No always means no.

I saw this image on graphjam a few minutes ago. In my opinion, it should never have been posted.

When she says no, she does not mean yes, EVER. When she says no, she means no, and that is the end of it. The entire circle should be green, not just that little green part at the top that looks like it occupies about 10%. The "something something something feelings" is irrelevant... it is just no.

I'm not even going to get into the implications of this kind of thinking.

Another post on enthusiastic consent

Last week I wrote about the concept of enthusiastic consent as it relates to sexual acts between adults. This same basic idea can be used not only for sexual acts, but for many different aspects of everyday life, including children playing with each other and standards relating to everyday touch and physical contact.

When I was a child, one thing that I remember vividly is distant relatives and friends of my mothers hugging me without my consent, and being powerless to stop them because saying so would be rude. I remember the prickly stubble on the face of a man who kissed me on the cheek when I was 5 or 6 years old and really not liking it. These people were almost strangers to me, and you don't go up to a stranger in the mall and give them a hug because that would be inappropriate, but when you are a child and the adult knows your parents then it is considered fine because children are property of their parents. It is well accepted under normal circumstances that a boss should not be able to touch an employee (such as to give them a hug) because of the power relations involved, but when the recipient of that touch is a child it is fine as long as it is not sexual.

I think we need to move beyond this 'good touch, bad touch' dichotomy (with bad meaning sexual and everything else being acceptable) to teach our children to be empowered about their rights to their body. How can we tell a little girl that she is not supposed to make a fuss when grandma gives an unwanted hug and kiss, but she must yell, scream, and fight a decade later when her date tries to touch her or it is her fault if he doesn't stop when she wants him to? I have long been confused by these mixed messages. Although I do not see these two situations as identical, they are very similar in certain ways when you think about it in that they both involve a non-consensual touch. This does not only apply to children, every person should have the right to decide who touches them at any time and who does not, I just find it most obvious with children.

When people infringe on our space and touch us without our consent, it hurts... it makes us feel bad, regardless of whether it is a person that we like and might want to be touched by at other times and in other circumstances. The problem is, and I have faced this myself recently, informing them that you do not want to be touched hurts their feelings (even though it shouldn't). So, we are left with the choice of dealing with it or risking hurting another persons feelings. Being a parent or even a spouse does not give you entitlement to touch another person's body. Sometimes they might want to be touched, tickled, hugged, or kissed and sometimes they might not. And they have to be able to express that without worrying about hurting someone's feelings. The right to not be touched seems so simple to me that I am often surprised that it needs to be articulated, but it really does because it is so commonly infringed on and it is not considered to be a big deal.

It also translates into many different areas of people's lives... For example, children and play. Instead of waiting for a child to tell the other kids to stop wrestling or stop playing in a specific way, I try to teach my children to stop when it appears as though one person is no longer having fun (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it is worth working on). This is hard for them to do because they can get really caught up in a game, and as children, I believe they have less capacity to be aware of others' feelings than adults do (although I am not sure of this). I am hoping that this teaches them to learn how to be in tune with the people that they interact with. This skill is likely impossible to fully master, but think of the possibilities that will come later if it is learned in childhood as a principle guiding play.

There are times when children do not have a say over who touches them. For example, if a child is hurting themselves or another person, it might be necessary to move them whether they want to be touched or not. But it is important to start from the premise of enthusiastic consent and then come up with a few specific exceptions from there.

Some people like being touched casually... they sit and stand close to others, they make physical contact in ordinary conversation and they are quick to hug friends when they see them. I, however, am not like that, and neither are a lot of people that I know. Today, for example, the person serving me at Tim Hortons touched my hand when he took my money and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I don't like when family members insist on hugs... never have been comfortable with that. That's not to say that I never like to be touched... I just like to feel that I have a sense of control over the circumstances upon which it happens and I beleive that I am fully entitled to that control, as are my children and every person that I come in contact with.

Student paper's sex position of the week depicts sexual assault

Building from the previous post on enthusiastic consent, I came across a disturbing comic strip printed in a student newspaper at Purdue University. There is a great critique on Jezebel.

I was not sure if I was going to link a picture because I find it very offensive, but I think in this case a description alone will not suffice, so here is the comic strip in question.

