Maybe you don’t know what “misread” means. There is no “no”. There’s no hesitation in body language. There’s always a response to whatever move I make. The “misread” come from me thinking it’s a green light but maybe there is something in her head that makes her impossible for her to say no even if she isn’t happy, something I cannot possibly know or control.
It’s when the completely innocent get punished for something beyond their control.
“No” means stop.
“Wait” means stop.
“I’m not sure” means stop.
Sudden change in body language means stop.
Loss of consciousness or intoxication, suspected or realised, means stop.
Any hint of a doubt means stop.
Internal/psychological/life problems I cannot possibly know are not my fault. What if I (extreme case) remind her of a guy who abused her 15 years ago in another country and that made her accept my advances? This is the kind of thing I’m talking about.
It’s worth noting that those who claim they personally do it are talking about verbal consent, not non-verbal consent, which has been the focus of my responses (unless I’m missing something.) Though it’s pretty obvious there is widespread disagreement on what exactly ‘‘consent’’ means, even among advocates of affirmative consent.
I really have no problem with the definition as it’s been written into California law (though again, I have reservations about making it law at all, especially because it seems to make the standard more subjective, not less… but we’ll see how it pans out in practice.)
[QUOTE=Aji de Gallina]
Maybe you don’t know what “misread” means. There is no “no”. There’s no hesitation in body language. There’s always a response to whatever move I make. The “misread” come from me thinking it’s a green light but maybe there is something in her head that makes her impossible for her to say no even if she isn’t happy, something I cannot possibly know or control.
[/QUOTE]
If you are touching someone and their body is responding with enthusiasm to your touches or saying ‘‘ooo ooo yeah’’ or whatever, then there is no conceivable way I can interpret that as sexual assault. If this person has later regrets or didn’t feel great about the experience on some subconscious level then she needs to deal with her history of trauma, but that’s not on you. I don’t think any reasonable person would think that’s somehow sexual assault. You might feel shit afterwards if you find out she was dealing with those issues, but that doesn’t make you the bad guy.
To give an extreme, fictional example, there is a romance book called ‘‘Asking for It’’ by Lila Pace, about a woman who has extreme rape fantasies. She hooks up with a guy who also has extreme rape fantasies. They make a mutual, consensual agreement to engage in these fantasies within a clear and explicit framework. Near the end of the book, he discovers she has severe rape trauma that for whatever reason drives her toward these fantasies (kind of a myth, but whatever) and he feels like utter shit and considers himself profoundly betrayed.
That man did not commit sexual assault. I think the law would agree and I think most reasonable people would agree, even if they feel weirded out by the particular proclivities of this couple.
For my part, I had a first sexual encounter with someone not too long ago. We were into our second bottle of wine, and I still made explicitly clear that it was okay to take the next step before I took the next step pretty much every step of the way. “Lemme take off your bra…” “I’m gonna make up for some lost time down here…” “Have you ever had a rimjob? No? Want one?” And so on, and so forth. And despite that, I did not notice any of that “ruining the mood” as Starving Artist would put it. It’s not that hard. I like the way Even Sven put it quite a bit. This shit ain’t rocket science.
It’s times like this that I really wish there was a hell, so that I could believe she was there.
Some people are talking about sex like it’s a thing that often happens in absolute silence, which might be true but runs completely counter to my own experience. Even in the absence of concern about consent there is a lot of communication. So, I don’t understand why this is so difficult.