Trigger warning for discussion of rape, abuse and boundary violations.
Knowing Your Boundaries
This is the most important rule of boundaries: it is okay to set whatever boundaries you want.
IT IS OKAY TO SET WHATEVER BOUNDARIES YOU WANT.
Our culture (I blame rape culture) has a bunch of rules about what boundaries are the right boundaries. Kiss the cheek of your Aunt Mildred. Hug your friends. Have sex on the third date. Give him oral if he’s paid for your dinner. Eat women out or you’re a misogynist. But those rules are completely bullshit.
The only reason you ever have to have for not wanting to do something with your own damn body is “I don’t want to.” Period. End of story. And if anyone guilt-trips you about it, they’re the asshole here.
Every person has the right to boundaries. Men have the right to boundaries. Higher-libido partners have the right to boundaries. Doms have the right to boundaries. Everyone!
It is important to make your boundaries as clear as you can. Let me be clear: this is a “do what you can” situation. There are lots of reasons– being a survivor, being uncertain of your boundaries, shock in the moment, not wanting to make a fuss, being shy or socially awkward, being sexually inexperienced– why someone might have difficulty expressing their boundaries firmly, and that’s okay. People do not have the right to violate you just because you froze up instead of saying “stop that, I don’t like it.”
Nevertheless, it is generally easier for other people to respect your boundaries if you have expressed them clearly and firmly. Captain Awkward has a lot of advice for people wanting to learn how to express their boundaries better.
Respecting Your Partner’s Boundaries
The first step of boundary respect is very simple: no means no. All kinds of no mean no. “Maybe later” means no. “You’re too drunk” means no. “I’m not sure” means no. “I’m not ready” means no. Some people seem perfectly capable of understanding that “I dunno, I’m kind of busy” means no when they’re asking someone if they want to play GalCiv, but are completely unable to work out that anything means no in sexual situations except signed, notarized paperwork properly filled out in triplicate and crossfiled with the Department of Justice.
The corollary of no means no is that only yes means yes. Now, some people have interpreted this as saying that only all partners continually chanting “yes!” counts as consent. However, there’s lots of things that “yes” can be. “Yes” can be actively participation in the sex– taking off clothes and initiating sex acts. “Yes” can be a prearranged safeword. “Yes” can be the various sounds of enjoyment people give during sex. “Yes” can be “fuck me hard, you sexy stud.” Whatever.
Sometimes you might not be certain if your partner is saying “yes”– perhaps they’ve gotten quiet and you’re having trouble reading their body language. In those cases, it’s best (in my experience) to check in. I tend to say “hey, you okay, or do you want me to change something up?”, but there’s no set formula. Some people find that check-ins break the mood (…I don’t get those people either), in which case you should probably tell your partner that and accept that if you’re not enjoying what they’re doing you’ll have to speak up.
It can sometimes be hard to distinguish between negotiation and pressure that might lead someone to violate their boundaries, so I’ve written up two sample conversations to show the difference!
WRONG WAY
Pat: I really don’t want anal sex.
Robin: But whyyyyyy?
Pat: I just don’t.
Robin: That’s not a reason.
Pat: I think it might hurt.
Robin: Come on, anal sex doesn’t hurt.
Pat: I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable.
Robin: If you really loved me you’d have anal sex.
RIGHT WAY
Pat: I really don’t want anal sex.
Robin: Okay. Do you mind if I ask why?
Pat: It just doesn’t appeal to me.
Robin: Do you think if we go slowly it might make you more comfortable?
Pat: I don’t know. I just think it’ll hurt.
Robin: I understand that. But if we do decide to do it I’ll make sure to go slow and use lube, and we can stop whenever you feel pain.
Pat: Okay, but I still don’t really want to.
Robin: I’m not going to lie, that makes me kind of sad, but I’m happy to do what you want.
Finally, in some circumstances, even enthusiastic consent is not good consent. For instance, you should not have sex with someone you have power over. Although the age of consent is contentious, because it’s drawing a big red line through a whole lotta gray area and because some teenagers are capable of consenting to sex with adults, it’s still better to not have sex with someone under the age of consent. The only people worse than teenagers at deciding if they’re mature enough to have sex is the adults that want to sleep with them. You can wait until they’re legal. Finally, the whole “drunk sex” issue is contentious, and I feel hesitant to comment on it, because my experience with alcohol is only slightly greater than my experience with traveling to Mars. However, I’m willing to state that there is a point at which people are impaired enough not to give good consent, and you should probably not have sex with them then unless you’ve previously discussed that drunk sex is okay.
Dealing With A Partner That Disrespects Your Boundaries
Dump the motherfucker already.
…Damn, you mean I have to provide actually helpful advice? Okay. Sometimes people violate boundaries by accident, mistake, or miscommunication. You can tell those people because they apologize a lot (whatever “a lot” looks like for them), feel bad about it, and stop fucking doing it.
