Why it's Virtually Impossible to Reach a Consensus on Consent

PPD-Angel · 2019-06-18T22:04:16+00:00

This post is making an affirmative claim, it will be retagged as a CMV. All top level comments must challenge the OP’s view.

decoy88 · 2019-06-18T21:05:40+00:00

Yeah I fully agree with this. Consent isn't something I've ever had a problem navigating in my own life, and sometimes I think why is there so much fuss being raised over this??

But on the other hand it's easy to imagine the slightest thing goes wrong or you're just unlucky and then you find yourself on the other end of a legal or social shit-storm. I know a few guys irl who have suffered from this, along with the high profile celebrity cases.

That's why as a man I think it's really in our best interest to secure some kind of verbal affirmative consent regularly while having sex. Even if that means you might get blue balled (or worse, get called a pussy on the internet!). Not that that's actually even happened to me.

angels-fan · 2019-06-18T21:39:20+00:00

Because we live in a "patriarchy" that bends over backwards to remove any and all accountability for women.

How fucking hard is it for women to say no and and mean no??

Instead, we put all the onus on men to decipher what women REALLY mean, and if we get it wrong, we are fucked!

It should be simple. Men escalate. It's what we do. Women choose the level of escalation. It's what they do.

If any given woman is too timid to use her big girl words, she should be considered mentally retarded and not let out of the house without a chaperone! Otherwise, use your fucking big girl words!!

mouse_trap2 · 2019-06-19T11:33:11+00:00

Part of the problem is casual sex. It can be difficult to communicate with someone you don't know, especially if not experienced with the sex of interest.

For example, I thought anyone continuing after I show disinterest doesn't care about how I feel, so they're going to keep doing it no matter what I say. It didn't click until later (with actual experience) that maybe they think I am not interested because I'm not aroused enough, so just need to keep going. Oh, and heaven forbid you give it a go by kissing back or whatever and nope.... turn off, I want out of here. I don't want to get sexual at all but Oh but now I'm sending mixed signals.

In the Aziz case, I can see him thinking "she wants me, gotta do looots of foreplay, girls love that, of course I'm a gentleman I won't pressure intercourse tonight" and it's difficult to tell that appart from him pressuring and exploiting. Plus she might not know where she is at... I get that all the time. Nope, no sex tonight I'm sick... yeah massage feels good... okay horny now. So I can see why women will say "I am not having sex on this first date" and then do it anyway. It's not some anti slut defence, it's not knowing if you'll get horny or not.

The comment about hot guys harassing... well a hot guy wouldn't have the chance to harass because the advance is clearly wanted!

sublimemongrel · 2019-06-18T20:51:03+00:00

I say just stick with the NMN legal standard (but obviously keep date rape where consent is obviated due to incapacity on the books). I like affirmative consent in theory but it’s too damn gray of an area to start legislating. I suppose I get it for more vulnerable populations like HS students or drunk kids but still...my understanding is the policy makers/legislators themselves can’t really articulate it in a very translatable way.

I get NMN DOES allow for some grayer cases that just seem wrong to stay that way and thus is a burdensome standard which clearly makes convictions more difficult. But I’m ok with this. I think maybe let’s make sure rape shield laws are complied with and enforced and not let a bunch of nonsense into trial and maybe that might help while still keeping NMN as the legal standard.

okuli · 2019-06-18T22:37:53+00:00

For women there's no incentive to "standardize" the consent. It doesn't give them any benefit and strips them of power to claim later that there was no consent. It's much more convenient to have it as a grey area because only men are at risk. Can you imagine a man claiming that sex last night wasn't consensual? But women can do that. Women would like to keep that disparity.

The analogy would be a real-estate transaction contingent on inspection. Even if inspection found nothing wrong you can still get out of the deal. The same thing with sex consent. If you initially agreed to sex but later (for whatever reason) you feel bad about it you can still claim it wasn't consensual. Why would you give away that power?

MyDogLovesCorn · 2019-06-18T21:05:05+00:00

The Aziz case is ridiculous. I would have sued that woman for being a terminal idiot.

Mr_Smoogs · 2019-06-18T20:46:21+00:00

Well because feminists have painted themselves in a corner with verbal affirmative consent being the moral high ground standard. If you don’t use that as the standard, then you are implying there are cases where women are ‘asking for it’ via non-verbal cues. Of course that’s how women act in reality, but feminists are certainly not going to advise physically escalating only when women are ‘asking for it’ via non-verbal consent.

