Consent
A group email from the continuing education (CE) section at work sent a link to the video that has been doing the rounds for a long time, about likening consent to a cup of tea. In case you haven’t seen this here is the link https://youtu.be/_607HC5OYdU?si=Yxl9myD4jqdppFdN, they said it was a humorous depiction of consent and suggested we show it to young people we know.
If CE meant watching it as an opener to discussion then that may have been a good idea, but if they meant as some instruction on understanding consent then this video falls very far short of being helpful and really relegates the conversation to something superficial and emotionless except for the humour they mentioned, because let's face it consent should always be taken lightly (that was a little sarcasm from me in case you missed it) . At best this is a video about instances of saying yes and no, at worst it minimises the situations that people find themselves in every day and are unable to get out of with their sense of autonomy intact. On a personal level I find this very frustrating and it comes across as just another way of disregarding what happens to women every day whilst pretending to acknowledge it. This seems to be the way we are encouraged to view difficult issues for women.
I understand that really I would need a book to discuss consent properly so a 10 minute video or indeed this write up will not grasp the nuances involved, however, reducing consent to a 2 dimensional yes and no concept is harmful, not helpful and minimises what women experience many times a day, every day.
A lot, if not most, women have issues with consent on a daily basis, to the point where women don’t necessarily notice every single time their autonomy is overridden. This isn’t always, but is often, related to their bodies. I understand consent can feel like a difficult concept to break down, but I would encourage you to think about any time you felt, bypassed, ‘icky’, embarrassment, confused, ‘giving in’, shame, bargained for something else eg “i don’t want sex but I’ll give you head”, or just wanting to forget something happened when it is over. Or any time that you have been persuaded, bargained, emotionally blackmailed or asked more than once for a sexual act or anything, by someone else in the space of a few hours after you have declined once. If any of this rings true for you then you haven’t truly consented.
Just recently I was buying a kitchen appliance in a high street shop and at the end of the transaction the man serving me hugged me. I was about to go on and describe how I had not invited the hug at all but I won’t because this was nothing to do with my behaviour, I will say that at no point did I ask for a hug or agree to a hug. Not only did I stand there when he hugged me, I paused, then hugged him back. Was I happy to be hugged by a random sales assistant, no I’m not really the touchy type with strangers. So why did I hug him back? I think the best way I can describe it is that ‘I didn’t want to cause a scene’ and upset him. I had just ordered a large, expensive appliance that I needed delivered on time and in good condition, so I made a split second decision to go with the hug to prevent ill feeling and have everyone else involved leave the room feeling good. My husband was standing right next to me and the sales assistant didn’t hug him, he shook his hand.
Back to that split second moment and the idea of consent, the sales assistant did ask if he could have a hug whilst looking at me with his arms open wide. So did I consent by not immediately answering him (he didn’t pause, he started hugging as he was asking) allowing the hug to happen and eventually hugging him back. No, I didn’t and this is where the idea of consent becomes more complex.
In this situation there was a power imbalance and I was not the one with the power. I was the only woman in the room and I was being treated differently to the men even though the transaction was the same. The sales assistant had the power over whether the appliance was delivered on time and in working order. I had already paid for the item, he was physically bigger and stronger than me so in other words at that moment in the transaction he had all of the power, it was therefore inappropriate for him to ask the question in the first place and he should have treated me in the same way that he treated everyone else involved, a hand shake. The only reasons he had for hugging me were his own personal gratification and to demonstrate his dominance. On some level he knew this because he shook my husband’s hand, he didn’t hug him.
You may be thinking, he was a bit weird but no big deal we would get over this and move on. I would countermand that with the belief that any and all consent is important, erode any autonomy over our own bodies and it leads to indecision and misunderstanding, lack of confidence, shame and regret in other situations. It teaches the person dominating us that it is ok to use their physical power in whichever way they want and other people don’t matter. After all, I still recall this incident very easily and it sparks a rush of adrenaline and anger each time.
