Defining consent
The women I interviewed for my 2019 doctoral research project gave examples of their experiences of negotiating consent so varied that they are best understood on a spectrum – at one end of the spectrum are the 'it just happened' or 'one thing led to another' scenarios in which any verbal negotiations of sex are absent but perhaps body language was used to communicate consent. At the other end of the spectrum are the scenarios involving elaborate discussions - a 'negotiation of pleasure' prior to a sexual encounter, or a ritual explained to be undertaken by both parties as a symbol of consent. Such varied lived experiences of consent demonstrate its nuance and complexity – making it a difficult concept to adequately define.
Amongst cultural and social definitions of consent, there is often a conflation of consensual sex and ‘good’ or ‘quality’ sex. Definitions can sometimes read as a list of ideals for a positive sexual encounter. These definitions tend to impress not just the importance of a free and voluntary agreement, but also notions of pleasure, complex psychosocial and embodied communication, as well as some spiritual and/or ethical components of sexual interaction. For example, the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response at Harvard University defines consent using the following four points:
An ongoing physical and emotional process between people who are willing, equally free of coercion, communicating unambiguously, and sincere in their desires.
A mutual agreement to be fully present with one another throughout all interactions, to prioritize both yourself and your partners’ needs, and to understand that someone may choose to disengage from the experience at any time.
A commitment to learning your partners’ cues (verbal and nonverbal), agreeing on how and when to engage in what activities, and checking in on how all people are feeling throughout and afterward (including yourself!)
An understanding that the more incapacitated someone is, the less likely they’ll be able to give conscious, unambiguous, sincere consent.
It is difficult in definitions such as the one above, to mark out where the definition of consent ends and where aspirations for a positive sexual experience begin. It is this kind of slippage that lends itself to the common conflation of ‘bad’ sex and non-consensual sex. Bad sex is not always non-consensual sex. This conflation can confuse conversations around consent – making it difficult conceptual terrain to navigate.
I really like psychotherapist Marie-Pierre Cleret’s broad, albeit simple, definition of consent:
‘Consent means the choice to say ‘yes’ to something. A meaningful ‘yes’ requires the capacity to choose to say ‘no’ and to have that ‘no’ heard and respected’.
Having worked closely, for over 30 years, with victims (survivors) of sexual violence Cleret’s definition of consent focuses on the capacity of an individual to say ‘no’. She understands just how ‘dangerous, complex and difficult saying ‘no’ is’ and that ‘saying no is not just a case of ‘just say no’—it is precisely because it’s not straightforward that so many women say ‘yes’’ – but a ‘yes’ because they did not feel they could say ‘no’ is never a meaningful ‘yes’.
