I recently had an open and honest conversation with a guy friend about sex. The conversation turned to what he disliked in sex and he spoke about how he hated when his sexual partner just laid there doing nothing. As someone of the opposite gender this bothered me for several reasons which I put to my friend. Did you consider whether they wanted to be having sex? Perhaps they weren’t comfortable? Maybe they felt like they had to be there? Such questions weren’t meant as accusatory, but I wanted my friend to think about what it was like for their sexual partner, and after the initial defensiveness they started to understand the importance of what I was saying. Women love sex too (!) so if she’s just laying there perhaps it’s time to ask her and yourself some questions?
What I was teaching my friend about, and what he went on and spoke to his guy friends about, was something called enthusiastic consent. For the uninitiated, enthusiastic consent is the idea that consent moves beyond the initial ‘yes’ and is shown by engagement and enthusiasm. It’s about checking in with your sexual partner and acknowledging their sexual and emotional signals. It’s also about acknowledging that consent can’t be given where there is manipulation, pressure, threats, and where both people aren’t in the right state of mind. I wasn’t surprised when my friend revealed that he’d never really…