CreightonWAbrams · 2019-06-18T21:07:56+00:00

Situational Differences

There was an OP a while back that dealt with this, sort of. A lot of guys don't seem to understand that a woman might find something sexy or hot when she's, you know, actually having sex, but find it unappealing or repugnant when she isn't.

MisterJose · 2019-06-19T04:52:56+00:00

The other aspect you're missing the the fear aspect. Fear overwhelms the brain and blinds reason. The women who are most hardcore at sacrificing everything else for maximum safety are afraid, and they can't see anything else but what might go wrong, so everything has to revolve around that. Media and other sources sell that fear, so there's plenty of places to catch it, and it's easy for the more vulnerable to succumb to.

It's not that there's nothing to be afraid of, but imagine all the awesome car rides and road trips with friends you could have missed out on if you could only think of dying in a car wreck every time you were in a car. Living with fear is never worth it.

PrehistoricPrincess · 2019-06-19T05:55:56+00:00

Consent is incredibly complex and will vary among women, her mood, the situation, and how attractive she personally finds the guy at hand.

I mean, yes and no. If you catch a woman in a bad mood after her dog just died, yeah, she's probably not going to feel up to banging. And of course, if she finds you unattractive, she's not going to give you sexual consent (unless she has some ulterior motive--$$). I think that's pretty obvious and uncomplicated.

All these factors combined make it incredibly difficult to determine what consent looks like with any type of consistency.

Not really. I'll break it down for you:

Ask her what she wants. That's it. Makes things very simple and straightforward.

When I met my boyfriend, I was pretty inexperienced--still a virgin--and wanted to take things slow. I told him that. Our second date, he asked me if he could kiss me. He scored MAJOR points with me by asking. I thought it was charming, sweet, and considerate. It showed me that he not only respected me and my boundaries, but he respected them greatly. I said yes--on the cheek. Obviously, things went well and we have been a couple now for the past 5 years. Sometimes I want sex and he doesn't. Sometimes he wants sex and I don't. People's moods vary. Some days you may be more fatigued, more stressed, busier, etc. That's just natural. No one wants sex ALL the time. That doesn't make consent complex. If anything, you could perhaps say it makes sexual attraction and sexual appetites complex. Not consent.

If you just ask, you'll get your answer. I recommend it. Easiest way to do things. No mess, no fuss.

LowCreddit · 2019-06-19T00:22:36+00:00

Consent has always been the original He Said, She Said in my mind. It is almost impossible to reliably investigate the facts without some reliable third party evidence like phone records, audio, or video. And like all trials in the court of public of opinion, it all comes down to the race, sex, class, and attractiveness of the people involved.

I disagree on your statement that it is impossible to determine consent though. The problem is that we are in a chaotic time when it comes to the rules governing sexual relations. During most of history, there has been what are called strict liability laws governing sexual acts themselves. This means we only cared about the act and not the intent. Paradoxically, by throwing out the consideration of consent, we bring it into the open.

If you were caught having sex with a man in a city and someone hadn't already heard you scream for help, the woman had already consented. Outside of the city, consent could not be given. All sex in marriage was consensual. Determination of consent in all of these situations was obvious to everyone.

I am not saying that these are the rules we need to enact again. I just think we need rules where the act itself makes the determination of consent automatic. Eg: If a woman is alone with a man in either person's residence, consent is implied. All other sex is rape. If the woman does not wish to have sex, all she has to do is not be in that situation.

Another option with technology is to require all sex to be consented to with a third party witness, aka your phone company. An app or text message could be used to record consent. In absence of such consent, one party takes all fault. This could always be the man or woman. It could be determined by the location. As long as there is a somewhat simple flowchart that determines fault automatically, the rules work.

H2orocks3000 · 2019-06-19T01:51:22+00:00

One thing I experienced as a guy too, my life kinda fell apart the day before I had a day with a girl and I went on it - sure not ideal I get it but was honest with everything and yet found she was me with boobs so was kinda an interesting match and was understanding at first.

My issue was I kept feeling like I couldn’t like break down and process everything like I prob needed to and was just suppressing them.

She was the first really physically aggressive girl I was with. And of course this was happening at his point in my life.

