Consent: Check Yes or No?

April is sexual assault awareness month, and this April marks the 18th anniversary of SAAM, the sexual assault awareness month campaign organized by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). Throughout the month, organizations host social media challenges, weekly themes, and local events to support and promote sexual assault awareness (see end of article for a couple noteworthy links and common social media tags).

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Trigger Warning: This article contains sexual themes and references to sexual assault.

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The Hype about Consent

First, it is important to understand the relationship between sexual violence and consent.

Sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent.

American Psychological Association, 2019

And there it is: consent. Consent in this context is referring to the mutual agreement to partake in sexual acts. Consent is a critical component of healthy sexual contact; without consent, the contact is assault and is illegal. This may seem like common sense, but the statistics tell a different story.

While the graphic above depicts statistics regarding child sexual abuse and the prevalence of sexual violence over lifetimes, the idea of consent applies to any unwanted sexual activity including sexual harassment.

The “I ASK” Campaign

The central theme of this year’s SAAM campaign is “I ASK,” which is aimed at normalizing the act of asking for consent even in seemingly “low-risk” situations such as holding hands or sharing someone’s personal information. The idea is to make asking for consent a common practice in everyone’s lives. When the “high-risk” situations (i.e., engaging in sex) inevitably arise, consent no longer feels foreign and awkward, but instead happens naturally as a healthy, normal interaction.

Consent: Check Yes or No?

Consent is not as objective and straightforward as it may seem, though. While no always means no, not every yes always means yes.

Someone may say yes…

• out of fear.
• out of coercion.
• while heavily intoxicated.
• at first, but then want to stop.
• once in the past, but that doesn’t mean yes this time.

Clearly, there are several instances in which yes is not always an absolute, affirmative yes.

Consent: NOT as Easy as a Simple Check Yes or No

The video below beautifully illustrates the nuances of consent through the example of having a cup of tea, and it does this in under 3 minutes. If you haven’t seen this video yet, take the three minutes and give it a watch! If you’ve seen it before, what will it hurt to watch it again? Three minutes is a relatively short time compared to the lifetime of pain that accompanies sexual violence.

Consent is not either “this or that.” Consent is not black or white. Consent has conditions, laws, and power dynamics governing it. Let’s make it our mission to understand consent, practice it in our daily lives, and start having the tough conversations about it with those around us. Let’s change the patterns. Let’s reduce the numbers. Let’s bring about change.

And besides, consent is about mutual desire, respect, and pleasure.

Who doesn’t want that?

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For more information on the SAAM activities and social media challenges…

Visit RAINN’s Weekly SAAM Themes or NSVRC’s 30 Days of SAAM Instagram Contest

Want to join the conversation on social media? Try these: #SAAM #SAAPM #TEAL #SUPPORTSURVIVORS #IASK #CONSENT #SEXUALASSAULT #BELIEVESURVIVORS @RAAIN @NSVRC

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Sources

American Psychological Association (2019). Sexual abuse. Retrieved fromhttps://www.apa.org/topics/sexual-abuse

Breiding, M. J., Smith, S. G., Basile, K. C., Walters, M. L., Chen, J., & Merrick, M. T. (2014). Prevalence and characteristics of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence victimization—National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, United States, 2011. American journal of public health, 105(4), E11.

Dube, S. R., Anda, R. F., Whitfield, C. L., Brown, D. W., Felitti, V. J., Dong, M., & Giles, W. H. (2005). Long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse by gender of victim. American journal of preventive medicine, 28(5), 430-438.