Talking about sexual consent makes me feel as if I am standing in the eye of a hurricane. Bloody, stormy and scary. With sexual allegations making its annual rounds, with me too hash tags humming untold stories still through the nation, with people giving definitions to feminism themselves and faking abuses, when even some men’s right activists aren’t sure if a man can be raped, sexual consent might be too much of a sensitive topic to talk about. Of course I have to think of the log kya kahege.
Let’s start young. Once I read a blog that went by these lines. If men getting attracted to men and women to women is worth a movement and is eligible to be accepted, then so should pedophilia. After all, that too is just a sexual preference. After the expected politically correct response of being mollified, even I fell under his spell. Was it just a sexual preference after all? Maybe if the child consents, maybe it is okay. I started to think. But how would a child ever consent?
Here is an excerpt from my story. I find it difficult to say me and mine, so let's just go with the third person narrative.
Class 3 to be precise. Did she know what she was doing, or being done to? There were just 10 rules she had to follow in her life then. The 10 holy commandments. Half of which did not even make sense to her. One of which she had to follow was obey your elders. And that’s what she did. He was the school peon, a qualified elder. It was staff meeting time. For a small school which had till class 4 only, he was asked to manage all. He caught her by her small hands, walked her with him to all classes sushing them. The mini-school leader felt very important. He told her he needed help with the chairs in the hall. Children’s day was just yesterday. It was an honest mess. Her little mind had nothing to doubt as he closed the hall door while she was arranging the chairs. The rest were all commands she followed, remembering her rules, the final one being “Your parents are going to hate you if you tell this to them. So dont”. For a small ignorant body like her younger self, uncomfortable was not a good enough reason to run away. Rules meant way more. She said to me how she rubbed her lips so hard as she washed her face, how long it took for her to bath that day, thinking bath would cleanse her of the weirdly dirty feeling she had. A few weeks later he tried another girl. That girl knew what to do. The politician’s expected response to sexual assault — She ran out screaming. My friend broke rules that day . And the whole secret was out. She left her school and her family changed place that year, her comments section of progress card still calling it her fault. A part of her oh-so-feminisit mind still crawling under the sheets thinking maybe if she hadn’t told anyone, the pain would have stayed with just her. Ofcourse her rational mind thinks otherwise. But sometimes rationality can’t kill feelings, can they?
Every girl has a me too story. By the time you are woman you would have multiple. If you have just one, what a lucky creation you are!!
She was still too young to hate all men or understand all that happened.After all, she loved her dad, and he is fine. Her life went normal though. Of course her poor body thought it was late in growth somehow, so kick-started her periods in class 4. Her childhood ended there. She was a big girl all of a sudden. But still she did not understand what had happened. Until the uncomfortable feeling repeated in the church as she, the altar girl prepared the tables for the mass and he came and hugged her from behind inappropriately. This time she knew the right response was to scream and run. She screamt. No one heard. Of course there is still half an hour for mass. She ran, all the way back home.
‘But no one would believe me would they?’ She asked.
‘Do you?’
The subsequent stories all had the same feature of her running but not telling. Ignoring felt so much better than being doubted. But the universal no consent sign helped her out each time. Of course even your flee response should be decided by society.
Screaming and running out is considered a necessary sign of “No consent”, obviously. But does not screaming and running say consent?As a young girl, she did not scream. She did not shout. She did not run. She did not scratch him when he got too close. She did not say no, don’t do that. All she did was continuously suggest that she needed to go back to class. Now I ask, according to him did she give consent for him to use her little body to satisfy his sexual needs?
Note: It goes without saying every time I meet you next or come into contact with you, I don’t want to be poked stories I wish never took place in the first place.
Though screaming and running is obviously a sigh of no consent, but if ignorance has a huge say in the issue, then it’s a big NO. If your partner has no idea what he/she/ze is doing, then there is not even a question of consent.
It’s No. End of story.
The boyfriend drama is one almost every other girl in a relationship faces. So do you even love me if we don’t have sex? Baby, we are going to get married anyway, don’t you trust me? So goes the lines. Note that my younger self thanked me for — If you don’t feel ready or don’t want to have sex or just don’t think it’s right, then don’t. Love isn’t a good enough reason to have sex, the viceversa isn’t true either. If you forced your partner, physically, emotionally or psychologically into sex, you have committed rape. No, them not running and screaming don’t count.
Having said that, let’s bust some myths right here :
MYTH #1 MEN DON’T GET RAPED, THEY RAPE.
In Law, the offense of Rape is defined as non-consensual penetration with a penis. Non-consensual sexual experience is called Sexual Assault. I admit we see, women and children rape cases always; may it be on T.V , newspaper, or Radio. It makes more sense since sexual assault often involves force and men are conventionally the physically stronger gender. It has become really late and still we haven’t edited our laws. Why the edit?Let’s see.
But sexual assault is about consent, not about physical assault. Consent is an attribute all gender own equally. ( Though not expressed so). I needn’t explain woman and children sexual assault by men. You all know it too well. The same applies to men as well. I am not authorized to talk on this topic. I don’t want to womansplain rape on males.
Here are bits of the wiki page.
“ Generally, rape is still thought to be a crime against women specifically (and has been historically defined this way), although many cases of male-victim rape have become subject of public discussion. Rape of males is still taboo, and has a negative connotation among both heterosexual and homosexual men.”
“Community and service providers often react to the sexual orientation of male victims and the gender of their perpetrators. Mostly, male victims try to hide and deny their victimization, similar to female victims, unless they have serious physical injuries. Eventually, the male victims may be very vague in explaining their injuries when they are seeking medical or mental health services. It is difficult for a male victim, heterosexual or gay, to report the sexual assault that was experienced by him, especially in a society with a strong masculine custom. They are afraid that people will doubt their sexual orientation and label them as gay. A perception of being gay is also a motive for rape in many cases.”
It is more difficult to get a male victim to talk than any other gender, thanks to toxic masculinity. Hence, it’s extremely important we keep an open eye, an open heart and more importantly a go-to-hell to conventions. If any one of my friends want to talk about it privately and get that load off, you know where to find me.
MYTH #2 MEN ALWAYS WANT SEX
Quoting wiki again.
“Much like female erectile response, male erectile response is involuntary, meaning that a man need not be aroused for his penis to become erect; mechanical stimulation is all that is necessary. Arousal and stimulation are distinct things. Stimulation is a physical response to a stimulus. Men can be physically stimulated without feeling aroused and thus causing an erection. Men can be scared and intimidated into an erection, especially if the person is older or an authority.”
Yep, you heard it right. Erection but not aroused. I give a moment to all who had sex with men to think back, did he really give consent before you had sex? Are you guilty of rape?
HOW THE HELL CAN I BE SURE OF CONSENT??
Here is the best video on sexual consent that I found is simply the best.
Here is another.
The same author goes on to say that there is nothing called Safe Sex. No, I am not talking about STDs. I am talking about consent. How do you prove consent? Here is his satire take on this.
Sure, Play Store had it’s turn on the issue. Here are a few apps and screenshots for taking proof of consent.
But these are definitely a ‘turn off’ for most cases.
App or no app,in reality, it’s extremely difficult to prove consent.
I leave with the note
Better be safe than sorry. You don’t want to be the sexual perpetrator who destroyed someone somewhere inside sometime… like he destroyed mine.
#Rape #ConsentApps #Pedophilia #SexualConsent #MaleRape
Originally published on my medium page.