TRIGGER WARNING: DESCRIPTION OF NONCONSENSUAL SEXUAL ASSAULT
I remember that night. We were playing pool. I was giddy and intoxicated with his attention. He asked stupid questions: “Where are you from? What do you do?” The alcohol was cold on my lips but warm in my chest. I felt hot fire in my veins. The liquid courage took control over my pre-frontal cortex, silencing that part of myself. My brain always tells me to doubt, doubt, doubt, whatever I am doing. It tells me, “You are wrong, ugly, nobody likes you, nobody wants to hear you.” So I kept drinking and the voice got quieter and quieter until it became silent.
With the liquid courage, I became reckless and got into the passenger seat of the car with him behind the wheel, not knowing if he was sober and not caring, feeling high on possibility and filled with “fuck it” thoughts.
When we exited the car, I jumped on his back and he carried me down the street as we howled with laughter. We stumbled into the bar. We danced, the fronts of our bodies smashed together. I don’t remember who else was there that night. It was the weekend after my birthday and I allowed myself to lose control in ways that I normally would have never allowed myself to: telling people I loved them, laughing loud, hugging anybody, telling the truth. I let loose that night, feeling free. The rest of my life was a cage. But with alcohol, I was free. Finally, nothing and nobody to tell me what to do or how to be.
On the way home, I was in the passenger seat.
“Where am I taking you?” he asked.
“I’m down for whatever,” I say.
“Let’s go to the crib,” I hear him say in a mumble with his hand over his mouth. Almost like he doesn’t want me to hear and object. Almost like he’s a little embarrassed and ashamed.
Things started to get fuzzy. I was lying in bed and his fingers were jamming into me, rough and fast. I was so dry. It hurt. I pushed his hand away. He kept going. It hurt. I pushed his hand away again.
“At least I just got a bikini wax, so I’m clean,” I thought to myself. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.” And everything went black.
The next morning, I woke up and he saw I was awake. I felt my eyebrows furrow together.
“Don’t worry, nothing happened. You kept pushing me away pretty hard so I stopped,” he smiled at me, chuckling.
I smiled too. He liked me. I was worth something. My mouth was dry and sticky, my head hurt. I pecked him on the lips before I left and it immediately felt weird. I knew something was off.
The next couple weeks unfurled quickly, me asking to see him, him avoiding me. I left for China not too long after that. I found out later that he was already involved with two other people at the time. I was crushed. He liked me! Or, I thought he liked me...
But people have different subjective experiences. For me, it was utter confusion. For him, it was just a fun night.
Not only do people define consent differently, but they experience being and knowing differently in any situation depending on their unique history and the context of their life. How do you define consent when people have two completely different frames of reference? How do you define consent when there are two subjective meanings for and significance of the events that occurred?
Regardless of said subjectivity, I am angry about sexual harassment and assault. It’s not only because it’s the violation of someone’s body and the gross mis-use of power to take something that is not yours and make it your own. To steal for nothing more than your own pleasure. To take something without asking. To consider it yours. To claim ownership over something that was never yours to begin with.
It is all of those things and those actions that make me so angry. And they are horrible things to do to the world.
But I am also angry that people of all genders are feeling so desperately thirsty for human connection that they feel they have no other outlet, they are so alone and lonely and insecure. They are lacking the proper communication skills to the point that the only way they (we?) know how to move forward in life is to take without asking. Like a rubber band, they avoid and avoid and avoid and internalize and internalize and internalize then it snaps with harmful and painful force forward without control. And how that rubber band snaps and the people it hurts in the process matters.
I, too, was like a rubber band that night, snapping without control with the help of alcohol. And I hurt myself in the process. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.
The problem is that sometimes we give consent without knowing it--or people think we've given consent when we have not, or are unaware that the consent process is being assumed. Sometimes we give other entities permission to determine what we do with our bodies without knowing that we had a choice in the first place. We think we have no choice, or we don't know that there are other options.
But why am I writing about this topic? Why do I care and why should you care?
How we conceptualize consent affects our politics, bodies, and culture. Gaining back consent over our bodies is the first step towards gaining back consent over our lives. And gaining consent over our lives is the first step towards liberation and true freedom.
Individualism, choice and freedom is that the core of mainstream American society. American politics often revolve around decisions that determine sovereignty over our own bodies—from vaccine mandates to abortion, from same-sex marriage to seat belt laws. These are often questions of consent.
At the end of the day, it’s all about consent: who is making decisions about how I choose to move and be in the world? Is someone else controlling my body? Or do I exercise full sovereign control over my body?
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