Consent education does not work to prevent rape.
The form of sexual assault prevention that is practiced on a growing number of college campuses just does not work to prevent sexual assault. These educational programs do a variety of other good things, it’s true. These programs normalize diverse sexual identities and encourage personal empowerment. They just don’t happen to actually prevent rape.
Why?
Because nobody rapes somebody because they don’t understand what rape is.
This is an urban legend. Sure, there are college freshman who are not informed that sleeping with someone who is heavily intoxicated while they themselves are intoxicated is legally rape. And yes, okay, there are definitely men who struggle to determine whether their partner would like to be kissed or touched. But there is no person alive who cannot understand what rape is.
Here’s why.
Rape is not about what you do.
I’ll say it again for the folks in the back.
Rape is not about the actions you take. When somebody assaults somebody, or when somebody tries to rape somebody, yes, the physical objective actions are likely to mimic those of consensual sex. Most of the time, sexual violence does not happen with her hands around his throat or his gun pointed at her head.
Most of the time, sexual violence is about something more subtle: Intent.
Sexual violence is about the attempt to take something from somebody that they do not want to give. Most sexually abusive people are not out there trying to wade through the complexities of confusion and mixed signals. Just about every one of us will invite someone to engage in sex who is not interested, at some point. Making someone feel awkward or need to respond to an invitation is not actually harming them. Offering somebody something they wish to say no to is not a massive breach of confidence or social norms.
However. Sexual violence is not about offering somebody something they are not interested in taking. Sexual violence is about taking something from somebody which they are not interested in giving.
See the difference?
Let’s try again. Say you are out at a bar with somebody you like. The music’s loud, and you’re having trouble hearing the words they’re trying to say. Sometimes they touch your hand, and you’re not sure if it’s deliberate.
In scenario 1, you lean in for a kiss and hope they’re on the same page as you. When they abruptly pull back their head and stare at you blankly, you apologize, make a joke, and tell them you’re sorry if that was uncomfortable.
In scenario 2, you put your hand on theirs and ask them for a kiss.
In scenario 3, you dive in for a kiss. They say no and ask you to back off. You sit there getting more and more frustrated and upset. How dare they lead you on like this? You start pouring more beers in hopes they might get drunk. You turn on the charm and, as their eyes fog over, you wonder if you might get lucky that night after all.
Which scenario, if any, is sexual assault?
This should not be a difficult question.
If you are mad at the person you are currently trying to sleep with, something is wrong. If you are trying to seduce someone who has already said no to you once, and your seduction effort involves getting them drunk? You’re actively trying to sexually assault someone.
The problem is, most of us grew up in households where we watched endless media that convinced us that “blurred lines” were hot and men had an entitled right to do whatever was necessary to get laid. Serve the freshman girls a bunch of blue drinks filled with four different kinds of alcohol? Great! Invite your new girlfriend over to your apartment and keep filling her wine glass in hopes she might stay over? Excellent. Go to sleep in your crush’s bed then wake them up with an orgasm? How sweet!
Yeah. Don’t do any of that. Please.
Offer your would-be lover the opportunity to turn you down. Do this by asking them up front what they want. This does not have to be an unsexy mood killer of a conversation, but it does have to be a conversation. You have to ask them out loud if they would like to proceed, and they have to say yes.
That is how you both know that consent has taken place.
The problem of sexual violence does not happen because someone is afraid of ruining the moment or someone else is afraid that good girls don’t say out loud that we want sex. These moments of miscommunication are complicated, and if maneuvered incorrectly, they can result in severe pain. However, what happens when two people misunderstand each other is not sexual violence. It is both more normal than that, and more complicated.
Sexual violence is when one person does not care what the other wants.
Period.
Sexual violence is what happens when one person wants to do something to the other person’s body, and they don’t care what the other person wants.
That’s it.
Sexual violence is the attitude of football players who line up outside the room of a woman who never consented to a train. It’s what happens when a girl consents to a drink but not a hookup but the guy she’s with disagrees. It’s what happens when one partner assumes the other’s erection means he is consenting, and does not stop to ask what he thinks.
Sexual violence is what happens when one person chooses to take control over someone else’ body, nonconsensually, to get what they want at the cost of the other person’s bodily autonomy.
The way to avoid sexual violence is to sleep with people who you respect. It’s to not use disrespect for an individual’s gender or behavior as an excuse to take advantage. The best way to avoid sexual violence is to check in with yourself to make sure that if this person says no, you’ll stop.
The other best way to avoid sexual violence is to never, ever make sex into a manipulative game. If someone says no, stop immediately. If you think someone might say no if asked directly, don’t keep going anyway. Don’t think any amount of sexual activity that you can manage to do is somehow automatically okay because “she never said no.”
Ask first.
If you feel your partner is giving mixed signals, guess whose job it is to get clarity? And if your partner says yes then no then yes again, guess who should stop until they figure it out?
Lastly, if your goal during sex is to feel dominant and important and get that ego boost, you shouldn’t be having sex at all. Sex is not something you take from women, in exchange for the social status she gets from dating you. Sex is not something that should leave either partner feeling shame or humiliation.
If you are having sex that feels exploitative to you, it probably is. That’s not ok.
Practice good consent by scrutinizing yourself and your own motivations.
Consent: it’s about intention, not just your actions. It’s hard. But it’s worth it.
*Note: Kink encounters with consenting partners can and should make their own rules, within the context of mutual respect and dignity. Playing with the question of nonconsent within a context of consent freely given is not the same as trying out a kink behavior in the middle of sex with a nonconsenting partner. The kink community knows it. I know it. Now you know it, too.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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