The One About The Importance of Revocable Consent

You may have noticed I’ve been absent for awhile. More likely no one is actually concerned, because I think the only people who read this are folks who know me IRL. But either way, I wanted to get back into blogging, and I feel like the conspicuous gap in my posts should be explained. I also think this is an important thing to talk about, much as I don’t much care to talk about it any more.

This is probably where I should put a TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE.

I would guess no one is surprised that it was interpersonal drama that ate me alive and kept me away from this blog. That happens to me a lot. I am pretty used to it by now, but trying to get out of the cycle is mind numbingly difficult. I understand the process now; how my own emotional issues contribute to it. I am too desperate for affection and affirmation, which makes me latch onto people more easily and more tightly than is healthy. I am also very socially inept, which means I have a tendency to accidentally fuck up relationships, and that I am bad at recognizing when relationships start going south. I don’t have a very good model for what is a healthy, sane relationship.

Still, knowing it has not helped me see what is happening while it is happening. I am still working on that bit.

In this case, though, I stumbled into a new kind of badness: sexual coercion.

An individual I was sexually involved with, who shall remain unnamed, had been placing steadily more pressure on me to put out. Interestingly, and frighteningly, he apparently had no idea he was doing it. Many of my friends did notice this, looking on from the sidelines, but it took me quite some time to notice, and he never did. Even once I tried to tell him this, he just couldn’t accept it.

In my particular case, I was contributing to the coercion. My insecurities, my emotional addiction, my passiveness, and a whole slew of problems I’ve got all tangled into each other, kept me from asserting myself and telling him straight up that i did not want to have sex with him anymore. In fact, even if I couldn’t bring myself to say it outright, if it weren’t for my attachment disorders and everything, I would probably not have caved every. single. time.

The longer things went on, the less I was able to say no to him, or say much of anything to him. I certainly couldn’t tell him I wanted out. I wound up lashing out passive aggressively without even noticing it. He did, though, and instead of asking me what was going on, he just acted like everything was normal. I can’t hold that against him, since it’s exactly what I do under stress. But I’m a little worried about the fact that he thought I was being mean and horrible to him, but was still perfectly happy to get drunk blowjobs out of me.

That’s the other thing. Almost every time we fucked, I was drunk. And he was not. That should’ve been a red flag to me, but I managed not to notice until much later.

It got to the point where I was so nervous about being around him, I would get drunk almost every time. Which then led to having more sex, which led to more nervousness.

Also, apparently he found me very annoying when drunk. But not annoying enough that he didn’t want to fuck me.

So, that was months of dubcon, basically. Which I consider to be both of our faults. While he was the one abusing me, I was the one enabling the abuse by actively preventing him from knowing something that might make him stop the abuse.

Not very healthy, that.

Finally, things culminated in actual rape. Which brings me to the part about revocable consent.

See, our culture has some big problems with how we deal with rape. Particularly, how we conceptualize it, which informs everything else. When we think of rape, we think of a big strong man snatching a woman off the street, holding a gun to her head, and forcing himself upon her while she screams and cries. We might even think of sleezy frat boy slipping a roofie in a coed’s drink at a party. But there are many, many things we don’t think of.

That night, I was drunk. Very drunk. I got drunker than I should have, took a few Klonopin, and drank some more. And then everyone else went to sleep.

I was drunk enough that I initiated things. I suggested an activity we had not yet engaged in. But on the condition that we talk about things first, because I had been trying to talk to him about some important things for quite some time. He talked me out of that. Then I said he had to wear a condom. He talked me out of that. Then I tried to back out at the last minute. And he ignored that.

And while he did it, I just lay there. I didn’t say or do a thing, until he asked me if it felt good, and Autopilot took over. I had to tell him what he wanted to hear. I couldn’t upset him.

I said yes.

That is the part I find the most repellant.

That, and the fact that when I tried to tell him this later, he did not see that as rape. We agreed on all the facts of how it happened, just not on the conclusions. I find that alarming. And then he told me I was delusional, and a monster.

I am afraid that in our supposedly enlightened modern society, most people consider consent somewhat irrevocable. Even before that night, I believe the coercion occurred because he considered my previous consent to be blanket permission. If I would suck his cock once, why would I not want to do it again? Whenever he wanted me to?

Even though he didn’t hold me down, that was rape. Even though I didn’t fight back, that was rape. Even though I started things, that was rape. Even though I said it felt good, that was rape. Even if it had felt good, that was still rape.

It is important to talk about that. It is important for my story to be out there, for anyone who has been through something like this, to know they are not alone. For anyone who is at risk, to know what could happen, and know they can say no. And for anyone who could commit rape, which is everyone, to know that this is not alright. That if they do this, it is rape.

Have you seen those PSAs that say “rape is a man’s issue”? They’re wrong. Rape is everyone’s issue. Anyone can be raped, and anyone can commit rape. And the only way to fight this is to be informed, to talk about it, and to debunk the myths.

~ by onetiddlyridley on June 24, 2011.