give men ‘Blurred Lines’ and say no when they mean yes. This is why Robin Thicke’s travesty is so hated. He has no right to say ‘I know you want it’ because the woman concerned was giving him ‘Blurred Lines’. That’s just him reading what he wants to read. It took years for the statement ‘No means no’ to be accepted as the truth (and Thicke tried to undo it all). This isn’t the same as the women who kissed you either. They were looking for consent to be kissed; Thicke wanted to flip whomever it was over and ‘split [her] ass in two’. No one wants their anus permanently damaged like that.
Once ‘no means no’ became accepted, it was used as the unfortunate acid test. If you didn’t actually say the word ‘no’, it wasn’t rape. But you can’t say no if you’re unconscious. ‘I didn’t hear a no’ became a valid defence for rapists thinking an unconscious victim was a green light to do whatever they wanted. Ceelo Green said this relatively recently because he’s an arsehole. If a woman had been drinking, then she was blamed for her own rape even if she’d been plied with alcohol or spiked. But being drunk is not a crime even if you do pass out. Choosing to rape is always a crime and it doesn’t let the rapists off the hook. If you were passed out and I kicked you in the head, the fact that I didn’t hear a no doesn’t make it your fault for not saying it. Your body doesn’t become an eat all you want buffet and you do not become culpable for the crime I committed upon you.
But actually saying ‘no’ can lead to some men becoming so enraged they beat the shit out of their victims. So victims gave a soft no, like ‘perhaps we need to get back to the others, they’ll be worrying’ and if that didn’t work, multiple and more terrified soft no/s while they tried to escape. They had the reverse scenario of the one you fear, except there was nothing in it for them. Do they say no and get beaten up as well as raped, or not say no and while they avoided the beating, they also meant there was no chance of their rapists being found guilty. This meant they could rape again and again and not be found convicted, as long as their victims were too terrified to say no.
It was obvious that the law (and society) had it completely the wrong way round. Consent to sex with any old person isn’t something you are opted into unless you are opted out. So the Affirmative Consent Law was just stating the obvious – everyone is saying no unless they are saying yes.
To anyone other than a rapist, this sounds perfectly reasonable. But they still want to have their rapey cake and eat it. So after no means yes, and ‘I didn’t hear a no’ means yes, came yes means yes to everything I want, no backsies. Note the case of the college student in the media this week whose dad wrote a letter saying his son’s life didn’t deserve to be ruined for ’20 minutes of action’. It wasn’t ‘action’ it was rape, and his victim was unconscious. He is now claiming she mumbled ‘yes’ just before she passed out. ‘Yes’ to do whatever he wanted? I don’t think so. I doubt she even said it, but even if she did, once she passed out it became moot because she couldn’t give ongoing consent. He should have called an ambulance. How would you feel if you had a heart attack during sex and your partner didn’t call an ambulance because you’d said yes and she hadn’t finished? Before anyone says ‘but a heart attack isn’t the same as too much alcohol’, the college rapist is not a doctor. He didn’t know if she became unconscious due to alcohol, it could have been diabetes or any other medical problem. He should have called an ambulance.
The reason these laws had to be made, and will continue having to be made is not due to 70’s feminists, liberals, PC gone mad or anyone else you might want to blame. It’s due to rapists trying to find loopholes that will allow them to rape with no consequences whatsoever. They are the ones you should be angry with, not those who want to prevent anyone else from falling victim to them.
TL:DR
– If you want to have sex, don’t try short cuts. Build up a strong relationship of trust before you have any physical contact at all.
– Be totally honest about your OCD.
– Don’t run before you can walk. Take one sexual step at a time.
– The best sex comes from you making them feel amazing and them making you feel amazing. To avoid interrupting the flow, you watch and listen for their responses to know they’re enjoying what you’re doing. From doing something you both should be doing anyway, you know if you have consent.
– Make sure you are blaming the right people for the inconvenience potentially caused to OCD sufferers by the Affirmative Consent law – those who want to be able to rape without consequences are to blame, not their victims.
– Blaming 70’s feminists for your current situation means that there’s no chance it will ever change. Being honest with yourself and changing what you can about your own attitudes, beliefs and behaviour will at least give you a chance. Good luck.
