Is Consent Really Sexy?
BY ALAINA RAMIREZ
So Manuel and I have been together for about three and a half years, and started having sex about a year and a half ago. He’s amazing, but that’s not to say we haven’t had our struggles.
Once we were trying a new position. From the get-go, it hurt. I was like “Maybe it will get better?” But it did not. Like other somewhat overly-empathetic people, I decided to do the “polite” thing and let him finish. Idiotic, I know. But I must have let out a little whimper, a whisper of an “ow,” because not soon after we started, he stopped and asked me, “Are you okay?” It was the most romantic thing I had ever heard. I told him that this position hurt, and he showed me a beautiful compassion that I didn’t realize I deserved. Did I want to go back to our old position? Did I want to just call it a night? Did I want to take a break from sex for a few minutes? I’m on the University Sexual Assault Investigation Board here at WashU. I haven’t heard any cases yet, but I’m hoping to be the voice of reason in what is currently a bullshit system. By that I mean that it is sometimes difficult to define consent in a way that is fair to all parties involved in an investigation. For example, to me, pushing Manuel’s chest during sex means that I want him off of me. But if he didn’t know me, he might genuinely think it was an embrace intended to urge him on. Of course, all you have to do is ask, but I personally suck at thinking at all in the middle of an orgasm, and probably wouldn’t be able to respond if he did ask. Of course, silence does not mean yes, but the Board (and people in general) seem to have a long way to go before they understand this. We recently got to hear an amazing speaker on the neuroscience of trauma. He advised us that when we interview survivors, we should give them as many choices as possible. Abusers/offenders take choices from their victims. You can help the survivor begin to heal from this trauma by letting them choose where to sit, what they want to be called, who they want to have with them as they recount their trauma. Manuel knows I’m a survivor, but he also knows that that identity doesn’t define me. I’d like to think that he would be just as considerate with what I need regardless of my history. To be given that kind of choice by my partner was liberating. By the way, the above story happened before I ever attended that training, and Manuel has never been trained in consent. Most recently, my trauma has been reinvigorated from readings I had to do for my Spanish class which were discussed with no trigger warning. Though my teacher was understanding when I explained my upset with her, the readings still interfered with my sex life. When we were getting ready to have sex, I’d get intrusive thoughts about the rape from the required reading. I kept thinking it would go away when I was too consumed with pleasure to think, but even at the peak, I still had this strange dissociative feeling that I was the character who orgasmed even while she emotionally and mentally hated what was happening to her. What sucks is that I didn’t hate it! I had never hated it before, and with everything in me I wanted to be enjoying sex as I always had. I cried when we were finished. Not like my normal dying walrus crying, but just silent tears, so as not to ruin the normally beautiful afterglow of lovemaking. Idiotic, I know, again. Of course when he noticed I was crying he didn’t want me to keep it from him, and the way he held me and stroked my hair and whispered to me was so comforting that it was almost like that horrible sensation had never happened. I told him about what I was feeling, about why I didn’t tell him “no.” In hindsight, I think I was almost afraid of what would happen if I had said “no” and he hadn’t accepted it. I would rather not take the chance, small as it is, for him to consciously assault me, especially when Manuel is so trustworthy. The main reason I didn’t say “no” is because of that excess-empathy where I put others’ needs above my own to the point where it hurts me. I told him how much I would hate it if I was all in the mood and he wasn’t. But after a long, thoughtful pause characteristic of him, he told me, “It would be inaccurate to say I don’t enjoy having sex with you. I do. But that’s not the main reason I do it. It’s because I love making love to you, it’s being able to make you happy in a way that only I can. So if for any reason you don’t enjoy it, or are afraid you might not, or whatever, you can tell me. It doesn’t matter if we’re just getting started, or if I’m about to be inside you, or if I already am. I just want you to be happy.” Wow. It seems so obvious now! Of course sex is only really enjoyable if all parties are enjoying it. Enjoyment is almost requisite for consent! He has an attitude everyone should have, but in a world where rape is rampant, I was overjoyed. Sure enough, the next night, when things started getting heated, I was like “I don’t really want to right now.” And sure enough, no questions asked, “no” meant “no.” I felt more powerful and more loved than I had in a long time in that moment, and realized that I had been this powerful and loved and respected the whole time. I always knew that I could say no, but I had never wanted to because I had always been a little afraid of it. Now I knew that I had power in myself and also that my ability to choose was validated by him. I know, no one needs permission to say “no,” but having that talk erased the irrational guilt I felt about shutting down the mood. And paradoxically, that made the next night’s mood even stronger. Knowing that I was in control, both in my own mind and in his, banished the intrusive thoughts and let me enjoy myself the way I always have, fearlessly. Sounds like a fairy tale, right? Apparently people (or at least my man) are capable of sexy consent. Who knew. |