Again - not idea. Also I have a fearful-avoidant attatchment style . We tend not to have love for our selves. The idea of “do I need to become someone different” kinda sums it up. My top strengths are like Futurist and restorative as in (chasing the future and then broken is just another stop on the road)

Well take everything out around me and the cocky leader who launched 2000 new families and has people telling him they need him back- yeah I had issues there- I didn’t understand my attatchments style at the time nor the childhood trauma I grew up with.

What I remember distinctly though- When she wanted sex.

I thought for a hot Sec and I def had not had total sense of my emotions in my body (trauma will do that to you)

And then I realized personally I didn’t want to in hindsight, like I had that feeling, but the way my attatchments style works - 1) I have no boundaries so just go along with what the person wants for most part (though I’m if anything ironically not a pushover at all because I’m both anxious-preoccupied & dismissive avoidant)

Now- with how I was feeling that day and yet thinking I had to still be “the guy” and lead or just be strong. (I don’t think I typically felt insecurity in this way like this, but I would imagine given my “no love for self” I do typically have to just make sense of how to be and maintain it and then just make room for emotions, I typically wear them on my sleeve.

Then this all went down- and it was actually not fun for me at all- and I’m really just trying to “be good in her eyes”.

(If your reading yes a lot of things wrong with this)

In a way - It was the worst sex of my life.

Then of course I get told that’s why we are breaking up.

Later that is.

And yet I look back at it and just kinda feel like - I’ve never had that situation where I didn’t feel great and was kinda pressured into sex in a way through a combination of just typical sex gender roles and the fact that it was so early on.

I know this can be passed off as a simple ego defense, but the more I thought about it the more I realized (ever since I’ve been learning boundries and EQ) that I really didn’t want that, that had I not had what ever other pressure in me and external, I didn’t actually want that.

And yet I couldn’t say that in the moment.

My thought was that if that happens to me a guy the first time I have someone come at me more aggressively (I’ve typically been a dominant type personality and end up with anxious attatchments gf’s I realized)

It most certainly happens to a women.

And their role a lot of times can be in a word or to - just take it. I mean say no if there is an issue but I mean I’ve totally picked my girl up and carried her in the next room and just went at it not even asking. Nothing bad happens from that. But really, it makes me wonder at least about consents.

It’s almost like couples at least need an agreed upon no or safe word by default.

Yonderlander · 2019-06-19T05:50:57+00:00

I agree with your points, consent is nuanced. RP attitudes MAKE IT WORSE.

It's interesting seeing RP discuss this, because in my experience of coming of age as a woman before the Internet was there to say it's ok to be female and sexually empowered, it's the RP attitude that causes this murkyness. Hear me out.

RP guys like to slut shame and have a judgey suspicion of women who are willing to have sex. It's because of not wanting to be judged as a 'slut' that it can feel damn near impossible to say "yes I want to have sex." I was a super horny teen, masturbating 4 times a day from 12 and DESPERATE for sex, but for sex to happen it had to be led by the man, it had to "just happen" I was too kind of ashamed to admit I wanted it, even though I wanted it with every fibre of my being.

I'm not like that now, but I'm sure that mindset still plays into WOMEN not being able to say exactly what they want. Especially if they sense the guy judges women who want sex, which most RP guts do.

Gostofrij · 2019-06-19T14:21:09+00:00

Sometimes people have a very clear understanding of what consent means. But when you get a couple of drinks in them they throw these notions out the window...I mean medievally out the window too..

I had a very good friend who was like a Jekyll and Hyde... When sober, he was an amazing person to spend time with. But once he got drunk, someone else emerged, someone who would not take no for an answer.

"Why do you have to be such a bitch?"... is what I would hear when I would have to physically push him away from me, after giving no indication that I was even sexually interested.

I'm not the first person he ever did this to either... I know of at least 2 other females who had the same experience as I did with this specific friend when he had been drinking.

Like OP says, consent is very nuanced, not limited to few factors.... there are literally a million reasons why a person will or will not touch you.

If the most of humans could just follow the rule that gets to drilled into our heads as children...."keep your hands to yourself"

I like the example of picking up a child that doesnt want to be picked up, or hugging the child that doesnt want to be hugged, if you wanna get nitty gritty and SJW on it you could even say that we as humans have these basic rights of consent at birth, and yet we do not even think that how we conduct ourselves with young children could have a subconscious impact for what consent means later in life.

