With all this R Kelly drama going around, I felt the need to talk about the topic of consent.
What is consent? Consent is giving permission for something to happen, however, the lines have become very blurred between what is clearly consent and what isn’t. Does certain body language equate to consent? If so what kind of body language? If a firm yes or no isn’t said out loud, what cues are you looking for? Do you really think you understand the person enough to know when they are giving behavioural signs indicating they want what you’re offering? If it’s your girl or your man is that automatically consent?
So many people are confused on what this means. Without a firm yes or no, we start to look for other signs that what we are doing is okay. I feel a lot of people out there interpret that if a person does not say no, that that is an automatic yes.
To be honest, I will come out and say that I have been sexually abused. Women in general are ten times more likely to be sexually abused than men and that number can be higher if you are part of a protected group (i.e. Aboriginal, disabled, or a minority). Obviously I never knew at the time that that was what was happening, but because I didn’t straight up say no to these men, they took it as their permission to continue. Honestly, it’s a mindset that I feel a lot of women especially fall into. That, along with the persistent pressure coming from the other end. I know you fellas out there don't like to give up and keep asking us over and over again. I always got hit with the "well if it's not now, I know this is going to go down sometime in the future because we're talking so we might as well just do it now", or "it's just sex it's no big deal" or the infamous "you're really going to leave me with blue balls"? Guys, there's billions of pussies out there okay? You don't need this one moment. I know a lot of us girls (or maybe it's just me) also go through a self-talk kind of thing in our heads where we convince ourselves that what is happening is okay and to just let it go because we don’t want to seem annoying or bitchy. Half of your brain is screaming no, and the other half is saying fuck it. There's a lot of motherfucking pressure okay?
My point is, this is all internal. How is whoever you are with supposed to know if you are giving them permission if you have the mindset like I had? Ladies, let’s take our power back. Let’s take our bodies back! Let’s not give a fuck about what some guys opinion that you probably shouldn't be with anyways. Let’s speak up about what happens to us because it is not okay for anyone to treat us as anything less than human. Let’s teach our future daughters what this means and our future sons how to respect women. Consent is sexy. Let’s use our voices to get exactly what we want, and nothing we don’t.