However, if a person systematically, flagrantly, or repeatedly violates your boundaries… that person is not a good person, no matter how much they claim to love you. There is no justification for someone touching, kissing, or doing sexual things to your body without your consent– no matter how “minor” they are. You are not overreacting, and it is not your fault.
Obviously, there are a lot of reasons why someone might stay in an abusive relationship (and any relationship where your boundaries are systematically, flagrantly, or repeatedly violated is abusive). But please, I encourage you to consider breaking up with your partner and to talk to RAINN’s online hotline, or another hotline you find comfortable, even if you don’t feel like a survivor.
You know, on another note that sort of ties into sexual consent issues for men, there was a new study done on men’s savings habits versus the scarcity of women… http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/story/2012-01-16/sex-and-spending/52604166/1?csp=ip The really fascinating part is that when women outnumber men in a community, the women simply expect less from men in terms of expensive gifts, with their own finances largely unaffected. But when men outnumber women, the savings rate for men goes down drastically and their finances suffer. What does this mean for consent? To me, it means that even when women are willing participants in their own sex… Read more »
f: You know, I’ve also been with a couple of men who have a hard time vocalizing that they’d like to move on to penetrative sex… I get that there are reasons associated with not wanting to pressure a woman, that are probably associated with this behavior. But it was kind of weird, I found myself in the position of having to dictate the terms of every encounter and not quite knowing what was going on on his side of things. I mean, I didn’t just want to assume that he’d want to have sex right then, or rush him,… Read more »
@dancinbojangles, thanks, me too.
@Leo, exactly. I feel like I was having a really hard time communicating that, but what you said is exactly what I meant. People who tend to be sexually passive have a responsibility to speak up about their wishes and communicate their consent. Their partner can help them get to that point if they like, but there isn’t really an obligation there. If someone is with a chronic non-communicator, it may be best and healthiest to break up. You know, I’ve also been with a couple of men who have a hard time vocalizing that they’d like to move on… Read more »
“This sounds like a form of prostitution for some reason… Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to think that you need to sex your boyfriend in order for him to tolerate you? Actually, just that idea that he needs to “tolerate” you sounds strange to me.”
Nah, because I’m “good” at sex, and he’s actually a better match for me than even he thinks (he thinks I’m good looking and could “have better” than him). But I am pretty annoying at times.
Schala,
This could make actual sense for my position, whereas I don’t get as much from sex as my boyfriend does (I can’t orgasm AFAIK), so I could “trade” my mad sex skillz at giving blowjobs and handjobs…for being tolerated
This sounds like a form of prostitution for some reason… Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to think that you need to sex your boyfriend in order for him to tolerate you? Actually, just that idea that he needs to “tolerate” you sounds strange to me.
@Dungone: I’m really glad we managed to reconcile your posts with the rest of the thread. You make some good points which were definitely being lost in the cross-fire.
@Schala: In fact, I don’t think a transactional approach to sex is INHERENTLY bad (perhaps unlike some people here). But it’s important to be clear about it, and if possible consider it as part of the whole picture rather than on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes you do things you don’t particularly enjoy because your partner enjoys them. IMO, provided you don’t mind sex, doing that isn’t really any different from going to a concert or a sports event that you don’t particularly enjoy because your partner is a sports/music fan. In my opinion it would be best for someone in… Read more »
“And the passive partner does have an obligation to initiate some sorts of negotiation. If having yardwork/housework undone is sufficiently upsetting to prevent you from being in the mood for sex, you should probably talk about getting it done at times other than when your partner asks about sex (and if undone chores aren’t actually upsetting you like that, then demanding that they be done before sex is not negotiating in good faith).” In practice it might be that they want the task done, don’t want to do it themselves, and want to propose the offer of sex as leverage… Read more »
@Leo Salloum: I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying. To the the extent that you’re saying that the active partner has a responsibility to participate in (including by listening) the negotiation once it’s started, I agree. But it’s equally important for the passive partner to participate (and to do so in good faith), which is part of the problem here. Especially in the anonymousrex/Louis C.K. example, the passive partner is refusing to actually negotiate. And the passive partner does have an obligation to initiate some sorts of negotiation. If having yardwork/housework undone is sufficiently upsetting to prevent you from being… Read more »
Damn it. That second paragraph should say “discussion of what the girl or woman wants sexually.”
Wow, this conversation keeps getting more interesting. I think I can add something useful that ties together the anonymous rex issue (young girls who won’t verbalize their interest in sex and thereby essentially demand that guys make a physical pass at them) and the dungone scenario (women who insist on chores as a condition for sex). It has been said that communication is not an automatic fix for these toxic relationship dynamics (and I think everyone agrees that they are toxic), but there are different types of communication. In both of these cases, a feminist discussion of what the girl… Read more »
dungone:
If you just leave out the “no, ” part, I think both of you are right.
