Uncomfortable feelings about the teaching of "consent"

I don't think men feel responsible for other mens actions, you as women perhaps may feel responsible for each others actions, but men generally don't. Sadly i think the reaction you might be getting is one that it's your fault for not stopping it, or for somehow bringing it about yourself, a sign of weakness ?

I think the reaction you get from women is a bit different thought. I think there are a few women who've genuinely never experienced assault in any way, but I think they are really rare. There are other women who have been assaulted or are close to someone who's been assaulted and who have either told themselves or been told by others that it wasn't really assault, or it was their fault or some such nonsense. So I think the situation with women is more complex - I've come up against quite an angry, dismissive reaction with women, because it's hard for them to accept that not only have they been assaulted but they also have been dismissed by people they love and respect.

With men something different is going on I think. I can't really say what it is of course as I'm not a man, but it seems to me that on some level men feel the mention of sexual assault is a personal attack on them - because men do it, you're saying they bear responsibility. IME men don't want to accept that responsibility, they just want to defend themselves and so they'd rather believe that you're making it up/exaggerating than look it square in the eye and believe it.

Sparrowhawk - I think I know the feeling you mean, but IME it comes from about half of women as well - the ones who haven't experienced or haven't recognised assault. I recall one elevenses at work, around 1999, when the news referred to the % if women who had been assaulted and one woman I normally got in well with said she didn't believe the figure of 1 in 4 women having been raped or even srxualky assaulted, because she didn't know any women who had been raped. She was late 30s, me late 20s. I snapped "how many have you asked?" and said IME 1 in 4 might be low. She conceded it didn't really come up in conversation.

Two years later, she came in looking pale and not just hung over. She got me for coffee and said "I owe you an apology." Turned out she'd had 6 female friends over, lots of drink, and one mentioned having been raped. And then transpired out of all the women, she was the only one who had never been raped. As she said, "I never asked. Why are we all so quiet?"

Conversely, the minority of men who really do seem to get it usually turn out to have been assaulted themselves. Though abusers have generally been abused themselves too, so the key question to me is what turns that minority of victims into later abusers?

There is also the issue of shame. I would have no problem telling my male work colleagues that my car had been broken into - it'd be a story I'd tell over coffee. However, any time I've mentioned anything vaguely to do with sexual assault, the response from men has been very distinctive - do other women know what I mean? It's hard to describe it, but it's horrible to be on the receiving end of it, sort of a mixture of disappointment and helplessness with an edge of disgust or anger. It's very silencing. That silence allows men to carry on comfortably ignoring the fact that just about every woman he's ever met has been sexually assaulted.

Rapists and gropers play on those feelings. They take advantage of the fact that women won't want to cause a scene or overreact or be rude.

In my opinion, consent workshops can only be useful to boys. We are (fortunatelly) bombarded with the message that rape is a bad thing. If after reaching adulthood, a man can't respect a woman's refuse or, if drunk, her incapability to decide to have sex with him, no workshop will fix the problem. I think the effort to fight rape would have more effect if concentrated on pressing politicians to take raped women seriously and severely punish rapists.

I agree with Cantreach. It's about the bystanders more than convincing rapists not to rape. Its about breaking down rape myths. It's about making people think about it more.

The thing is from my perspective is that I'm a robust person, brought up by a single mum to be self reliant and to choose relationships for no other reason than they make me happy. My feelings about being responsible for being assaulted were nothing to do with my upbringing, and more about what I thought people would think of me if I told them, and I don't think I was worrying unnecessarily if being treated like I was the one breaking the rules by alerting people that I was being harassed. I think teaching consent is about reinforcing the message until we reach the tipping point where if someone gropes you in a bar you can call them out and everyone will censure them, not you.

I think consent workshops will teach men who want to rape what language to use to pretend they had consent. Sadly whatever height the bar is set, men will claim they jumped over it and it'll still be their word against the victims.

Having said that if there are genuinely women out there who do not know how to indicate non consent or feel they cannot verbalise how they are feeling and if these workshops would help them - then maybe it isn't all that bad an idea.

I'm afraid however I just don't buy the idea that someone can have sex with someone and be confused about whether they are doing it with a willing partner.

But there are numerous posters saying consent does have to be taught, it is confusing. Posters refer to an article by a man saying guys who assault or grope or masturbate to rape porn aren't all monsters. Just a product of their conditioning. And it feels like a disconnect or lack of logic or something to think this and have zero tolerance when men claim they thought they had consent.

