The affirmative consent portion is extremely important- I’d say the most important thing in this piece.
With every discussion on consent, rape culture, or rape in general, there is always that one male (sorry) who says, “You need to shout NO if you don’t want to have sex.”
…How about you simply keep it in your pants and wait for a yes?
Men are not dumb, and I hate how suddenly they are given the intellect of children when these conversations come up. They know when someone wants to have sex with them, as you said. If they have to convince themselves or question it even for a moment, then there is a problem.
There are more obvious perpetrators of rape culture, and they are easy to spot. I’ve come across hundreds of then these past few weeks in writing pieces on this issue. I’d actually be interested to see what you would say to the man that I dedicated a piece to a few weeks ago- (To The Man on Twitter Who Says Rape Culture Doesn’t Exist, for reference). Men like this don’t listen to women like me; they need other men to lead by example.
Then, there are the seemingly “good guys” who insist that we scream “NO!” because communication is important and simple, right? Not exactly. When they say this, they are subtly implying two things:
- It’s our fault if we were raped because we didn’t say NO loud or clear enough
- The potential victim is always responsible for not getting raped, rather than the rapist being responsible for not raping.
These hidden messages are the most important ones to correct because they come from semi-reasonable (albeit uneducated and slightly ignorant) people. They have a shot at changing, though. With a little knowledge they can see the big picture.
Anyone else who seriously argues any of your points is a piece of shit in my book.
Thank you for clearing laying it out for us. There are thousands of men who need to read this…NOW.