@Dugong: I think we can all agree that such typical gender-role advice is wrong and hurtful. The active/passive roles that we’ve been discussing, however, were in relation to initiation of sex acts, not to the ability to express one’s boundaries. I think we need to clarify here what it means to be active or passive. The active person is the one requesting/initiating *one sex act,* not necessarily sex in general on a particular occasion or sex throughout the course of the relationship. So if you’re engaged in sexytimes and your partner requests anal sex, they are being active. If you… Read more »
@dancinbojangles, communication is a crucial tool for individuals in a relationships. But as Hugh Ristik said, I was really trying to talk about our social system as a whole and the kinds of boundary violations that don’t get acknowledged a whole lot. It’s important to talk about them outside the confines of an individual relationship, I think, because what we are really talking about here in this thread is the kind of lessons that we wish had been taught to us and to our partners. Jumping to “communication” and DTMFA sort of short-circuits the type of discussion that we should… Read more »
@Timid Atheist:
Read what Ozy said about boundary violations in the OP.
If the active partner frequently makes ultimatums of the “[sex act], or the relationship is over” sort, is it up to the passive partner to explain that they feel pressured to violate their boundaries?
“I want to point out how this statement is worded. This implies that the man really has to speak up for himself if he doesn’t like to have his boundaries violated. It implies that the man has to be active and it also implies that passivity on the part of the woman is perfectly acceptable.” Um… I’m not sure why that’s a problem? How else is the woman suppose to know if his boundaries are violated? It’s not as if she’s the one asking for sex. It’s your example after all. Is she just suppose to read his mind that… Read more »
@Dungone: Hugh_Ristik’s post and your follow-up have definitely clarified your point. I totally agree that we need better outreach for male victims of abuse and better education on boundary violation for men. We should also address the toxic attitudes that Hugh refers to. However, your analysis is a bit pessimistic, and I’m at a loss as to how to address these issues if not by communication, information and education, which would include challenging toxic attitudes both in a relationship as well as in friends and acquaintances. I mean, feminism didn’t just shine a light on issues of toxic male attitudes,… Read more »
Fnord and Hugh Ristik covered my thoughts on this very well. I would like to add something else that I was trying to talk about above, which is a little bit more on the philosophical side. Most consent discussions are sex-negative. They start out from the general case that the passive person does not want sex while the active person is pressuring them into it through various means. This general case applies pretty well to the sexual assault side of the spectrum. But that same exact framework is then used to explain all sexual interactions. This is a problem. Not… Read more »
DTMFA (Dump The Motherfucking Asshole) for men dealing with women who hold poor attitudes towards consent is a good start, but we can’t stop there. I don’t think many feminists would consider DTMFA to be a sufficient solution for male-on-female abuse and entitlement. While DTMFA can be good individual advice, it doesn’t really address the gendered social systems that are causing these problems, not just assholes acting individually. DTMFA can sometimes be problematic even as individual advice: – Some men don’t have many options, especially if they live in a gender traditional area. If they dumped every women who had… Read more »
My interpretation of the original post was some examples of why and how we can aspire to “Good Consent” that is respectful of all genders and inclusive of sexualities. However, the ultimate responsibility lies with the fact that each individual has to make the tough calls on boundaries and boundary violations him or herself, as situations are not always generalizable or interchangeable. And those decisions CAN be tough… However, if we are aspiring to good consent, then saying “no” or “thanks but this is not going to work for me” and walking away from partners who won’t participate in negotiations… Read more »
The entire original post is written to basically be: “Here is how an active person can be an asshole by ignoring a passive person’s needs. Don’t do that, active people, and here’s how (in some detail, with examples). Passive people, if an active person is doing this to you, break up (and we know it’s hard, so here’s some support).” Most people have agreed that passive partner in dugone’s hypothetical is doing wrong. But that’s not really covered in the original post, and people don’t seem to want to acknowledge that. If Ozy went and said “a good point dugone,… Read more »
I’ve found this discussion with dungone interesting, but I really can’t keep track of who is disregarding who. So I’ll just explain my own views: – Contemporary discourse about consent centers violations of women’s boundaries by men, and is highly gendered. Even when trying to use gender-neutral language, initiators (who usually turn out to be men) are held to a higher moral standard. – The original post seems genuinely gender neutral; good job. – We understand male-on-female violations, and we understand some gender neutral cases. Yet by discussing consent in a purely gender-neutral way, there still is a gap in… Read more »
@Zek, Discussions about alcohol and consent in law are often muddy and imprecise. Some feminists seem to promote the view that intoxication destroys the ability to consent, and this view is the basis for some strict sexual misconduct policies on college campuses. Yet theFoundation for Individual Rights in Education argues that such rules are not consistent with the law: Courts confronting this problem have recognized that simple intoxication does not necessarily equal incapacitation, and therefore does not necessarily foreclose consent. In People v. Giardino, 82 Cal. App. 4th 454, 466 (2000), the California Court of Appeals wrote: It is not… Read more »
Ah, you ninja’d me, dungone. Now we can ignore my previous comment and simply focus on one word:
How?