Even if every man raped (which obviously isn’t true), a woman is 2.5 – 10 times more likely to get raped than you are to get falsely accused of it.
If you’re so sexist that you’re more concerned about getting falsely accused of rape than you are of getting her consent, then yes, you should stay home and not be around women.
I’m curious if we all have to wait till our smart devices with this app are charged before we have sex now? Lol
Men, there are so many of you who take this opinion – ignoring what rape victims go through – you’re all hung up on this sweeping plague of false accusations, or apparently, the threat of them. Do you know what women who make accusations like this go though? Are you aware of the friends they lose, the harrassment they receive in the police station, the basic misery of a rape kit? The slurs, the indignities, the humiliation? Are you awayre of the paltry percentage of actual convictions that happen compared to the massive amounts of sexual assault taking place daily?
Women may threaten to cry rape, but once they do, it’s a fucking nightmare for them, real or otherwise. You seem to have no idea. Also, that 2-8% percent figure is artificially high, as it includes the real accusations that are dismissed as false. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/13/false-rape-allegations-ra_n_2865823.html
And my second question is, You men who are so very concerned about false accusations, what are you doing to all these women to make them this angry and vengeful that they would willingly put themselves through the misery of a rape case? Seriously? What are you at??
Your second question is really interesting, because I think it touches upon the social value attribution for male sexuality that most men have internalized: remember this scene from superbad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxDFyn7FMgQ
Because I think this is how most men *always* think about their sexual value to women. We don’t think we have something valuable to give with our sexuality, we’re at women’s mercy for giving us something we don’t think we’re worthy of receiving let alone consider our sexuality something women could want the way we desire womens’ sexuality. Thus the whole gatekeeper thing, slut shaming, women giving it away, and the assumption that men are always up for it. So how surprising is it that a lot of men think that “buyer’s remorse” is a natural reaction to having sex with them? And how surprising is it that they think every way a woman has to protect her social value against slut-shaming, say, by crying rape, will be used.
I’d say that changing most men’s attitude about their own sexual value to women would do a whole lot more against sexual assault than such a law. But it’s hard for guys to change that attitude when all the social discourse about male sexuality is how it’s bad and toxic and rapey, so women must be constantly protected against it?
With respect to your question #1 – only very few men rape people, and yet that low (apparently about 6% according to that famous Lisak et al study) figure apparently is sufficient to assert that we live in a “rape culture”, socially enabling rape, despite the fact that most people thinks of rape – having intercourse against someone’s will, with mens rea – as a horrible crime. So I’m not sure why it’s so surprising that men are afraid of the 2-8%, particularly given that there is not a lot of empathy for their fears, not a lot of help to deal with the fear offered by those arguing for affirmative consent laws to address the questions of those who are afraid. They’re ridiculed, at best. “Real men don’t need to be afraid”, right? And particularly, given that women have it so much worse, if you’re insisting on thinking about your own fears instead of seconding women’s fears and ignoring your own, you’re not only not a real man, you’re also an asshole who lacks empathy. Not a particularly fair way of addressing these worries in my opinion. Why is it so hard to accept these fears as real for once?
Why don’t those arguing for affirmative consent as a legal standard not even offer procedures to ascertain it? Why do women in threads on Jezebel write how a guy who was really into affirmative consent and constantly asked her if this and that was ok, was so very much turning her off? Why do even commercials by anti-rape organisations depict scenarios infringing their own standards and principles (she’s dragging him, kissing him, *then* asking for consent, and more in that video)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h99w08UHv60
Let me reassure you here. I’m speaking for myself, but my desire for sex surpassed every man I’ve ever been with. I can’t have sex now due to pain from an accident and I have a heart problem. But I had a ridiculously high libido, so the gatekeeper in my relationships was never me. I was the one always up for it and I still don’t give a rat’s arse about being called a slut. I’m also a rape survivor. There’s a massive difference between rape and sex, so being a rape survivor doesn’t automatically mean you don’t like sex, just that you don’t like rape. It wasn’t a false accusation due to fear of being called a slut. I fought like a demon and broke his nose and he responded by pulverising me. But to get back to what I was saying, sex is not something women tolerate. Even my friends with a lower sex drive than mine get grumpy if they are horny and they don’t have anyone to have sex with. They get grumpy; they don’t feel entitled or try to blame anyone else for the lack of sex in their lives.