This leads me to talk about grooming. Three Girls is a harrowing three part drama based on a TRUE life event retelling of how three girls aged 12-15 from Rochdale, were sex trafficked whilst still living at home with their families. It begins with Holly who has to move and go to a new school where she knows no-one and two girls befriend her taking her under their wing. They take her to get food at the local kebab shop where a fourth girl, Amber, introduces her boyfriend Tariq, the girls can go in and get free food whenever they want and Holly is clearly feeling comfortable being part of a group of girlfriends and having a laugh. They often eat in the flat above the shop.
Overtime alcohol is introduced when Holly (14) goes to the takeaway/flat and during this time her relationship with her family deteriorates, she becomes isolated from them and reliant on the other girls staying over at their house. Eventually we see Amber go off to a room with Tariq, and one of the other men from the takeaway that the girls call Daddy, in his 40s or 50s, takes Holly into a room in the flat with a bed and asks her “when are you going to let me have sex with ya” she says “I’m not” he goes on to explain that this is the deal, he gives her things she gives him things, he tells her she is beautiful and pushes her on to the bed, undressing her lower half as she cries, says no and goes limp, he goes on to rape her, drops some money on the bed and says “you’re my bitch now, if you cross me i’ll kill ya” then leaves. All of this is background scene setting in the first 20 minutes of episode one to try to explain how Holly found herself in this situation and how consent is human, ongoing and 3D.
In the next scene Holly is in a bath, Amber knocks on the door and asks to come in, she tells Holly how she copes with being raped, although of course they don’t label what is happening to them. Amber says things like “don’t let them kiss ya” ‘I never let them take my top off, no way would I let them touch my tits” in her own way trying to convince Holly that they can have control, regain autonomy - bounded choice.
During the time they were abused all of the girls became pregnant by their rapists and Ruby’s (the youngest girl) aborted foetus was taken for DNA testing without her knowledge, to see if the DNA matched any offenders already in the police database. Yet still the girls were not protected.
Initially once the case was whistle blown by a sexual health worker it was dropped because there wasn’t a likelihood of successful prosecution, it was reopened when Amber agreed to testify against Tariq. I would highly recommend watching this if you can stream, it was broadcast on BBC 1 in 2017 and on DVD via amazon in 2018.
I remember the breaking news about this case in the UK when the prosecutions were brought, this is part of a BBC interview with Ruby, who was 12 when she was first raped by the men.
It can be easier to see how these girls did not give consent because they were minors at the time of their sexual abuse and by law cannot consent to sex under the age of 16. However, the law is not often enforced in the UK if the child is having sex with someone within 3 years of their own age, the sex in these cases is often assumed to be consensual (I would like to draw on this later). This of course doesn’t apply to the ‘three girls’ case but the assumption was that they had older boyfriends and so was ignored by police. The men that groomed them took time to convince the girls they were consenting to the rapes.
There are 20 states in the USA where there is no minimum age for marriage, these states are saying that a child can consent to sex, in theory a 4 year old can be married off by their parents.
I do wonder about ignoring, for example, two 15 year olds who are dating and having a sexual relationship. I understand it is incredibly difficult to police people or monitor what they are doing, but perhaps girls are having sex for what it will achieve like pleasing or keeping their boyfriend rather than really wanting to have sex. How many of our early boyfriends were actually so good at intimacy that we wanted to have sex with them for the sake of having sex, rather than to please them? How many girls with their boyfriends would rather stop at intimate touching but end up having sex because they don’t want to ‘lead their boyfriend on’ ‘be a tease’ or ‘not give them what they need’ or any of the other rubbish we learn to believe from society.
Realistically some of the reasons the Rochdale case was ignored and dismissed by police and social services for several years are, the wilful misunderstanding of consent, the very little value society places on women, a human’s reluctance to get involved and make themselves a target. It takes a willing professional to listen for long enough and ask questions when appropriate to find out what is really happening. If the professional has ever suffered any abuse themselves (and let's face it the majority of women have) they may shut down because of their own prior abuse and not be able to do what is needed to protect others. Just being a woman and the daily chipping away at my sense of self this brings, led me to watch this series in 15 minute chunks as I couldn’t sustain longer than this. It hurt to watch.