Good advise for all people: when given no indication, keep your hands to yourself... when given indication, ask questions and dont assume.

greenlittleman · 2019-06-22T16:40:20+00:00

Simple definition of rape which worked very well until recently - person resist or unable to resist due to circumstances. If they can easily resist without any consequences, but do nothing then it implies consent. Resistance also should be obvious and understandable, not just some weak "no" while escalating contact and doing nothing to avoid it. First of all from legal point of view there shouldn't be situations in which it would be "word of one person against word of other person". Which is why rule of verbal consent shouldn't exist in law unless everyone agree to record all their sexual experiences.

Female_urinary_maze · 2019-06-19T03:31:51+00:00

Dude just ask. It'll save both of you a lot of strife. And on the off chance that she wants to bone but refuses to verbally consent you shouldn't be fucking her anyway, you'd be sticking your dick in crazy.

GridReXX · 2019-06-18T21:39:34+00:00

Intuit people and situations. Troubleshoot in real time if you overstep. State in real time if you feel your boundaries are being pushed. Be reasonable. Be thoughtful.

I’ve never had issues with consent. People will push boundaries even when they shouldn’t because they’re horny or having an autistic moment. I’m sure I have. Push back and be firm in it. If that doesn’t work. You’re being assaulted. Run child.

MGTOWKapow3 · 2019-06-18T20:38:44+00:00

When consent is impossible all sex is rape.

SelfUnmadeMan · 2019-06-19T00:26:16+00:00

I've got one more reason for your "why" list: dealing with both female social constructs and interaction-level fitness tests (from normative restrictions on sexual behavior to flirtatious coyness all the way through to dealing with last minute resistance) is an evolutionary filter for men.

The only men that will survive the social consequences and have the opportunity to continue their evolutionary line are those with the wherewithal to:

be attractive enough (physically, socially, mentally)
construct an appropriate social context in which to engage her sexually (or be discreet enough for her to retain plausible deniability)
be aware enough and astute enough to recognize and navigate the above-mentioned social and interaction-level selection barriers
be bold enough to engage her sexually despite the risks

Most men who can't do all four of those things simply do not pass on their genes.

Women rely on the cloud of bullshit surrounding sexual norms in order to select and secure the best mate. Punishing those men who can't play the game to their satisfaction, keeping the stakes high and the unsuitable men thirsty, is an integral part of their selection strategy.

It has probably been this way for thousands of human generations, so don't expect a change anytime soon.

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2019-06-18T20:52:34+00:00

even if im consenting to sex that doesnt mean i want you to shove your motherfucking fingers into my mouth when we just met and are just making out. nibba does that to me like ansari did is pulling back stumps

SqueaksScreech · 2019-06-18T23:15:46+00:00

For those who are saying "why is it so hard for them to say no and mean it" y'all be pestering the crap out of us until you wear us down. And for those who supposedly like playing hard to get y'all are annoying and so are your stupid little games.

Emervila · 2019-06-18T21:36:33+00:00

There hasn't been that much trouble to establish consent through history BUT the main issue nowadays is they WITHDRAW the consent after the act. There's a lot of exceptions but so many cases of false rape accusations have demonstrated you just can't trust a "word" to jail somebody.

Consent is incredibly complex and will vary among women, her mood, the situation, and how attractive she personally finds the guy at hand. Collectively, women themselves can't even define where the lines are.

Simply put it's women BS, this does not happen with men.

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2019-06-18T20:56:29+00:00

and then you graduate college and none of this matters

SweetLikeTupeloHoney · 2019-06-19T01:06:51+00:00

Mostly because society has grown to overemphasize victim hood and not value personal responsibility. We value the vulnerable and those who need assistance or to be protected. When you assume someone can't make decisions like saying "no", walking away or control their alcohol intake then they are not responsible for the outcome. Not today or not in 20 years. You can probably draw a line down the sides of the consent argument based on how willing people are to hold others accountable for their circumstances.

bonusfruit · 2019-06-18T23:31:01+00:00

The problem begins and ends with women. They must, as a population, discover the concepts of agency, accountability, cause and effect. Only then can we move on

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wageovsin · 2019-06-19T00:41:53+00:00

A lot of these situations are solved bye the normal pace of a dance, she says no. Then yes later. This does not violate anything outside some extreme, you coerced her! Accusations bye a very small group. If she says no, stop. in the middle of it. Obviously just stop there...

im avoiding the false rape alligation issue that come from this incressed wokeness about it. Because thats talked to death as a MRA vrs feminist issue (and not a innocant man convicted issue which is taken seriously for homocide)

lemonfluff · 2019-06-19T01:59:32+00:00

Just keep checking in.

