Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the way I can unconsciously slide from a state of enthusiasm to a state of being willing, and more disturbingly, from a state of willing to a state of tolerating. This process generally ends when things become decidedly intolerable, and I find myself thinking, “How did I get here?!” I can start out enthusiastically agreeing to an activity, and somewhere along the way, I may realize that it’s not going to be as enjoyable as I

When I talk about systemic inequity as a factor in consent, it can be confusing to people. Am I saying that people who are marginalized are less likely to have consent in their interactions? Does this mean that some people are always victims? How systemic inequity, growing up, and existing within inequitable societies affects consent is very complex. First of all, our proximity to power(or lack of it) is an intersectional experience that is a combination of all of our identit

One of the messages about consent that I wish every young person knew is this: No matter what, no matter when, no matter with who, when it comes to your physical autonomy, you can ALWAYS change your mind. Even if you were the one who asked for touch, and you only asked 5 seconds ago, you can still change your mind! One thing that really disturbs me is when I hear of a new app coming out that will help people to “get consent” before sex by having both people sign or say that t

Here are my top 5 tips for talking to the young people in your life about consent! Consent is about so much more than sex! Talk to your kids about consent in all of their daily interactions. By talking about and practicing consent during non-sexual, and even non-physical interactions, young people integrate the concepts and skills needed to navigate more complex and high stakes interactions later on. 2. Ask your kids about when they have a hard time saying no to others, heari

Being able to clearly ask for what we want is essential to consent. When we can’t ask for what we want, we do something called “desire smuggling”. In the past we have talked about consent with mottos such as “No Means No!”, and “Yes Means Yes.”, and “Only an Enthusiastic Yes is Consent.” These are all examples of what we call the permissive model of consent, in which consent is about one person asking for something and another person saying yes or no. We would like to see the

What is the Freeze Response and what does it have to do with consent? Most of us have heard of the autonomic Fight and Flight responses that kick in when a person (or any mammal!) faces a perceived danger. But there is a third autonomic response – the Freeze response. The Freeze Response, also known as tonic immobility, is a physical survival mechanism that is completely outside of our conscious control. It causes changes to a person’s heart rate, circulation, breathing, visi

Consent between people becomes much more complicated when they have significantly differing positions of power in the world. In some cases it is expressly impossible to have consent between individuals, making relationships illegal between a therapist or a probation officer and their clients, for example. So, in some cases, no, they should not be asking. In many other cases power differentials between people don’t explicitly prohibit relationships, but do make the ability to

The latest consent motto is “Anything but an enthusiastic Yes is a No!” That has led to some confusion, because often we consent to something even when we are not jumping up and down with desire, and there are a lot of legitimate reasons for that. Personally, I can think of more than a few times when I did something for someone that was not my own explicit desire out of a genuine feeling of generosity, because it was something that they very much wanted. Was I enthusiastic in

Most of us have a hard time hearing “No”. It often feels like rejection, or even as an indictment of the very core of who we are. We are usually too lost in the feelings of insecurity that a “No” brings up in us, to understand that the person who just said “No” probably struggled to say something uncomfortable in order to give us important information about how they feel. There are a lot of books and courses out there to teach people how to get better at having boundaries and

Many of us have a hard time saying “No”. And we have a lot of strategies that we employ when we are put in the position of wanting or needing to say “No”, but we want to avoid doing so. Some of us avoid situations or people who we feel might put us in this position, limiting our activities or movements. Some of us laugh or try to make a joke out of the situation, or toss a word salad to distract from what we’re actually saying. Some people are so conditioned that saying “No”

I used to say "Maybe" when I really meant "No". So one thing that maybe can mean is, “I want to say no, but I’m scared.” Sometimes we say"Maybe" because we’re really not sure what we want. This can mean a lot of things, from “I want to do something with you, but I’m not sure I want to do that thing,” to “I want to do that, but I’m not sure right now is a good time” to any number of combinations that make us unsure. Sometimes we say "Maybe" because we are having a hard time kn