consent

Just thinking about consent

PelgrisLeave a comment

When I am with someone there are things I am ok with nonverbal consent. A hug is ok. Touching hands is ok. Touching me in any way is ok. But I say that upfront. I give consent upfront. Anything beyond that and I need your consent. Not a nod of the head or an ok. I need explicit specific consent. If this is BDSM, then I need you to consent to the scene. If lifestyle BDSM, then I need you to tell me that you want me to act as a master does. (I will as pertains to my self and my actions, but as those actions pertain to you, I will obtain consent each time unless you consent to the larger thing. Eg, you want me as your master). I require it. It isn’t something I can take or leave. Or allow the moment to take away control. I am control. I don’t waver. Much as I may want to. I will constrain my self to what you have verbally consented to.

I understand that many don’t understand this. And it’s made relationships in the past extremely difficult. Those pauses where they would wait to be asked into my bed…ending in a kiss and a goodnight. Maybe that feels extreme to you, my readers.

Let me assure you that it isn’t. It should be the rule of the day. Consent should be understood and made to be as social law. Think of how safe you would feel if you knew that things would never be taken farther than you consent to. What would that world feel like?

I can’t make it so everywhere.
But I can make it so around me. So I do. Would that a critical mass of others did as well.

Waking up angry

Pelgris1 Comment

I should not be lauded on my attitudes of consent. I should not think of my stances as militant even though I do so.

My thoughts and actions concerning consent should be so normal that to think anything else is to act outside the norm. It should be fringe and backwater, uninformed and brutish to engage in nonconsent.

I read accounts of women and men put through horror just because they were there. Just because they wanted a job. Just because they wanted a chance to do good work. Just because they wanted to see if there was a connection. And it fills me with rage.

How is this allowed?
How is this our culture, not just in the west but in the world?

Should people in power lose their positions because of their actions?

Yes. That is the least that should occur. They should pay with their lives and livelihoods, just as their actions forced others to make the same choices. They should be stripped of every good thing they ever acquired after their actions. No profit from the pain of others.

Informed enthusiastic consent needs to be taught from a young age. It needs to be a part of the curriculum. It needs to be enforced at home. If your child does not want to hug someone they should not be forced to. Do not normalize gritting your teeth and doing the things that make you feel aick. That make you feel bad. That make you feel used. Or as an object.

“No means no” is not enough. People freeze. People become nonverbal.

No is no is placing the onus of consent on the victim rather than the aggressor.

Only informed(non impaired judgment) enthusiastic(interested, nonforced) positive(yes, yes, yes) and ongoing(given throughout the encounter) consent is real true consent. If any of those criteria is not met then nothing should happen.

And I cannot stress ongoing enough.
Yes to kiss is not yes to fuck. Yes to a drink is not yes to a kiss. Yes to a hug is not yes to a grope.
Ongoing, every step or it all stops. And the initiator needs to be watching for any sign of nonconsent. It may “kill the mood”, (yes that’s been said to me), but better that than to physically hurt or emotionally damage someone.

And you the initiator…you have consent too. You can say no, stop, no more, break off contact, all of the same rules apply. Just because you started something doesn’t mean you must continue(yes it does happen that we kissed but I didn’t want to fuck)

We are leaving so much emotional, physical, and mental wreckage in our wake. This needs to stop. We need to stop it. Culturally we need to call out every action that does this. And we need to teach our youth not only what is Not ok, but what is. They must know what their responsibility is before they can be responsible.

Too tentative

Pelgris6 Comments

I’ve been told that I’m squishy. Or too nice. That I was too sappy or too romantic.
It’s true and not true.
Tell me what you need and give consent and the Claws can come out to play. My limits are few but I need consent to be given. Otherwise, I’m just a man who will help and emotionally support you, like a good Sir but never crossing the line.
Not because I don’t know how or don’t want to cross it, but because I do.

Consent, ongoing and enthusiastic, should never be seen as a bad thing. There are those who would say that I should just take when it seems like consent is given. I can’t. I won’t. Informed, enthusiastic, ongoing. It’s the only way to fly or float as the case may be.

Journeys begin and continue only with consent

Pelgris2 Comments

You say you’re innocent
While you fumble manipulation
While you look for my attention
Saying your naive
Knowing that makes me want to protect you
Protect you and take you
Waiting on that yes
Waiting for you to speak
I’m just the freak
Waiting on consent
Before our carnival of sins begins
Yes
I want this
Build
Creative structure
Of pain and pleasure
Until all is undone
Until I’m satisfied
Never
Always wanting more
That next step
That next depravity
At the edge of your desires and back again
Watching your ecstasy
Your whimpers
Your tears
Kiss them away
Each new innocence
Each new horizon
Together
Say yes
I want this
Turn the key
Open the doors
One step away
We’ll start slow
Consent
Or
Good morning, how are you?
Only the gentleman
Only the kind Sir
You’ll never see the barbed wire
Unless you desire
And say
Yes

Things in this world are complicated

Pelgris2 Comments

You have to give yourself over to love. I know thats crazy. I know that invites pain and death and the dissolution of the self. But you must. Not in some religious sense unless we mean as a philosophy of hope for each other. Only through love can humanity save itself. And I don’t mean love as some cold thing but let respect, hope, desire, and the elevation of others inform your choices. And if you find yourself with someone you love, who loves you, and if all parties enthusiastically consents, express that love physically. Even if that’s just being in the same room. Or holding hands. Or kissing. Or the whole panoply. Love is no cold thing. It is of heat, of flame.
Help and dictate not how that help is used. If you give money to someone, accept that they know their own needs and let go any notion that you have the right to dictate. Give freely and without expectation of reciprocity. Let love be your guide.

This is not to say that you should endanger yourself, just that we all hide a bit more than may be needful.

And I’m definitely not saying that a person who takes in the belief that they act in love are to be forgiven. In my belief system, if you take without consent, then you must suffer the dire and vicious consequences.

I say only that love should be closer to a guiding principle than we generally let it be.

Rant on consent and disrespect

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I hate that men don’t defend women anymore. That when some asshole says something or does something, even right in front of them, they chuckle along or are, at best, silent. Silence is condonment, jackass.

Not around me. And this isn’t some “I’m a nice guy” rant. I can be a bastard. It’s just this. If you are my friend or my family or my lover, I will protect you. And if someone’s behavior speaks of nonconsent then, I’m a nightmare. It’s a line that those around me are not allowed to cross. By my direct intervention if necessary.

But lesser offenses too. For instance, I was talking to a friend of mine and this jackass who works for her makes the swirling finger, your crazy gesture in reference to my friend. He was smiling like he thought it was the best joke in the world.

I stopped talking to my friend, turned to him and said, “If you ever make that gesture to my friend again I will snap it off and feed it to you.”

His expression went from all smiles to cowering that quickly. Like I had kicked his dog. But he never did it again. She had told him to stop doing things like that and it never stuck. Because he didn’t respect her.
But he feared me, and rightly so.

Would I prefer that when a person is demeaned or insulted or predatory behavior occurs and they try to put a stop to it, that the behavior stops? Yes, absolutely.
But if it doesn’t, then say something. It’s not bro’s being bro’s. It’s not fucking acceptable. And it is in no way the victims fault that you are acting like a asshat.

So yeah, I’ll defend women or the vulnerable. I’ll back your play if you want to act instead. If you say you have it, then ok. But I’m still here.