Post B6Hw2UXxY5CPYJ33WS by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
 (DIR) More posts by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw2UXxY5CPYJ33WS by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       I've been thinking about how hard it is in this society... to teach important basics about consent to the people who really need to learn them (so they don't harm anyone), without accidentally making a lot of other people suffer from internalizing the wrong parts of the simplified message.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw2ij6pQR7WwN9qS by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       I get why we often say things like "only yes means yes" etc. For people who don't have this basic understanding of "you shouldn't do sexual stuff without explicit consent", anything more detailed might not be clear enough, and it's really important that everyone knows these basics.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw2rPaXNAYT0JCAS by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       But I had heard those simplified messages so often that there was a significant time when I had internalized them too literally. Where I thought "consent must always be enthusiastic"... which sounds correct at first glance, but if you think about it: Sometimes I'm totally ok with trying something I'm not enthusiastic about. I shouldn't need to fake enthusiasm just to convince the other person that they're not doing a crime.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw32n2EXSbkuMZk0 by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       For me, consent is about responsibility: If I say yes to trying something, it is ok to try it. And if it turns out that it doesn't feel good, I can say stop (i.e. revoke my consent, but not retroactively!) and if the other person respects that and stops, then they haven't done anything wrong.It's my responsibility to communicate where my boundaries are, and that has nothing to do with enthusiasm.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw3NV1EiWjz75z4i by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       I also had internalized something like "consent must always be verbal"... which is probably helpful if you're really unsure, but mostly it's just factually wrong.Words are just one out of many ways to communicate, and they might not always be available.If I had understood back then that non-verbal communication is an equally valid way to express consent, that would have saved me a lot of struggles with my conscience ...
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw3cu1y0Rll1ufdw by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       ... and I say that, thinking about a situation where I was not asked for consent verbally, and didn't respond verbally - but I was expressing my consent in non-verbal ways that felt very clear to me. And then afterwards I was terrified because I thought that means the other person must have done something very immoral by not asking me verbally, and wouldn't that also mean I'm a bad person because I liked it?
       
 (DIR) Post #B6Hw3epUnq0XjXo4qu by flashzelle@kinkycats.org
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       Now, over a decade later, I can look back at that situation with the understanding that non-verbal consent communication is valid and the moral crisis I had back then was unnecessary... but past me didn't know that. And it would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had also heard more nuanced messages about consent back then, and not always just the over-simplified basics on endless repeat.