The children in Rochdale were not notable in any way (rich, famous, intellectual, influential or related to a man in power) in fact they were considered ‘troublemakers’ (all of their behaviour became antisocial when the grooming started, go figure) and they were put in a position by their rapists that made them think they were partially responsible for what was happening to them, they were gaslit. In other words, all of the things needed for actual consent were obliterated.
I have touched on bounded choice and gaslighting, if I add in love bombing we have a triad that is common in most abusive relationships. Bounded choice is when there is the illusion of choice yet the person stays within a sphere prescribed by the abuser, with no physical restrictions. In this case when the girls were found on the street by their abusers and told to ‘get in the car’, they did. Gaslighting, being told what you have remembered or decided is wrong, abusers are often so convincing that the person being gaslit will doubt themselves. Love Bombing, just when the abused is thinking that the abuser doesn’t care about them or is in fact abusive they pitch up with a ‘perfect date’ planned or the house has been cleaned top to bottom or a perfect gift bought and meal made. In the case of Rochdale, the girls were paid and given food and alcohol and whilst I am not suggesting for one second they were happy with this arrangement it would have made them feel complicit.
Consent is fluid. Human beings change their minds and they can do this based on feelings, therefore consent has to be ongoing. Just because you agree to ‘make out’ with someone, doesn’t mean you also agree to them putting their hand inside your underwear even if this is part of their definition of ‘making out’. It may seem counterintuitive to the flow of these situations to ask about every single step but in reality this fosters a much safer and more enjoyable environment. What is the risk of asking? That the answer will be no and you won’t get to do what you want to, that you might feel embarrassed for asking? So really the only reason not to ask is fear of being rejected and if this is the reason you are not asking then this makes you a predator in this situation.
Power and consent. There cannot be a power imbalance. If a professor is asking a grad student for a kiss under the mistletoe at the Christmas party the student is very likely to agree because of the imbalance in power and they don’t want to upset anyone, this is still not consent. Just like the sales assistant earlier, the question should never be asked by the professor in the first place. These lines can become blurred in different situations, for example would it be acceptable for a 40yo to date a 20 yo or a 60yo to date a 40yo? Age itself doesn’t necessarily suggest a power imbalance but life experience does. Generally speaking if people have had their own home away from their parents, held down a job and overall made their own life choices for several years we accept that there isn’t much of a power dynamic between a 60 and 40 yo. 20 and 40 gives us a bit of the ‘ick’ factor when we think of it though and that is because there is a power imbalance here, there is no way a 20 yo has had time to build up the life experience needed to make them equal with a 40 yo. What’s worse is the 40 yo knows this.
I’ll refer to another famous case on the subject of age and immense power. I’ve just been watching Scoop on Netflix so I’ll take an example from there.
The newscaster played by Gillian Anderson states that the reason she is doing the interview with Prince Andrew is because she feels she let women down by not asking Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. The producer states “sex with ‘that woman’ was actually consensual”
Anderson responds: “she was 21 and he was president of the united states, he got his life back she got decades of vicious misogyny”
Although Anderson’s character does not overtly say there was no consent (I suspect because the writers of the show would have then had to spend a long time explaining consent) she implies it and she goes on to say what happens to the victim when people do not understand how consent was not given in the circumstance reported. I am sure we have all seen how Monica Lewinsky was and still is vilified by the press and on social media. Consent cannot be given if there is any fear of repercussions.
With that in mind let's go back to the dynamic of a 26 yo man ‘dating’ an 18 year old woman. 8 years at this age is a lot of life experience (would we let an 18 yo man date a 10 yo girl?) and the power dynamic would not be equal. We talk about young people being impressionable, what do we mean by this? Often they are persuaded to do things they wouldn’t have chosen to do without peer pressure. In this case we are talking about sex, possibly the type of sex and sexual acts. Women needing validation from their boyfriend perhaps go further than they would like or try sexual practices they otherwise wouldn’t because they are told “you would like it if you were older” “my other girlfriends did” “but …. Is my favourite thing and it’s a deal breaker if you don’t want to”, “just try it, you’ll like it if you do, I promise”, “just let it happen, relax, it’ll be good”. Eventually she is worn down and just does it to show she is not weak, boring, not adventurous, is willing to try new things, is not frigid or anything else her boyfriend has gaslit her with to coerce her. Again not consent.
