Thursday, February 20, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Consent, "Grape," and why my head is imploding.
A while back some Random Guy on Fet wrote something self-flagellating about how he might have "graped" a girl when he was younger and it was the absolute, very worst moment of his previously unenlightened life. It got about a jillion "loves," a metric crap ton of comments, and it really rather baffled me.
I had meant to write something about it then, but life intervened and it slipped my mind.
So today when I visited K&P to ensure myself that it was still the intellectual and artistic wasteland I'd come to expect- I stumbled upon another article in very much the same vein: Girl meets girl, girl feels up new girlfriend, new girlfriend isn't entirely comfortable but says nothing, and GRAPE! Enter the self-flagellation, deep ponderings about consent violations, and a lot of muckety-muck about how everybody everywhere should always make sure that thing they're doing (even if that thing has been done 1,000 times before with fantastic results and innumerable issuances of consent) is something the Being-Done-To person consents to...
Because, I guess, some folks just can't say "no," or "stop," or even "slow down" and because they're unable or unwilling to communicate their needs or issues you are now solely responsible for their well-being.
And that is where my mind boggled.
It boggled the first time I'd read that bunk, and it boggled again when I read the second version of that bunk (or Bunk 2.0), and it continues to boggle as I write this.
So why am I boggling? I'll tell you (of course I will, this is my bloggy thing after all):
Because it's so one-sided.
We've all heard some variation of "Your partner isn't a mind reader" before and usually it's in reference to being a responsible adult and speaking up when something is going, or has gone wrong. And that's just common sense, and most adults realize that, so we learn to communicate. We learn to say "I need to stop now" or "I need to slow down," and we learn that because it's the responsible, adult thing to do. It acknowledges that both partners bear an equal responsibility for their safety and well-being.
This school of thought though? It shifts all of the responsibility from the Being-Done-To partner to the Doing partner. It implies that the Being-Done-To partner no longer has a responsibility to communicate because the Doing partner should just know, or that the Doing partner should continuously be asking questions which isn't at all logical- If the Being-Done-To partner can't speak up on their own, why is it safe to assume that they'll speak up when questioned? It turns every Doing partner into a potential grapist if they don't assume responsibility for a person who is actively abdicating their own responsibility.
Seriously, how is that in any way right?
So maybe instead of all this "You should ask and keep asking and then ask some more just to be sure" business it makes a bit more sense to talk to your partner before you start doing any dirty deeds and ask, "Are you able to tell me to stop if you need me to?"
Because then you have a choice. You can consent to assume all of the responsibility, or you can not consent and find a partner who is able to communicate their needs with you. Personally, I wouldn't consent to play with someone who wasn't able or willing to be responsible for themselves, and thinking about it, that's something I feel I have a right to know about before the fun sexy times start.
And if you want to frame this in a BDSM context- I think it's pretty damn important to know if your partner is willing and able to revoke consent if the need arises, because otherwise how can you trust them to keep both of you safe?
Disclaimer: Eh. Random Ramblings. Par for the course. As usual, take everything I say with a grain of salt. YMMV. Opinions are like assholes- I have one and so do you and I doubt neither smell like roses.
I had meant to write something about it then, but life intervened and it slipped my mind.
So today when I visited K&P to ensure myself that it was still the intellectual and artistic wasteland I'd come to expect- I stumbled upon another article in very much the same vein: Girl meets girl, girl feels up new girlfriend, new girlfriend isn't entirely comfortable but says nothing, and GRAPE! Enter the self-flagellation, deep ponderings about consent violations, and a lot of muckety-muck about how everybody everywhere should always make sure that thing they're doing (even if that thing has been done 1,000 times before with fantastic results and innumerable issuances of consent) is something the Being-Done-To person consents to...
Because, I guess, some folks just can't say "no," or "stop," or even "slow down" and because they're unable or unwilling to communicate their needs or issues you are now solely responsible for their well-being.
And that is where my mind boggled.
It boggled the first time I'd read that bunk, and it boggled again when I read the second version of that bunk (or Bunk 2.0), and it continues to boggle as I write this.
So why am I boggling? I'll tell you (of course I will, this is my bloggy thing after all):
Because it's so one-sided.
We've all heard some variation of "Your partner isn't a mind reader" before and usually it's in reference to being a responsible adult and speaking up when something is going, or has gone wrong. And that's just common sense, and most adults realize that, so we learn to communicate. We learn to say "I need to stop now" or "I need to slow down," and we learn that because it's the responsible, adult thing to do. It acknowledges that both partners bear an equal responsibility for their safety and well-being.
This school of thought though? It shifts all of the responsibility from the Being-Done-To partner to the Doing partner. It implies that the Being-Done-To partner no longer has a responsibility to communicate because the Doing partner should just know, or that the Doing partner should continuously be asking questions which isn't at all logical- If the Being-Done-To partner can't speak up on their own, why is it safe to assume that they'll speak up when questioned? It turns every Doing partner into a potential grapist if they don't assume responsibility for a person who is actively abdicating their own responsibility.
Seriously, how is that in any way right?
So maybe instead of all this "You should ask and keep asking and then ask some more just to be sure" business it makes a bit more sense to talk to your partner before you start doing any dirty deeds and ask, "Are you able to tell me to stop if you need me to?"
Because then you have a choice. You can consent to assume all of the responsibility, or you can not consent and find a partner who is able to communicate their needs with you. Personally, I wouldn't consent to play with someone who wasn't able or willing to be responsible for themselves, and thinking about it, that's something I feel I have a right to know about before the fun sexy times start.
And if you want to frame this in a BDSM context- I think it's pretty damn important to know if your partner is willing and able to revoke consent if the need arises, because otherwise how can you trust them to keep both of you safe?
Disclaimer: Eh. Random Ramblings. Par for the course. As usual, take everything I say with a grain of salt. YMMV. Opinions are like assholes- I have one and so do you and I doubt neither smell like roses.
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