Get Sexy. Get Consent.

As a continuation of the dialogue that began from the Sex Talk symposium, I attended a theater for dialogue program about consent. The event was called Get Sexy. Get Consent. and was put on by Voices Against Violence (VAV).

The program started with the actor and actresses acting out silent scenarios ranging from riding a form of public transportation to playing a friendly game of basketball. Each scenario differed in the type of sexual advances/activities as well as the enjoyment of these advances/activities. After this specific performance, we found out that these scenarios were supposed to get us thinking about the variety of ways that sexual assault could occur and how consent can play a factor in many situation that are not necessarily about sex (e.g., oral and anal). During this first performance, the scenario that really stood out to me was about a man who interjected himself between to women dancing, so he could dance with one of the women (who by the way was not enjoying the man’s attention) . When this scenario was acted out I found it to be vey ambiguous in that it would not immediately register with me that this type of interjection is a violation against consent. I see this type of move all the time in clubs, movies and shows, but no one really makes a deal about it, so I guess it never stood out to me as a big deal. But now, I am definitely going to be on the lookout for this subtle but really disturbing act. I feel like this situation shows that sexual assault (i.e., any unwanted sexual contact that is performed without consent) can happen quickly and unexpectedly. Furthermore, ambiguous situations such as this common move in clubs appear to be the hardest to detect, but often the most dangerous and most common.     

From the numerous skits and the discussions after them, I also came to the realization that people need to actively try to be like detectives. Specifically, people (we) need to take an active role in reading body language and listening to verbal cues (i.e., No means no. Not, no actually means yes.) Furthermore, I feel that a major problem in this area of behavior is the mentality of “oh, they are just playing hard to get.” People need to remember that sometimes the other person is just not interested in you (I think there is a book or movie titled somewhere along the lines of “he’s just not that into you”). Furthermore, if they are interested in you, that does not mean they are interested in doing everything with you. One of the key points of VAV is “asking, not assuming.” This point then reminded me of a saying my roommate told me: Don’t mistake politeness for an invitation. In a similar way, people can’t assume that just because someone smiles at you that it means they want you to invade their personal space, be grabbing, and not know how to take “no” for an answer. Ultimately, navigating through the land of sex it all about respect, respect no only for your desires and boundaries but for those of the person you want to be intimate with.    

Another issue that seemed to be problematic in the realm of getting consent was that people get caught-up in the moment and don’t’ have any type of discussion or that people are afraid that if they do bring up questions about consent then the mood is officially killed. Therefore, we spent a bit of time during this program talking about how to make asking for consent sexy. I think one of the best ways and may be the easiest way is to use your sexy voice, but I realize that not everyone sexy voice is actually considered sexy, so that may not work. As a result, I have made it a game with myself (I might drag my roommate in to it) to come up with sexy ways to ask for consent or permission to move forward from on sexual/intimate level to another. If you have any suggests, please let me know! Don’t be embarrassed, that is the whole point of starting a dialogue about these topics. 

The last point I would like to talk about is how authority comes into play with sexual assault and coercion. On of the first scenarios depicted a yoga instructor repositioning a student by physically touching their legs, hips, arms, and trunk. What struck a cord with me was that the student was looked vey uncomfortable and it was really difficult to watch this play out. Later the VAV made the point that consent means feeling free and safe to say “no”. Together, these two facets reaffirm for me that there is definitely a connection between being in a position of power or authority over another person and unintentionally or intentionally using that position to coerce someone to do something they don’t want to do. I would love to better understand how an individual could properly and safely address such issues about personal boundaries with someone who has authority over them such as an instructor of some sort.

Overall, I really enjoyed this program. And although the skits and how the issues of consent were handled (i.e., the conversations between actors and volunteers) seemed more optimistic/easy than what probably actually happens between couples or two people hooking-up, I felt the general idea of how to possibly go about addressing these issues was helpful to an extent. Lastly and more importantly, I feel that VAV at least made it known that there are levels to the issues of consent and that consent is a natural facet of sex; therefore, it deserves to be talked about as a way to keep people safe.