I know that what I say here probably won’t make a difference. But most of what we see on TV is bullshit. I can assure you that no woman ever responded to their periods by putting on white shorts before they went mountain climbing. No man ever sprayed himself with Lynx and found himself surrounded by bikini-clad women, closing in on him.
Male sexuality in itself is not bad, toxic or rapey. Rapists are bad, toxic and rapey and they ruin everything not only for their victims but for everyone who is not a rapist. If they weren’t such monsters, life would be easier for everyone.
I responded to your request for what constitutes affirmative consent in a previous comment. But I think that you are picturing sex as a one night stand with a stranger. If you don’t have any sexual experience and what constitutes affirmative consent, that’s running before you can walk. You would be much better off taking it slowly, establishing a relationship and discussing your concerns in detail before you attempt anything. That’s one way of ascertaining it for a start. If the person you’re with looks uncomfortable and doesn’t seem to be enjoying it, then ask if everything is ok.
If I was the woman concerned, I’d get a table tennis paddle with ‘yes’ on one side and ‘no’ on the other to reassure you. Or use code words to spell out if you were hitting the spot or not. But that would be more about learning how to do it. If it came to consent, I would be crystal clear if you no longer had consent. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that because if I said, “Is it ok if we stop now?”, presumably you would. If you wouldn’t we’d need to be having a whole other conversation. So consent wouldn’t come into it. This is why it’s so important to communicate first. Say that you are not very experienced in this, but you want them to know that they can stop whenever they want to, they just have to say the word. You’d be surprised how many men don’t do this. You still have to look out and make sure they look like they’re enjoying it though. If you and she both know that you will both stop when asked, then consent isn’t an issue. It’s about learning what you both like.
As for the women on Jezebel, I’m guessing that the constantly asking was the problem. If you are eating your dinner and I ask you after every fork full if you are still enjoying it, you would get pissed off with me very quickly. I would ask once out of politeness and then watch your body language if I was concerned. It would be obvious if you were really enjoying it.
Your problem really does stem from your belief that women don’t like sex. Part of me wants to laugh because it’s so far off the truth. But mostly I feel sadness that you don’t know it’s not true. Until you accept that women love sex as much as men do, you are never going to have a happy sexual relationship. Deep in your heart you will always believe you are doing something terrible to her that she hates, and you will feel ashamed of yourself. I don’t know what to say to convince you that this really isn’t the case.
PS As for the buyer’s remorse thing, I’ve experienced it myself more than once. I have bipolar disorder and some of the decisions I made when I made when I was manic were not the wisest. I have thought the following day that I made a mistake. But not once did it occur to me to claim it was rape because it wasn’t and I consented. Strike that. I was an enthusiastic and equal participant. It’s been donkeys years since I even heard of the myth of the retroactive rape claim due to fear of being slut-shamed. That’s so last millennium. But I have known women who HAVE been raped and too scared to go to the police in case they were accused of buyer’s remorse. Just sayin’
I thought it was one in six. One in six is really, really high.
Sigh. I miss the simpler days of an “enthusiastic YES, dear gawd, FUCK ME!”
I also happen to think it’s sexy as fuck when your partner asks, “Is this OK?”
Yep. My partner does this way more than anyone else I’ve been to bed with, particularly when we were getting together and doing things together for the first time. Hottest sex I’ve ever had. Apart from anything else, it encourages the other partner to say, “yes, YES, that feels good, more!” and generally be more vocal and communicative, which leads to even hotter sex.
As for the app, surely you can just cheat and tick the box on behalf of the person you want to be absolutely clear you are not raping? All you need is access to their phone, at least if they don’t have an account already, or if it gets really grim and they do have an account, you force them to give them your password. And the fact that they store the (supposedly retractable) Yeses but not the Noes in case anyone gets falsely accused of rape is absolutely chilling.
Glad to hear Apple promptly pulled it. I’m now trying to think what would be a good app on the subject. How about one which encouraged partners to talk to each other, with suggested topics, quizzes, cartoons from sex educators, that sort of stuff?
The description of the app is NOT making me feel sexy. I don’t want to tick a box. Dammit, I wanna feel like a freaking lady!