A Real Conversation About the Heart of Sexual Consent
Whenever the topic of consent comes up, I frequently hear the same thing: "It shouldn't be that complicated." And for every person I hear say it, there’s probably a dozen more who think it.
I’ve learned that, almost every time, what they really mean is: "I don't want it to be that complicated." And that makes sense. No one wants things to be complicated.
And if we hear that something is more complicated that we understand it to be, there’s the risk we’re going to learn we did something wrong. So we end up worried about embarrassment and shame.
And finally, when we add that this complicated thing—that we may have made mistakes around and might not really understand—is what defines whether or not what we do is sexual assault, it gets really uncomfortable to look at if not downright threatening.
So it is easier to just say, “it shouldn’t be that complicated.”
But what if consent isn't actually complicated? What if it's just unfamiliar?
There's a big difference there. Complicated means hard to understand, difficult, confusing, or overwhelming. Unfamiliar means you haven't had much practice. Consent, done well, is actually rich and adaptive. Sometimes its pretty simple. Other times its nuanced. But it is always worth the conversation.
So, let's have it.
What Consent Actually Is
Consent, at its core, is your right to choose whether to engage in an interaction with another person and to decide what happens with your own body. That is the simplest definition. Consent is the foundation of all sexual health. Without it, everything else about sexual health falls apart.
Why Consent Gets Difficult
So why does it seem to get so difficult? In almost all cases, the answer is simple: people forget that they’re dealing with another person. They lose sight of the fact that the other person has their own experience. They have their own likes, dislikes, wants, fears, preferences, curiosities, comfort levels, and values about sex. When that gets lost, we start objectifying the person. The word objectifying sounds big, but it doesn't just happen in dramatic ways. It happens every time we treat someone's experience as irrelevant.
Consent would actually be pretty simple if we held onto two truths:
Everyone is a human being with their own hopes, fears, desires, worries, preferences, and limits.
Another person's experience matters just as much to them as yours does to you.
If sexual partners think and act in alignment with both of those, the whole conversation changes. You wouldn’t want to have an experience that was awful, felt terrible, and that you would regret later. Other people don’t want to have that experience either. And if their experience is as important as yours, then you wouldn’t want them to have that kind of experience either. Instead, you’d be curious and proactive in making sure that the experience is one that you both enjoy and feel good about, all while they did the same for you.
Shifting Consent From Intimidating to Inviting
Consent as a topic can feel a bit daunting or scary to talk about because of how big the consequences of getting it wrong are. We talk so much in society about violations of consent and the devastating harm that can come from that. We have a huge legal framework, intricate language, and clinical diagnoses all defining, codifying, and punishing the harm of violating consent. And rightly so. Breaching consent is a big deal. And, at the same time, when we only talk about it in response to violations, we miss the bigger picture.
What we don’t talk nearly enough about is what consent looks like when it is working. Consent is actually a health word. It is a forward-looking, pleasure-affirming, relationship-building word. Rather than focusing on “here’s how to avoid committing assault in your sexual relationship,” we could be focusing on “here’s how to have more confidence, trust, and pleasure in your sexual relationship.” One is risk avoidance with a focus on the punishments, the other is an invitation to relationship and responsibilities with a focus on the benefits.
Which conversation sounds more inviting to you?
Cultivating Curiosity in Consent
One of the most useful frameworks I've encountered for thinking about consent is what sexual therapist and educator Doug Braun-Harvey calls the "zone of consent." Consent isn't binary. It exists on a spectrum.
In the above graphic, the center is your “yes” area. These are all things that you enjoy, that are turn-ons, that are sexually pleasurable, that you desire, and that you are good with doing and experiencing.
The outermost area is your “no” area. These are all things that you don’t like, that are your turn-offs, that you are not ok doing or experiencing.
Then there’s this area in between. It isn’t an immediate yes and it isn’t an immediate no. It’s uncertain. It’s maybe. This is where the work of consent lives. This is where real conversations need to happen, not out of fear of getting it wrong, but out of engagement and curiosity about making the experience great.
Braun-Harvey suggests five questions that really invite us into the zone of consent, that middle ground on the spectrum. Start by asking these questions about yourself.
Do you know what kind of sex you want?
Do you know what kind of sex you desire?
Do you know what kind of sex you enthusiastically enjoy?
Can you clearly and confidently say or describe what you want?
How conscious or attentive during sex are you about guiding your partner with your consent and pleasure? (To be more specific, what are the cues you use? What are the sounds you make? What are the signals you give? What are the ways you move your body?)
How conscious or attentive during sex are you about taking guidance from your partner based on their consent and pleasure? (To be more specific, what cues, sounds, signals, or movements do they use to help guide you?)
These can be hard questions to answer. Sometimes we haven’t thought about this before. Often we haven’t ever put these things into words.
Now, go back over those questions and shift the questions to be about your sexual partner. How well do you know them?
All The Other Stuff are Tools
You’ve may have heard of “consent is like a cup of tea” or “consent is like riding a bicycle.”
Maybe you’ve heard of the “consent pizza,” a framework developed by the amazing Al Vernacchio. If you haven’t, it is probably one of my favorites, so I strongly suggest you take a few minutes to watch the video of him teaching it (it’s only 8 minutes long).
Planned Parenthood developed FRIES. That was revised into CRISP by a group of Intimacy Coordinators in the entertainment industry. And then when you move into kink, there are even more like Safe, Sane, Consensual (SSC); Risk-Aware Consensual Kink (RACK); Personal Responsibility, Informed, Consensual Kink (PRICK), the 4 C’s, Explicit Prior Permission (EPP), and others.
Are all of these things different forms of consent? Heavens no. They are tools for helping people navigate conversations about consent. Different models have different strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing or drawing out different aspects of people’s experiences and permission for different situations.
These tools can help us to check in and see if we are truly paying attention to our partner’s (and our own) experience. They can help us check for blind spots or assumptions. You don’t have to remember all of them. Get to know one or two and start having conversations with your partner. Ask them which models they like.
Remember the Heart of Consent
When in doubt, come back to this: my partner is having their own experience in this moment. Do they like it? Do they want this? Ask them. Keep asking them, and make sure they ask you. Keep being curious about what they want. Keep sharing what you want. If you do that, consent becomes so much easier.
Could You Use Some Help?
Sometimes it can be hard to figure out how to have conversations about sex, whether that’s about consent or even asking what our partner’s want. Sometimes we don’t know what we want. Sometimes we’re afraid of what we want. If you want to better understand yourself and your partner or how to have these conversations, we can help. That’s exactly the kind of work we do at Pivotal Counseling.
Learn more about our sex therapy services or schedule a free consultation to chat with us about your concerns. We’d be happy to answer whatever questions you have.
