Consent is a very important topic. I was recently interviewed by Alex Allman of HowToManTV.com on various subjects covered in my recent book, Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women, and it was one of the most prominent topics we discussed.
My writing about consent in the book was based on many interviews, countless hours of research, and emails exchanged with Dr. Kristen Jozkowski, a psychology researcher at Indiana University specializing in sexual consent. I wanted to make sure that I got every detail right because, if I didn’t, it would risk making the world a less safe place for women. That’s the last thing I’d want.
When I was talking to Alex, I mentioned that I’m polyamorous, and he responded with something along the lines of:
“That makes sense. I’ve heard my polyamorous friends talk about it a lot, and the only people I’ve ever seen with a ‘Consent Is Sexy’ t-shirt were guys from the polyamory community.”
I don’t own a “Consent Is Sexy” t-shirt myself, but that got me thinking: “Is consent actually sexy?”
That is to say: is asking for consent something that can actually turn women on? Can it turn women off? Does it have any effect on women’s arousal at all?
Consent itself is not a simple, one-dimensional variable. It’s multifaceted, so it would be very difficult to operationalize in a real scientific experiment. It’s not like you can have the question of sexual consent in a vacuum isolated from the environment, from whatever happened before the question was asked, and from who’s doing the asking.
What does science say about it right now? Dr. Jozkowski says that “women are more likely to use nonverbal cues to communicate consent, whereas men are more likely to report using verbal cues.”
That information may lead one to guess that women might prefer nonverbal communication surrounding consent over the verbal kind. After all, both Alex and I have experienced — and heard of — many cases where stopping the action to ask for direct, verbal consent cooled things down to the point where the women seemed to get turned off.
However, we both had other experiences where verbally asking for consent actually turned women on.
Context matters here.
In my book, I talked about how, when I’m on a first date with a woman and we’re drinking at a bar, I usually ask her this question while we’re still completely sober, and still on our first drink:
“I’m not saying that anything will happen between us if we drink more, but if it does, are you okay with that?”
When Alex read that part of the book, he said he realized that he had done something very similar before. By the end of the night while the bars are closing, he would invite the woman he was with back to his place to keep the fun going, and directly tell her that he would try to sleep with her (without any weird pressure or anything like that) if she accepted his invitation.
In both cases, we were verbally communicating something about consent. In both cases, it was actually sexy to many of the women.
Of course, it won’t be sexy if you say anything like that without confidence. That’s a given. If you have no confidence, she’s unlikely to give you sexual consent regardless of what you do or say anyway.
The thing that matters most here is whether or not you’ve given her that “spark.” If she feels enough attraction for you, anything you do can be seen as sexy in her eyes, even if those same actions would be seen as lame or even creepy if done by someone else.
At that point, asking for consent in whatever form can actually build sexual tension. Just don’t do it in a way that would release the sexual tension, like in the example where you suddenly stop all the action to ask a sterile question.
There’s another reason why consent can be “sexy.”
You see, it’s difficult for women to feel turned on if they don’t feel safe and comfortable. It’s not just women; you’d have a much harder time thinking about doing the horizontal mamba if you were feeling threatened in any way. It’s much easier to feel aroused when we’re relaxed and free to express ourselves.
Communication about consent gives us that space to feel safe and comfortable.
It shows that you’re respecting her agency about a powerful matter that could affect how she feels about herself, or even change the trajectory of her life. Remember that sex is a very, very big deal for a lot of people, and an especially riskier activity for women than it is for men, for reasons both biological and societal.
If you’re trying to seduce a man, you don’t need to be as considerate about his sense of safety. He usually already feels safe enough to freely slip in and out of sexy-times mode. If you’re trying to seduce a woman, on the other hand, it’s usually a different story.
I believe it is important for men to learn how to navigate consent in the right ways so that they make women feel safe instead of turned off. To learn more, check out Chapter 3 in Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women.
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Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women
Amazon.com: Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women eBook : Chief, Michael: Kindle…
neverlonelybook.com
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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