When I was trying to process my own sexual abuse, one of the projects my therapist assigned me was to develop my own definition of consent. And I want to share my definition with you, because I think it will help provide some clarity.
Consent can be defined as: Affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.
Affirmative can be defined as: clear verbal agreement or clear non-verbal agreement.
Conscious can be defined as: being in a condition where one is cognitively aware of their situation and has regular levels of control over their speech, body, movement, etc.
Voluntary can be defined as: agreement to the specific sexual behavior without a context of coercion, uneven power dynamics, or fear, or other situations in which disagreement risks one’s ability to have psychological, or physical safety.
So let me give some concrete examples of how this definition applies:
If you said that you didn’t want to do something, that is not affirmative agreement, and so it’s not consensual.
If you indicated nonverbally that you didn’t want to do something, then that is not affirmative agreement, and so it’s not consensual.
If you didn’t say or indicate anything about whether you wanted to or not, that is not affirmative agreement, and so it’s not consensual.
If you were intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, in a state of deep grief, in a state of extreme drowsiness, if you were partially asleep, if you were in any way inhibited by your physical condition to feel fully in control of your body or your decisions, if you felt disoriented, then that is not conscious agreement, so it’s not consensual.
If they wouldn’t accept no for an answer and continued to pressure you until you agreed, that is not voluntary agreement, so it’s not consensual.
If they put you in a situation where you felt your safety was at risk, that’s not voluntary, and not consensual.
If you didn’t know how to get out of the situation without performing the sexual act, that’s not voluntary and not consensual.
If you were scared of punishment or consequences for not going along with it, if there were threats explicit or implied, that’s not voluntary and not consensual.
If they were a boss or teacher or family member, if they had a previously established abusive relationship with you, or they were much older than you, that is an uneven power dynamic, and uneven power dynamics do not allow for voluntary agreement, and are not consensual.
If you didn’t feel safe and didn’t know how to get out of it, then your participation was not voluntary, and it what happened to you was not consensual.
A simpler version than all that– Consent is doing things you both want to do. If you didn’t want to do it, then it was not consensual. Period.
Something that helped me (and this doesn’t help everyone, so take it or leave it) is to define “sex” as inherently consensual. Rape is not sex, it’s a form of physical and psychological violence. Making this distinction can help with processing things– a few examples:
if you were raped and you’ve never had sex before, you can still consider yourself a virgin, and still have a first experience with someone safe. rape is not sex and so that experience does not mean you’ve had sex for the first time yet.
if you were raped by someone other than your partner, that doesn’t count as cheating at all because you did not have sex with anyone else.
if you were raped by a man and never had sex with a man before, you still have never had sex with a man because rape is not sex
if you are scared of sex in the coming months or years (like I was/am) and you feel broken, it helps to understand that the experience you’re afraid of is not actually sex, and really you are afraid of rape, which is completely justified and logical and doesn’t make you broken at all, it just means you love yourself enough to know you don’t want to be hurt in that way again.
It is extremely, extremely common to feel like the exception to the rule or that your experience doesn’t “count” or that if others knew everything about the situation, they would blame you. That anxiety is unfortunately really normal. But I want to be 100% direct and say that if the situation you experienced was not consensual by any definition, then anything else does not matter and it was still not consensual.
You could be alone, naked, flirting with someone and they still don’t have a right to touch you sexually without your affirmative consent. You could have vocally said “yes” in the context of constant coercive pressure, fear/threat of consequence, or an uneven power dynamic and they would still not have the right to touch you sexually without your voluntary consent. You could have said nothing and just not acted at all because you didn’t understand what was happening, and they still would not have the right to touch you sexually without your conscious consent.
You did nothing wrong. It was not your fault. You were hurt by someone else. They made the decision to hurt you, and you are in no way responsible for what they chose to do. It was not your fault.
You deserve respect, safety, and love from those around you.
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
turnnoffyourmind
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