Continuing Confusion Concerning Consent

I'm not sure why this needs to be explained to adults, but based on the utter tripe I've seen on Facebook for the past week, it clearly does.

Incidentally, this assumes said tripe was posted because you really don't get this concept, not because you were deliberately minimizing despicable statements and attitudes simply for political reasons.  I can't even deal rationally with that possibility.

So here you go.  Two simple rules:


1) You get to decide what happens to your body.
2) You don't get to decide what happens to another person's body.

That's it.  That is the core of consent.

This is why that tape of Trump was so offensive.  Not because he used "naughty" or "mean" words; none of the words themselves were horrifyingly offensive (you may not like "pussy", but there are far more vulgar ways of describing female genitalia), and attempting to make it about the words themselves is a pathetic attempt at distracting from the content, which is the truly offensive part.  What he was describing, either as a baseless boast or as a discussion of prior actions, was a wanton disdain for, and violation of, his responsibility to other people to respect their right to decide what happened to their bodies, as well as a complete disregard for women as "people".

This is why comparisons to scantily-clad women, or women speaking openly about their sexuality, are inane, insulting and infuriating.  Those women chose that.  They chose to dress that way, or to speak that way, because they are allowed to choose that.  Every person has the right to choose how they present themselves (including, say, tattoos, piercings, dyed hair, etc.).

This is why comparisons to a certain pop-erotica book are just plain stupid.  The activities in that book (with the exception of one scene, as I understand it; I haven't read it) are consensual.  People are allowed to choose what kind of relationship they want, and what kind of books they read, for that matter.

This is why writing it off to "locker room talk" is wildly derogatory.  Most men choose not to speak this way, because we understand how utterly awful the actions described are. To purposely include us in such vileness in an attempt to normalize those who do perpetrate it is a violation of our volition.  (I also resent being forced to essentially #notallmen this, because you know how I feel about that.  I'd like to think there's a key difference here, though.)

The women Trump was speaking of, either hypothetically or historically, did not choose to be kissed or to be grabbed by the pussy.  There was no consent.  There was no consideration of their basic rights as people.  What Trump described is sexual assault.  Period.

You decide what happens to your body.  You don't decide for other people what happens to theirs.  And you recognize people as people, not props. The end.


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(I debated how to phrase the second rule; you could just as easily phrase it in the other direction: "Other people don't get to decide what happens to your body."  They both have parallel structure, although on opposite ends of the sentence, and they convey the same sentiment.  However, I decided to go with the one I did because it reads as more of a responsibility, while the alternate wording in this parenthetical reads as a right.  Since the first rule definitely reads as a right, I liked the combination of right/responsibility, rather than right/right.  People all too often seem to forget that responsibilities go along with rights.)