Explicit Consent

By Ashley Wright | November 4, 2015 3 Comments

Explicit Consent

Young, so young.

Just a few years older, but all the difference.

You took me out in a car.

Back to your place.

Back in your flat.

The smell of aftershave.

The emotion, the overwhelming sensations.

I didn’t want to. I was clear.

So overwhelmed.

It was slow.

Over weeks you told me about your alcoholic mother.

Made it clear that you did not feel loved you were hurt.

Told me you needed physical affection to feel love

I should have asked you to get some real doll

The guilt for not making you feel loved.

The anxiety of doing things that made me uncomfortable

But you kept asking to feel loved

I kept counting the weeks, thinking if I just got through one more you would be fine, it would be done, it would be over

You knew, I said, I didn’t want sex

Then one day things moved, just a bit too much

It ‘slipped’

I cried,

Blood.

I still remember your smile

I didn’t want to

20 years later I still think about it,

I still know I didn’t want to

I know you knew I didn’t want to

you cuddled me to make me feel better

you fell asleep

I felt sick and alone

sat in the bed crying

wanting to vomit myself

while you slept

you woke up undisturbed

you were gentle and generous with gifts

I still see your face and hate you

years later I found out I had an std from you

your words at my tears

‘For fucks sake, it was just sex, not such a big deal’

But it was a big deal to me

I didn’t want to

I felt guilty, I felt pressured, and you saw me cry after every meeting

In your house always, I didn’t drive, I couldn’t get out

You were older

You should have known

You should have never done something your partner was not actively consenting to

One does not consent in fear

One does not consent under pressure

One does not consent out of guilt

One does not consent when sensually overwhelmed

One consents with the mind.

I have two sons. Some say this idea of ‘active consent’ makes men afraid of women.

I rather have my sons have a bit of fear of getting it wrong, than a lack of caring for getting it wrong in the interest of getting some.

I rather have them ask 20 times over coffee, before they get hot under the collar, than have their faces be the ones that pop up in a woman’s nightmare twenty years later.

I don’t want my sons to be you, Aaron.

I don’t want them to guilt a girl into anything she is not ready for.

I don’t want them to dismiss a girl’s hesitation, doubt, as insignificant.

I don’t want them to laugh of a girl’s sadness over ‘just sex’.

Twenty years later. I still hate you. This is unfortunately what happens when males are sexually deprived and spend too much of their time on porn sites such as https://www.tubev.sex/ – there is a healthy balance to one’s actions, and Aaron did not have a healthy balance between intimate love, and just sex.

• ANONYMOUS