Going out with friends who pair off together later in the evening leaving you with the last bloke does not mean you have to pair off with him. If your friend is saying “just make out for a bit, it won’t hurt” to give them time with their boyfriend - not consent. If you are saying you want to go and they are saying “just let him” it’s not your fault for being there and it is not consent. Women get into these positions all too frequently, they are let down by friends who should be showing solidarity and perhaps they ended up there by means that they feel guilty about so they don’t take positive action to leave. We don’t want to anger our parents because we snuck out or we don’t want to say no, stand up and get our coat because we don’t want to ‘ruin the mood’ for everyone else. Society teaches women to ‘go with the flow’ to ‘not upset the balance’ and to facilitate everyone else’s happiness. Why? Because women have been used for centuries to satisfy men and focus on men’s happiness and comfort at all times they are present. Unconsciously or consciously as women this is how we are raised.
Being a conduit for men’s happiness is being played out on the world’s stage for us all to witness at the moment in America. First it was the overturning of Roe v Wade so that abortion is no longer a service that all women can choose to access but rather in some states it doesn’t matter what the pregnancy is doing to the women she cannot terminate her pregnancy even if she will die. If the woman is dying in front of the doctors eyes then the law can be interpreted to save the woman but by this stage it is often too late for her anyway. So an ectopic pregnancy (one that is position outside of the womb), one that cannot grow to completion and deliver a baby but will end the woman’s life at some point, cannot be terminated by law until that woman is dying.
Rights have further been stripped by saying women are not allowed to travel to another state to get an abortion. She and anyone who helps her will be prosecuted and jailed. Some states have even set up roadblocks/checkpoints on major roads leaving the state to police for this. Project 2025 is a policy document laying out what the Republican party plan to do if Donald Trump is elected in 2025. This document lays out the stripping of minority and women’s rights, focussing on women’s health by prohibiting any form of abortion pill and removing contraception including plan B/ellaone. As it stands many places in America require a woman’s husband’s signature on a surgery form to sterilise her and they are proposing to withdraw this operation and remove protection over the medical notes, when used for prosecution, for any woman seeking an abortion.
With all of this said it boils down to women not being able to consent to pregnancy or prevent it if she is raped, bearing in mind all of the examples of rape we have considered here (rape being any time a woman is used for sex when she is not fully consenting, the consent has to be ongoing throughout sex without any pressure or coercion). The potential Republican government want to bring 'life back to heterosexual families with the father as head of the household'. Where does this lead? Back to ‘women can’t be raped by their husband’s as they are their property and it is part of their marital duties’? Who said The Handmaid's Tale, could never happen now.
I would like to end this piece on an uplifting note so I will draw your attention to other countries who are highlighting some of these issues. Some countries have made taking a condom off mid sexual act, without the knowledge and consent of the women, a crime. There has been a shift, albeit slight, in favour of not victim blaming in court. Women sometimes have the option of giving evidence via video link and all children in the UK do. Women are speaking up for women and calling men out when they don’t.
As women we are learning that we have the right to say no, we are not responsible for keeping the mood light or good, we are not responsible for how someone else feels and we are allowed to be responsible for ourselves. Women are learning to hold each other up rather than compete for a man’s affection. Instead of valuing ourselves by being the one desired by as many men as possible, we are valuing our own knowledge, education, strength and commitment. We are forging our own way and giving ourselves permission to say No without judgement.
If you see a woman at a party or in a bar who looks like she might be struggling, go up and give her a way out. If you see a woman on a bus who has a man sitting close to her and she looks uncomfortable, offer her a way out. We can all go up to any one of them and start a conversation “hey jenny haven’t seen you in ages, how’s your mum” and if we are owning it saying “hey you look uncomfortable with this man pressing into your personal space would you like to come over here instead?” Men out there, call other men out who are not taking no for an answer, who are not letting a woman leave or who are name calling because she won't be coerced. Women often back down or stay quiet because they are looking at self preservation and what will cause them the least harm.
Most pointedly though, remember you are the sole protector of you and it is your right to say No, it is your right to get up and leave, it is your right to make yourself feel ok about being in your skin.