Consent is Mac’s response to “Regarding Consent is Mac”
By Shannon Mahedy and Taylor Muenchow
We recently read the opinion piece, published in the The Mac Weekly’s final issue, titled “Regarding Consent is Mac,” and we felt the need write a response that reaffirms the intent of our campaign. Consent is Mac does not represent a way to simplify the action of obtaining consent, but rather attempts to address the nuances that exist. We understand consent to be an active process and choice, based on equal power dynamics, which is echoed by our pledge. The Consent is Mac pledge, written by students, states, “I have the responsibility to ensure all parties actively want each step of the interaction to occur.” This reaffirms that the conversation about consent is active, and that the absence of no does not mean yes. The pledge also establishes the basis of equal power that consent represents: “I have the responsibility to ensure my partner is comfortable. I have the responsibility to check my actions and decisions to make sure they are good for me and others.” Furthermore, the pledge supports the concept of consent as a choice: “I have the responsibility to accept ‘NO’ for an answer. If I do not want physical closeness, I have the right to say ‘NO’ at any point in the interaction.” We must make sure that our partners feel free to say yes or no without pressure, because consent is not legitimate without the prerequisites of free will, equal power, and active listening. Finally, consent is a process, and it is important that the conversation goes beyond just the act of “getting consent,” in order to ensure that everyone has the right to mutually consensual and pleasurable physical experiences.
It is important to remember that the Consent is Mac campaign is just one part of Macalester's comprehensive sexual violence prevention efforts. This umbrella includes a variety of efforts, including a newly revised Sexual Misconduct Policy, Sexual Violence Prevention Working Group, This Matters @ Mac, Safer Sex Week, Green Dot Bystander Intervention, SEXY Training, Continued Conversations, Sexual Assault Support Team (SAST), Sex Trivia Night, Safer Sex Kits, Sexual Violence Prevention Month, Denim Day, FIA*STARSA, and a sexual violence session at study abroad orientations. Consent is Mac is just one piece of a larger sexual violence prevention puzzle, and we understand that the consent paradigm is just one part of many efforts to dismantle our society’s entrenched and ubiquitous rape culture. Unfortunately, the pervasive nature of rape culture means that Mac students are still socialized into it, and we may be generally more "awake" or "educated" than other college campuses, but we still can benefit from starting this wider conversation with the concept of consent.
Consent is the gateway to addressing more implicit societal issues, with the eventual goal of sparking cultural transformations that will make respectful and mutual sexual interactions, based on compassion and active listening, the norm. It may not be the perfect paradigm, but it’s one way of beginning to dismantle our socialized perceptions of sex as something to get (get laid, to score) in an aggressive or violent way (bang, screw, tap). Popular culture often teaches us that it’s sexy to make assumptions about what someone wants in order to preserve “the mood.” Masculinity is often tied to taking control, and movies always cut consent, or any forms of verbal communication, from sex scenes. However, in reality, communication and active listening in any vulnerable interpersonal encounter are paramount. Therefore, we aren’t trying to oversimplify complex human interactions by lauding the practice of consent. However, simplifying the idea of asking for consent is one way of undermining some of the dangerous tenets of rape culture that we just mentioned.
Demonstrating the simplicity of asking for consent helps to show that talking to, listening to, and respecting your partner are integral and simple parts of a sexual encounter. Consent involves making sure that both parties are coherent and comfortable enough to actually have sex. We recognize that it's complicated, and that it’s often not as simple and straight-forward as "Do you want to have sex?" but some variation of an on-going dialogue or discussion is necessary and important. Furthermore, consent does foster compassion and equal power dynamics when it's done the right way. If it isn't based on equal power relations and free will, it's not consent. If it isn't on-going and continuous, it's not consent. If the person is incapacitated, it is not consent. Consent ensures that everyone feels comfortable, and that checking-in with, and listening to, one’s partner are consistent. We can't know whether or not their partner is interested unless we talk about it, and make sure that they’re completely on-board.
On a more legal basis, consent is unfortunately one of the clearest ways to address sexual assault and rape in court. Our society doesn’t appear to be ready to promote compassion and active listening as the obvious prerequisites to a sexual encounter. Therefore, in our current societal context, we need a catchy and definable conceptual paradigm that can hold people accountable, especially in a legal situation. If we don’t use this concept in the prosecution of cases, how will we talk about sexual assaults in this context? Consent creates a necessary binary metaphor to show that sex without the aforementioned tenets of being active, a process, based on equal power, and a choice, is not sex. Sex without consent is rape. Consent can be messy, and it doesn’t have take the same form each time, but it needs to be present in every sexual encounter, throughout the encounter. Until sex is universally viewed as a mutually pleasurable and beneficial experience for all parties, based on respect and active listening, consent will be necessary in our society. Unfortunately, sex is often shaped and warped into an act of aggressive conquest, based on one’s own personal desires. Until we can reframe sexual encounters as a society, we can’t consider dropping consent as a necessary paradigm.
The aforementioned Op-Ed, “Regarding Consent is Mac,” written by a Macalester student, showed us that there is a potential disconnect between how people perceive our program, and the actual tenets and goals of our program. However, it is exciting to us that people are thinking about the nuances of consent, and how these nuances apply to their own interpersonal relationships. Addressing the nuances of consent is one of the goals of our program, in order to stimulate conversation, and to further examine consent's role in our society. Many of the events we have held throughout the year address several of the different complexities that are tied to consent. Continued Conversations are held to address topics such as the complex ways in which alcohol, relationships, and consent intersect. Our lunches with professors like Harry Waters Jr. and Liz Jansen aimed to address the topics of masculinity and myths and misconceptions about sex and sexuality, which are both tangentially related to consent. The Consent is Mac Tumblr also serves as a platform to address the complexities of consent in more detail and depth, by looking at broader cultural discussions surrounding sexual assault and consent on other college campuses, as well as in the media.
We appreciate student Op-Eds and response pieces like this because they allow us to examine our program and reaffirm our stances. We want to keep this campaign as an entity led by students for students, and if you have any concerns or suggestions, please reach out to us and let us know which aspect of consent you would like to see addressed.
