Why consent is the bare minimum

featherflowers · 2021-03-11T17:09:09+00:00

This is why we vet before sex. A high value man will seek your enthusiastic consent and stop if you display any sign of discomfort. He will be open to hearing your no, to stopping, to doing something differently because he values your pleasure as much if not more than his own. Because he values you. Don't have sex with anyone that doesn't value you.

From the article:

"But this only works if we assume a certain kind of partner, one who is already fully committed to the complex autonomy of the other. It all depends on whether the woman feels she has the option to refuse – something that is not limited to the legal question of coercion. It depends, among other things, on whether the man she is with is able to hear a no; is able to negotiate without abusing his often greater physical and social power; is not abusing the knowledge that women rarely report assault and have the odds stacked against them if they do. Is he asking for sex while being open to the possibility that she may say no? Can he countenance a no? Will he flare up, ignore, persuade, cajole, bully, punish? Any model of consent can prove itself worthless if a man is not open to his sexual partner’s no, or her changing desires, and if he responds to either of these with a rage borne of humiliation. A woman can still leave a sexual encounter justifiably feeling mistreated, while the man feels safe in the knowledge he “acquired” consent."

slipperyfoots · 2021-03-11T17:22:35+00:00

"They treat male contempt of women’s pleasure and autonomy as an unchangeable fact, while treating women’s manoeuvring around it as an imperative – and they reserve their scorn for women who fail to respond to it with an appropriate gutsiness."

This is what has been bobbing in my mind for weeks but had been put so eloquently into words.

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