We Have a Consent Problem On Our Hands
[note: this isn’t my usual content, but I needed somewhere to publish this. Content warning for sexual assault]
I once dated someone with a consent problem.
I get the feeling a lot of heterosexual women have, when we think about it. We can fall into the same reductive thinking the rest of society has — that assault is either brazen and overt or it’s just in our heads. We’re overthinking.
We’re overreacting.
I’m going to be graphic because it needs to be graphic. Because dancing around the subject is why men get away with this behavior. Because I can still look back on this guy and think, “Well, he was just a dopey guy. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. It wasn’t his fault…”
Maybe. Maybe not. He was a man closing in on forty with three kids, all of whom were middle school age. When we ended, his oldest was about to enter high school. I grant no leniency.
He was not a Bad Guy™. He was sweet and a little unassuming. He got excited over podcasts. He’d ask me how my day was.
It would start with little things. We were in a non-monogamous relationship, and I asked that my boundary of transparency with who you are also seeing be respected. It wasn’t until he accidentally opened up his messenger in front of me with a topless photo of his other sexual partner still front and center, did he sheepishly admit that he was also seeing his former friends with benefits.
It quickly translated into other areas — like when I would perform oral while he was still standing, and he would thrust into my mouth. I would try to use my hand to control how much of him would go into my mouth and he would slap the hand away. I would put my hand back, clearly on the verge of puking, and he’d smack it away again. I’d have to clean up the floor afterwards. This was a common occurrence.
Back then, I had a hard time maintaining my boundaries. I could state them once, but if they were violated, I never defended them. I tried to tell myself, “He seems to really appreciate it, and I’m sure I can get used to it.” Instead of telling him I didn’t want to do that anymore, I just stopped eating or drinking anything in the hours before he’d arrive.
Then he started inserting a finger into my butt. Never asked. Just did. And I didn’t say anything because — hey — a minor bit of anal play is fun. I’m not one for anal sex, but a little stimulation can be enjoyable (I just wish, he, y’know, asked first).
Then there was the time we were having PIV sex. Out of no where, he pulls out, lifts up my hips, and tries to stick himself into that same butt. No lube, no warning. Because I was facing him, I was able to see what was going on and say, “That’s actually — uh — not something I’m into.”
And (to his credit) his stopped.
(Oh, “to his credit”. Give the man a cookie for not going forward with the assault.)
I still remember the look on his face, when he was attempting it. Like a little boy about to grab a fistful of candy from the store. I think a part of him knew he was trying to see what he could get away with.
The issues with anal play didn’t end there. Sometimes while I was performing oral, he would gesture his body in ways that indicated he wanted me to readjust and give him a rimjob. And I’d adjust in the opposite direction, hoping that he would get that my body language was saying, “I see what you’re doing there and I’m not going with the flow.”
(I can’t stress enough that, at least for me back then, that was a lot. That was a fearless battle for my own advocacy, as meek as it looked to the outside. The me from even a year or two prior would’ve gone with the flow.)
But, eventually I did. One day, he felt brazen, completely shifted, and stuck his ass in my face. I decided not to fight it because — hey — maybe this was something I would like.
(And, honestly? Even if it might be, someday — the fact that it was introduced to me like that makes me less inclined to ever do it again.)
Our relationship tanked towards the end. He had grown distant, and it was clear I was holding up both ends of the relationship. I was finally finding my voice, and I started telling him that it felt like he was keeping me at arm’s distance. I told him I worried he was planning on leaving me to be monogamous with his ex-wife (which he had done to me at the very beginning of our relationship — a “minor” issue with informed consent. I went into that relationship knowing nothing about his situation with his ex-wife, and he only told it to me when the ball had already started rolling).
He assured me that it wasn’t happening. Three weeks later, he’d dump me to get back with his ex-wife, noting, “I’m sure you’ve noticed how distant I have been.”
I proceeded to yell at him for forty-five minutes. I yelled at him for every misdeed he had done to me, every time he had clearly done me wrong.
(But missing from my tongue lashing was his clear inability to understand consent.)
I still look back on that relationship with a weird feeling. He was a nice guy. He coached his children’s sports teams. He bought little knick-knack gifts on our anniversary and Christmas and Valentine’s Day, items filled with inside jokes. He had a gentle demeanor about him. He didn’t look or act like a predator.
(And likewise, I can already hear people tell me that it was on me for not advocating for myself, that I should’ve done more than meekly say, “Hey, I’m not into that.”)
Society has a consent problem. It breeds men like my ex and women like me. It breeds men who don’t think it’s assault to attempt (or — worse — sneak) anal sex without the explicit consent of their partner. It breeds women to “go with the flow” and not be a prude and to recognize when they’re “asking for it”.
It breeds “nice guys” who try to add in sexual acts without regard. It breeds “nice girls” who feel they have no say in the matter. And it becomes a breeding ground for heartbroken women to look back on their “nice” relationships and realize, with sneaking dread, that it had been anything but nice.
It breeds “nice people” like me, who look back on the times I was more overtly assaulted, and go, “Well, that wasn’t so bad, in comparison…”
I keep going back to that relationship. The first time I recognized that moment on my bed — him with that devilish look on his face as he tried to cram his dick into my ass — was, in fact, an act of assault, I felt a well of anger.
I didn’t realize the extent of the damage this partner had on me until I was with a new lover. I was going down on him while he stood, my hand on the base as I controlled how much went into my mouth. He brought his hand down to stroke my hand and I flinched away. And another well of anger rose up in me.
Too many people have a consent problem. We see it in people getting upset that Pepe LePew isn’t a mainstay in Looney Tunes and comparing it to a song about women celebrating their sexuality. We see it in people who think “grab them by the pussy” is offensive because of the word “pussy”, and comparing it to Madonna offering to give someone a blowjob if they register to vote.
The overt things, people get. Most people, at least. It’s the subtler stuff, the stuff that goes under the radar, that is the most insidious. And, as I’m finding, it becomes the hardest to genuinely recognize, pinpoint, and heal from.
