A Culture of Coerced Consent
The limits of Yes-Means-Yes
This Thursday, I’ll share highlights from your comments on making amends for being part of unjust systems. This week, we’re talking about the limits of consent culture.
Melissa Febos had a recent reflection in the New York Times Magazine about how covid has brought an unexpected peace to her life—with social distancing, men stop touching her without warning. She doesn’t have to spend her energy on avoiding unwanted touch or letting people down gently when they ask for consent to touch that she doesn’t want to give.
[Content warning: the linked article includes a story of sexual assault, as well as discussion of Febos’s stint as a sex worker].
One of her stories that stuck with me was her experience at a “cuddle party.” The party was limited in scope (she describes it as “a platonic orgy with clear boundaries”) and the event begins with everyone getting practice in asking for consent and respectfully accepting a no.
The trouble was, a “No” felt almost impossible for Febos to give, even when she was expected to:
The host spoke in a warm tone as he reviewed the rules. At the third rule (You must ask permission and receive a verbal “yes” before you touch anyone), he asked us to turn to a nearby person and perform a role play. One person would ask, “Do you want to cuddle?” The other would answer, “No.” The first would then respond, “Thank you for taking care of yourself.”
The nervous young man and I faced each other.
“Do you want to cuddle?” he asked.
“No,” I said, and my mouth involuntarily stretched into a smile, as if I needed to soften the refusal. My face grew hot, and I felt myself blinking quickly. Was it really so hard for me to give an anticipated no? I felt uneasy, surprised by the strength of my reaction to the exercise.
Next, the host asked us to repeat the role play, but this time to ask our partners, “Can I kiss you?” Kissing is not allowed at the cuddle party, so this exercise was even more forgone than the previous one. Still, I had no interest whatsoever in kissing the young man, and to pretend, even in this transparent context, increased my discomfort exponentially. My voice croaked when I asked, and his face flushed when he said no. When he asked me, and I refused him again, my tone was so apologetic that it seemed farcical. I couldn’t seem to control my affect; like a pinched hose, the words eked out of me in odd directions.
After the opening exercises, Febos quickly finds herself saying “Yes” when she would rather say “No” and enduring unwanted touch in silence.
A culture focused on consent as the primary marker of whether sex is moral misses these kinds of clashes. (It also neglects whether the participants are willing the good of the other, and whether they’re right about what that good consists of, but that’s a whole ‘nother post).
It can be a relief to have some things be off the table rather than to have to navigate the constant threat of a question and a no. When I lived in California for a year, the surrounding society was fairly polyamorous, and everyone I met was polite and gracious about my demurrals. But it still changed the way I approached friendships—I didn’t feel like I could rely on my own romantic relationship to create a clear boundary.
A culture of constant questions feels like moving through Times Square, full of blazing advertisements, aggressive sidewalk hawkers, and semi-nude women. All you have to do is keep moving, keep your eyes down, and keep saying no, but that work diminishes the walk.
When limits are clear and expectations are shared, it can be easier to relax. When everything is up for asking, all encounters are more charged and tense. The burden of setting limits falls disproportionally on women.
I think consent culture and female socialization keep running up against each other and interfering with each other. A lot of women (myself included) have such a hard time saying no to anything at all, or breaking a social script, or going against what everyone else is doing... I find it hard to even say a straight "no" to a store cashier when they ask me if I want a rewards card (I always say "not today" like I'm going to go home and seriously contemplate the pros and cons of an Old Navy credit card or whatever).
I have two contradictory impulses when it comes handling uncomfortable situations. One impulse is to assert what I actually want. The other impulse is to smooth everything over and not rock the boat - and because this impulse has been ingrained so deeply in me, it usually wins. We've layered a cultural expectation that women will assert themselves in sexually charged situations on top of an older, stronger, unspoken cultural rule that women should be polite and accommodating. It's like trying to mix oil and water, and I think it's a major contributor to clashes like Febos describes in her article.
It’s interesting that covid has clarified the boundaries for some people. For me, I feel like it’s only magnified the murkiness of social interaction. Do you hug? Do you elbow bump? Do you wear a mask? Do you talk about vaccinations or avoid the subject? It’s made hanging out with friends so stressful. I guess it would be easier if one is the same “tribe” as one’s friends, but for not-so-partisan people like me, covid has made boundaries more fluid and stressful, not clearer and more of a relief.