The text describes Man 1 having consensual sex with a woman while man 2 hides. Then, without her knowledge, man 2 takes his place while man 1 gets her attention from a window, at which point she is surprised. Because she did not consent to the second partner, this becomes a rather obvious case of rape. And it is not funny.

One commenter on Jezebel added a fourth panel to the comic that I think sums it up nicely

The fortunate part, if one could call it such, is that the editor has issued a genuine apology (as opposed to an "I'm sorry if you were offended" type apology that is so often the case with offensive college newspaper columns). Here are some quotes from the apology;

First things first: We made a mistake in printing Friday’s sex position of the week, and I, the editorial board, and The Exponent are extremely sorry...

On Friday and over the weekend, we received a flood of e-mails and phone calls telling us that this sort of graphic is unacceptable. And as soon as we received the first one and looked at it again – really looked at it – we agreed. If someone engages in any sexual act with anyone without his or her explicit consent, it’s rape...

The first step, however, is to admit our mistake and apologize. That’s what I’m doing here. We erred and we’re sorry – not because of your response, but because we were wrong and would’ve been wrong even if nobody had said so.

Contrast this to The John Hopkins Newsletter's statement about "fat chicks" at a lingerie party, where he writes "Though we apologize for the harm the article did, we will not apologize for the intent of the article."

I have seen numerous examples of college papers running completely inappropriate material, whether it be an opinion piece, a (failed) attempt at satire, or a comic strip like the one described above. Every time, I wonder how it makes it through editing, and I am not familiar enough with how newspapers are run to comment on that. What I can comment on is that only in a culture where sexual assault(under certain circumstances) is trivialized can this type of material make it into print.

I hope that The Exponent uses this as a learning opportunity and uses its influence to fight rape culture at Purdue rather than being a part of it.

Enthusiastic Consent and how "yes means yes" can replace "no means no"

I have seen a lot of news stories on consent in the past few week, and in light of the Take Back the Night march that took place here Thursday, I thought I should post about this issue now. And I should start with a trigger warning for discussion around consent and sexual assault.

The most recent news story about consent was with regards to a really terrible incident that happened in British Columbia last week. It is all over the news here, but for readers who haven't heard, a 16 year old girl was drugged and then raped by several boys and men at a party, and pictures of the incident have been spreading online, beginning on facebook. That isn't even the part that has me most outraged. The part that really makes me angry is the very public response to the photos online and even on the news. She is being called names like "whore" and "slut." Some are saying that she asked for it, or that she is exaggerating- it wasn't really rape. Some commenters have even made jokes about it, including "Cmon, whose not down for a gang bang." Someone went so far as to suggest that she is making up the rape accusation because she regrets having slept with all of these people. I can't even begin to imagine what this girl is going through right now (ok, maybe I can begin to imagine), but I am shocked at this response. Having a glass of champagne that happens to be laced with a drug of some sort does not mean that you are consenting to having sex. It also does not mean that you are asking for it. And just because women are often cautioned not to accept drinks from men does not mean that she should have known better. This is NOT her fault.

But I have some ideas about why it is happening. I can think of two reasons, one being the relative anonymity provided by the internet... I'm sure most of these commenters do not know her and do not expect to be identified, and many are just expanding on previous comments. But the more important reason- the reason we can do something about- is the fact that we live in a culture where violence against women is accepted and even celebrated.

Just look at this T-shirt (posted on socimages)

See, non-consensual sex is fine! As long as she doesn't actually have the ability to say no, right?

Here is another example, this time from the show Big Brother. The contestant who ended up coming in second place told a story about a game he likes to play. This game involves a man having his friends come into the room when he is having sex with a woman and forcibly restraining her for 8 seconds so everyone in the room can see her. When Enzo (the contestant who came in third place) asked if that was rape, Lane laughed it off. Even Britney, the only woman remaining in the competition at the time, after saying that she would kill herself if it happened to her, got involved in the description of the game and was joking around about it. As far as I am concerned, if he has done this, he should be in prison.

