The Healing Power of Consent
The first time someone asked
if they could cross the threshold
beneath my waistline,
and again before penetrating
the portal presumed to be
entitled to boys before—
they'd never asked,
I'd never known to
expect them to—
but when she did
I lost control of
the water in my eyes
and between my thighs.
My body
finally
felt like mine.
Consent was a rocky road for me. Being sexually assaulted was the first thing I experienced but couldn’t remember—it was the first truth I told, but wasn’t believed. It was the first thing about me that most people knew because of how
other
it made me.
And yet, as it turns out, I wasn’t other at all.
Consent is a word we have had to familiarize ourselves with because we participate in a culture that requires we turn off our questions, put up with misinformation, and ignore our feelings of unfairness and the violation of our divine human frailty in order to make a living. In order to be a “fUnCtiOnAL mEmBeR of SoCiEtY!” We aren’t allowed to be scared, hurt, disabled, tired, or sick. We aren’t allowed to say no. The people in charge of this country decide all things for us and barely hear us when we say no.
It’s no wonder there’s no less than two alleged rapists on the highest court in the country.
Violation of consent trickles
d
o
w
n.
When we uphold the white supremacist capitalist cishetero patriarchy, we uphold violations of consent. When we stifle our emotions, when we deny our pain, when we pretend to be stronger than our trauma, we are out of alignment with the free will which is our right to embody as living beings walking this earth—and expressing our own free will, our right to say no with no explanation, is a sacred and unalienable manifestation of consent.
Betrayal by omission is a violation of consent. Manipulation is a violation of consent. Cheating is a violation of consent. Harboring feelings and hopes for a romantic relationship with someone with whom you’ve never had a conversation about said feelings and then growing resentful of them for “friendzoning” you is a violation of consent. Lying is a violation of consent. So is the repetitious cycle of behavior that abusers employ to keep their victims attached to them via a trauma bond. Misgendering someone is a violation of consent. Microaggressions towards marginalized people. Gentrification. Colonization. Capitalism. War. Even ignoring the Earth’s warning signs of her suffering at our hands by way of the climate crisis is a violation of consent.
Consent is mandatory, yes. Consent is necessary. Consent should be the standard and it doesn’t have to qualify as “sexy” to be that. The invocation of consent’s defender ‘Boundary’ can sound a lot like
fuck off, motherfucker.
Sometimes it’s a block button.
Sometimes it’s a whispered warning about a
predator
to someone who doesn’t know better.
But the expression of consent can also be sexy
It can be a conversation about what you like
that feels like foreplay.
It can be a yes
yes
yes
oh my fucking
god
that feels so
fucking
good!!!
And a check in can be as filthy as a
do you like that, baby?
mmm do you feel me?
show me what you want.
Or as thoughtful as a safe word.
Or stopping at a slight tensing up
or withdrawal.
The feeling of safety that develops for me when someone is honoring my consent when I have a say in what goes down with my own body is unmatched—when someone is vulnerable with me when they give me all the information and give me the freedom, the space, the love to make my own, fully educated decision—when I can really trust someone?? That’s where intimacy develops. And intimacy, true emotional intimacy, that’s the foundation for love. Real, grown, honest to goodness, so-sweet-you-don’t-mind-how-long-you-went-without-it love.
That’s acceptance.
That’s unconditional positive regard.
That’s freedom.
