Well, if I tried the OP’s suggestions with my current nookie provider, she would probably kick my ass out of her bed and tell me that she already has a pussy and that she doesn’t need another one. I know it’s un-PC to state this, but some women just want to be taken and dominated, and that requires a diametrically opposed method to the one the OP suggests. That doesn’t mean that consent isn’t still required, but consent can be enthusiastic without being verbal.
IMO, just makes one’s stance much more clear, and more likely to put someone at ease and feel safe. But I’m not saying that my specific way is the best way, just that I thought it was a good way.
I purposefully avoided any mention of gender in my post.
My wife would absolutely hate this. Of course, if it was a new norm, maybe we’d be used to it.
Granted, I’ve never assaulted anyone because I’m not that kind of guy, so maybe I’m weird.
I know you didn’t, and the MeToo movement has been great about acknowledging that men can be victims too, but the “enthusiastic consent” standard has been used exclusively by females in reference to heterosexual encounters so far. And it kinda came up just out of the blue. I’d never heard the term until like a month ago. first it was “no means no” then “yes means yes” and now “enthusiastic consent”. The only step that remains is for women to make the first move ,or if we’re being gender netural here, nobody makes a move, because if you make a move and it makes the other feel uncomfortable, you’ve committed sexual misconduct.
After the first few sexual encounters people become a lot more comfortable with each other and can usually tell what the other person wants. That eliminates the need for a step by step yes/no directive.
Also for people who enjoy consensual non-consent games, this totally destroys that.
Basically for any couple that has been together for more than a week, this sounds like unnecessary overkill.
All this talk of consent, seems to me that 99% of it is about sexual encounters between people who haven’t had sex with each other before. Once you’ve been in a physical relationship you learn to read each other’s nonverbal cues, and you know when you have to get verbal.
I’ve been married for 20 years, obviously I’m not asking for consent every time I touch my wife and she’s not asking me for consent either. But if one of us is obviously not into it, it stops.
But what’s the downside for “enthusiastic consent” for any potential encounters with someone you don’t know very well? What’s wrong with that being the standard for encounters before a real relationship develops? You did call it a “good standard”, but then you seem critical again.
This. I can see the proposal as useful, maybe, the first time. But I’ve been married well over 30 years also, and we are both quite capable of saying no to sex in general or particular actions if they are not working.
I’m sorry to say my impression is that the OP has n ever been in a relationship where trust has been established.
I’m supportive of it as the standard you should use. I just don’t think people that fail to get the “enthusiastic” part should be treated like they committed a capital offense. There’s a difference between advocating ideal behavior and punishing nonideal behavior. The standard for social or legal punishment should be failure to gain consent. Grudging consent is still consent.
For example, ideally, a person should only have sex in safe situations. You know the person you are having sex with, you use protection or have each other’s paperwork showing a clean bill of health, and you are sober, or at least if you are in an altered mental state, you got that way with the other person under conditions where you both intended to get that way and have sex afterwards.
But in the real world, people often break from that ideal situation. They get wasted without intending to have sex and then have sex, they have sex with people they don’t know in places they’ve never been, they don’t use protection. While such actions deserve criticism, we wouldn’t punish people for these actions beyond the punishment they’ve already inflicted on themselves.
My understanding is that those doing CNC things have safe words, which allows either person to stop the action. Trusting long term relationships have safe words also, though they can be “no” or “stop that” and not a special word.
Much more efficient.
I dunno. I think I’d be really creeped out by a guy who explicitly promised not to rape me when inviting me back to his place. And I’d definitely be put off by a guy who turned me down because he didn’t feel my YES was enthusiastic enough. I’d be – who does this guy think he is….it’s our first time and he’s trying to make me beg for it? What an egomaniacal psychopath.
Well, I’d like that world 
FWIW, I have never condemned male sexual initiative as a bad thing, just not my thing.
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FWIW, note from the comments (e.g. about seduction and that some women like to be taken & dominated), that yes there really is still a gendered backdrop to our beliefs and assumptions. Not that everyone’s embracing that, mind you, but that what’s normative (and hence expected) is a set of beliefs ranging from that over to a sort of androgynous, non-gender-polarized territory. Which leaves the social mean midway in between.
It does seem that we’re trying to push things to a genderless society, and yet gender is a stubborn thing.
I would too, though I think our definitions of “explicitly” might be pretty different.
In my mid 20s I came to the belief that I needed to be more gentle and polite during sex. There was no reason for this, no assault charge of rape allegation. I remember one woman, and I can remember like it was yesterday, asking her “is it OK if we do X” and “do you mind if I to touch Y.” She quickly called me out and told me to just do what I wanted to do and what she thought I wanted her to do, and if she didn’t like it she’d say so. That was the end of my asking permission every step of the way.
Part of this whole sex thing is reading the lover/sex partner next to you. Overall, most women want a guy with confidence who know their way about the bedroom Personally, I wouldn’t get many call backs with your philosophy. Not saying you’re a bad guy or you have a bad approach, but with my experience, that would have been a non-starter a vast majority of the time.
That’s always been one of the big complications. You’ve got female opinion leaders saying one thing, but females on the ground want something different. And of course everyone wants different things. So while there are certain lines that should never be crossed, misunderstandings can happen. Groping is not a crime if you thought she wanted you to and the context of the situation was appropriate, such as you’re alone together in a private setting. Like, not at work.
Just want to add that I’m reading and hearing from a meaningful number of women for whom this is about existing relationships; that enthusiastic/explicit consent would mean that lots of wives and girlfriends would stop having sex with their partners (or stop having sex as frequently) because right now they’re feeling forced into it.
I think there’s a lot to unpack there, but it does indicate that there’s a deeper issue here than the complications of hook-up culture, and one that doesn’t go away once people are in committed relationships.
At the time, several women told me that they found it a turn on, but whatever – to each their own. At the very least I think it takes some effort if one wants to avoid the possibility of a partner feeling discomfort or fear, since many inexperienced young adults aren’t very good at making their desires (and discomfort) clear.
That is a great point, although I don’t think it’s the same kind of consent. True, there are many people that if the standard was enthusiastic consent they’d stop having sex or have it a lot less frequently. But the reason they do it is because they don’t want to lose the guy. Requiring enthusiastic consent doesn’t mean a guy doesn’t get to just dump you if you don’t give him what he wants. And that’s another issue: if a woman is having sex with you only because she wants to keep you and is not giving enthusiastic consent, would that then be sexual assault? Is the man even doing anything wrong at all in that situation?
People have different tolerances. I’ve heard some people hate condoms because it breaks up the momentum or something to put it on or ask about it. My wife needed paperwork before we started having sex. STD testing. Fine by me. But I bet if a man asked a woman to produce that, many women would be quite offended.