And there was another incident over the summer that keeps coming back to me as absolutely inexcusable. A young woman was dancing at a Girls Gone Wild party. The cameraman asked her to expose her breasts, and she refused. Another woman came up behind her and pulled down the first woman's shirt with the cameras rolling so that her breasts were captured on tape. When she found out that the incident made it onto one of the movies she decided to sue. Despite the fact that they have her on camera refusing to show her breasts, a jury decided that merely being at the party was a form of consent, and that she did not have the right to keep her shirt on in front of the cameras! Good girls don't go to these parties, and if you do, then I guess you are "asking for it."

There are so many other examples that it is absolutely ridiculous, but I'm not going to describe any more of them here because I believe I have made my point.

I have written at length about sexual harassment as well as the regulation of female bodies in previous posts, and I think this topic just adds to that discussion because it is all based on the same basic premise that women's bodies exist for men... and we need to make it clear that this is not acceptable. I think that the best way to help change this is with the notion of enthusiastic consent. Enthusiastic consent goes far beyond "No means No" and is often described as "Yes Means Yes." Having sex with someone who is not fully capable of consenting is rape. Having sex with someone who you reasonably believe would rather not be having sex at that moment is not following the standard of enthusiastic consent and should therefore be seen as rape as well.

The main difference between these two standards of consent is with regards to responsibility. In the first standard (no means no), the victim is responsible for making it clear that they are not consenting. If they do not yell, kick, fight, and scream, it can be hard to get a conviction. And it is often the case that victims of rape do not realize that what happened to them was in fact rape because they feel they did not make it clear enough that they did not want to participate or that they did something to mislead their rapist into thinking that they might have been "asking for it." If we switch to the standard of enthusiastically consenting, it then becomes the responsibility of both partners to ensure that the other is affirmatively expressing desire to engage in each act that takes place. This can get tricky from a legal perspective, but there is a great post here specifically pertaining to how this can work as a legal standard.

I'm not sure that it will stop every rape from occuring, but I do believe that enthusiastic consent would make victim blaming a thing of the past. I think that if it were adopted as the dominant standard of consent, the previously mentioned examples of rape culture would be different (if they even happened at all). The T-shirt would not be funny, the "8-second game" would end in an arrest and Girls Gone Wild would have lost the lawsuit. And if pictures existed of a girl being raped, they would be turned over to police, not posted on facebook and joked about.

It would also make sex seem less dangerous in many ways. The focus could be on pleasure and communication instead of sexuality being something that is feared and commodified at the same time. Maybe this is still too ideal of a way of thinking... maybe we are too far from that point to make the change right away, but if we start talking to our kids about enthusiastic or affirmative consent (which I plan to write about very soon), then we can hope that it is not that far off for the next generation... but I'm not sure they will get there if they are constantly being exposed to the various other aspects of rape culture.

Pelvic exams without consent?

According to the Globe and Mail, pelvic exams are being performed by med students at teaching hospitals on women undergoing surgery without their consent. I am in shock that this could possibly be true.

The article asks "Do you consider this okay, or an outrageous violation of your rights?"

I wonder how anyone could consider this ok... as much as I try, I cannot wrap my head around that side of this debate. What is the difference between med students performing exams on women without their knowledge and a rapist taking advantage of a woman who was under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

The article also says that "The patients – unlike medical educators – seem to be quite clear on the concept of informed consent. You don't probe, poke or otherwise invade the orifices of a patient without their permission, regardless of how educational it might be. Period."

Interestingly, it seems as though in Canada (but not in the United States or Britain) the consent forms that patients need to sign somehow cover this type of procedure- possibly not in so many words. One commenter pointed out that without signing this consent form, the patient would not be operated on at all, thereby bullying women into signing without telling them what it is they are agreeing to.

One blogger used twitter to ask her followers if they had surgery in Canada and if they were aware of whether or not they had been given a pelvic exam and comments have come back show that this is not just a matter of implicit consent. The women who are responding are not ok with this procedure. They are shocked and sick to their stomach, they feel violated, and they are referring to this as assault, not a simple medical practice.

I really hope information comes out showing that this was just some kind of sensationalized story and really not a common practice, but, even if it is done in only one hospital, it needs to stop. Consent should not be implicit. This is evident in the new direction feminist analysis of consent has taken from 'no means no' to 'yes means yes.' The lack of objection is not the same as consent, especially when the person is unconscious. This applies not just to pelvic exams, but to any medical procedures that have not been fully explained to the patient unless it is medically necessary.