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Fight Back BY JILL FILIPOVIC
    • Purely Rape: The Myth of Sexual Purity and How It Reinforces Rape Culture BY JESSICA VALENTI
     

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    Beyond Yes or No: Consent as Sexual Process
     
    BY RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
     
     
     
    WHAT DOES IT MEAN to say to someone, “Fuck me?” Or, to put it a little more delicately, “Touch me?” To tell them exactly how you want to be kissed, licked, petted? Or to tell them just what it is you want to do with them? For one thing, it means that you are taking the bull, as it were, by the horns. You’re letting your lover—and yourself—know what you’re looking for, rather than leaving it up to the imagination. You’re giving them explicit instructions and thereby saying “yes” so loudly, they have to hear you.
     
    The issue of “consent” encompasses the ways we ask for sex, and the ways we don’t. It’s about more than the letter of the law, and, like all sexual issues, at its heart is communication. Without our speaking up and demanding that our lovers do, too, we don’t ever truly know what they are thinking, which impedes us from having the sex we could be having. The infamous sexual consent rules at the now defunct Antioch College reached such a zenith of ridicule that the school’s very name came to be associated with these policies. 1 The basic idea behind the policy was to end “sexual violence while fostering a campus culture of positive, consensual sexuality.”
     
    The main objectors didn’t argue that people should not be getting consent from their sexual partners, but quarreled with the idea that “each new level of sexual activity requires consent.” This policy was widely interpreted to mean that if you touched someone’s left breast with permission, you then had to get permission to touch her right breast. The broader implication that, say, you may be up for making out and heavy petting, but not full-on intercourse (or might start out with the intention of having intercourse and change your mind once it became imminent), got lost in the ridicule, culminating in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
     
    But we do everyone a service when we recognize that consent is not simply a legal term, and should encompass more than simply yes or no. Say a woman agrees to have sex with her boyfriend, fully giving legal consent, but really she’d rather be off with her friends or at home in front of the TV. She agrees because it’s what’s expected, their routine. She’s bored, and he might as well be having sex with himself. Or maybe she doesn’t like having the same kind of sex they always have, but doesn’t know how to bring up her own fantasies.
     
    The kind of consent I’m talking about isn’t concerned just with whether your partner wants to have sex, but what kind of sex, and why. Do you want to be on top, do it against the wall, doggy-style, missionary? These are questions good lovers ask of one another. When we passively respond or assume we know what the other person’s thinking, we could very well be wrong. By not speaking up or waiting until the other person can share their desires, we are simply guessing. There are exceptions, of course. Some people get off on having one person take charge and set the tone, pace, and position for sex. That’s fine, as long as this is spelled out at some point in advance and isn’t simply assumed. I don’t mean that you need to probe your lover’s every thought; I mean that getting some insight into what turns them on will fuel the sexual chemistry for both of you.
     
    Try this: the Yes, No, Maybe chart. (A sample one can be downloaded. 2 ) The concept comes from the BDSM (kinky) community but can be adapted to any sexual act. Here’s how it works: Write down every sexual act you can think of, and categorize them into things you enjoy/would like to do, things you don’t ever want to do, and things you’re not sure about or might try under certain circumstances. Your partner also fills out a list, and together, you