"Is this (still) ok?" reguarly.

A lot of women get nervous and feel pressured and for me at least I'm always worried they're gonna not care about consent because i implied it early on, and it makes me relax so much more and enjoy the moment if they're checking in on me and telling me they're willing to stop, no pressure, without getting mad, if I want or need them to.

PanderjitSingh_k · 2019-06-19T11:50:55+00:00

There was a consensus on consent until a few years ago. So clearly a consensus is possible. Counteract whatever influence broke the consensus and all will be well again.

leftajar · 2019-06-19T02:51:21+00:00

You're looking at everything on the surface level.

None of this is about justice. The Anglo-Saxon justice system, on which the USA's common law is based, considers it ten times worse to convict an innocent man, than to let a guilty man go free. After all, no justice system is perfect; some criminals will always get away. But to punish an innocent man is truly an evil perversion of justice.

This is what makes rape such a tricky crime. The difference between rape, which is terrible, and sex, which is great, is the opinion of one of the participants. There's very little protection against a woman just changing her mind, like Aziz's case. That's why it's so critical that a woman goes directly to the police -- any physical evidence of a struggle will disappear and heal with time. If she doesn't go directly to the police, and instead waits until nothing is provable, then I'm sorry; too bad. The whole point of justice is that we don't just trust what people say; people lie.

So... given that the whole new Feminist concept of consent is anti-justice, what's really happening?

The point is to weaponize women against men, to generally disempower men as part of a larger movement of Cultural Marxism.

czerdec · 2019-06-19T12:04:43+00:00

Elsewhere on this thread I said

You can't train a person to eat shit and think it tastes better than ice cream

And the activist ideologue replied with

Talk about defeatist

We need this anti-human ideology to be stopped and to have its cancerous influence taken away.

Now.

[deleted] · 2019-06-20T14:22:37+00:00

Women don't understand how to make rules and play by them. They always want to leave things in a grey area so they are free to change their minds when it suits them.

Whiteliesmatter1 · 2019-06-19T00:21:06+00:00

Also I would add that basically none of the rules for consent are applied to women. I have never given consent to a woman in my life. Because women rarely ask for consent. We learn from that.

Also.

There is a very common kink (so common I think we can reasonably call it vanilla) called a rape kink. Women who want you to continue after you have been told no. If they told you they wanted this it would ruin the experience for them. For a more extreme version of this, Look up “rape baiting” it is a thing that women do and discuss on forums how to best bait a rapist. These are women for whom consensual non-consent roleplaying does close to nothing. For them it has to be organic. It has to be a real rapist. So say they succeed and have the best night of their lives. Was that consent? Should woman even be empowered to seek those thrills? Or should it be illegal? How would you ever prove it anyways?

HottentotGenius · 2019-06-18T22:50:32+00:00

yes consensus on consent may be difficult, but it was never the issue, the issue is legal consent.

You can argue that many ideas have variations, differences or even spectrums, the thing is how you apply it.

You can easily say that a 18 year old person is not old enough to vote well, or that 16 year olds have such capability... however there is an age in which people can start to vote to the system to work.

and consent is not applied only to sexual markets, consent on a contract for example, You can say you changed your mind and do not want a service anymore or consider a service you had to be bad. However you cannot revoke your past consent. You at some point consented, and to the law that is what matters. (unless scams but you get the idea).

the problem was always a operational thing, not exactly the definition... a concise and working definition of consent must be applied. if law is anything to go by it needs to avoid both false positives and false negatives.

I have no idea of your definition of the word but to me, a bystander, consent has a definitive way to be expressed regardless of feeling or whatever... after all, the rules have to exist.

Title	Why it's Virtually Impossible to Reach a Consensus on Consent
Author	HottentotGenius
Upvotes	93
Comments	389
Date	June 18, 2019 8:37 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/c27ivl/why_its_virtually_impossible_to_reach_a_consensus/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-its-virtually-impossible-to-reach-a-consensus.255232 https://theredarchive.com/post/255232

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