The thing is though, arguably everything everyone does is a result of conditioning.

The thing is it shouldn't be confusing. In an ideal world everyone would know,acknowledge and respect another person's identity,personal space etc. But this is not the world we live in. And while I know the way I'm going to raise my dd (and son if i would have one), I also know all children won't be raised the same. Girls won't always be taught that they have a voice,they have rights,it's ok to cause a scene,show displeasure,say no and so on. Boys won't always be taught that it's not survival of the fittest,punch first ask questions later,that girls are not beneath them,an object for their personal gratification (be it sexual or otherwise) and so on.

I think we have been seeing the question differently Bertie :) I was thinking about understanding consent as being a sliding scale (as I said earlier, I have definitely not understood it as well in the past as I do now)

Is this really any different, in principal, from knowing if someone wants you to be their friend or not? You don't ask for consent to be socially intimate with someone. If you are properly socialised, you just KNOW how to organically form a reciprocal, empathetic relationship. I'm not sure about this focus on consent, because as another poster put it very well, consent implies that a woman's body is a thing to which one-way access is granted. Of course consent IS important, but an understanding of boundaries and reciprocity goes far beyond any kind of codification. Indeed, someone who gives verbal consent can not be as fully consenting as someone who has given only tacit consent - responding to a situation in which both party just KNOW the other is comfortable. The concept of consent makes sexual mutuality very legalistic and technical in a way that can be easily abused. And it almost reinforces a quite ugly idea of women 'giving in' to a man. If you consent to something then there is a connotation of reluctance or capitulation to pressure.

People disrespect other people's boundaries basically because they don't have any respect for them. They just see them as objects to be used. The problem is not so much with the technicalities of consent, but with the person committing the assault.

The idea that you can explain to someone that it's wrong to grab a random woman's breasts and for them to say 'Oh, is it? well I'll be darned - I hadn't realised, sorry' is pretty questionable.

The only exception that should be made is perhaps for people who are seriously impaired. I used to work with young people with severe autistic disorders and learning disabilities who could act out in sexually inappropriate ways. But that was never a peculiarly sexual issue: they just didn't know how to interact with others in any respect, and therefore had to be looked after so they didn't hurt others or get themselves into trouble.

Perhaps we're just seeing the question differently. I was assuming "men who have misunderstood consent" means men who have sexually assaulted, harassed or raped a woman but who don't believe that they have done anything wrong.

Mostlyhet thanks for the recommendation - looks interesting, I've just bought it on kindle.

And only for people who showed the kind of remorse you described

That's why I said the sympathy would only be for being a bit of a prat, not for assault.

It's not just "I didn't know it was a 30, officer" though, is it? It's "I didn't know it was a 30 and she just ran out in front of me!" She being a child - and you've just broken her leg.

Sexual assault and rape causes harm. Why should feminists show understanding or make allowances for men who have harmed women? Especially when the men often don't seem in the least bit distressed or concerned about the women they have harmed. They just seem offended that you could possibly be calling their actions into question.

If you hit a person with your car (assume for the sake of argument causing broken leg or similar) and you later found out that you had been driving too fast except you didn't realise that the limit was lower, would you be defensive and just keep insisting that you ALWAYS drive to the speed limit and the signs should be bigger, or would your primary concern be making sure that the person you hit was okay?

"I didn't know it was a 30 mph zone" doesn't stop you getting a speeding ticket, but will probably have your friends saying "oh bad luck mate".

I think that not having a good understanding of consent can get you some sympathy for "being a bit creepy" if you show remorse and show a willingness to learn. Not for actual sexual assault though.

Bertie: "We know all of this - we completely understand where the boundary lies in almost all areas except sex. Society teaches us that sex has different rules."

Yes, absolutely this! Deborah Cameron has an excellent chapter on this in The Myth of Mars and Venus.

Society teaches us that sex has different rules.

This. Rape is also the only crime where proving the act has happened(like theft,assault,murder etc) is not proof that a crime has been committed.

I also had to learn about consent. I'm pretty sure the man who assaulted me believed it was consentual and I was saying no when I meant yes. I had the idea that I was responsible, and felt so ashamed and guilty. Then one day I just thought 'It's not my fault!' and stopped feeling it was anything other than a shit thing that happened to me. Much later I looked into the issue of consent, and thought that I wish I'd discussed those ideas years before.

The way I see it, the reason we have to directly teach sexual consent is because society constantly gives the message that sex is an exception from the rules of consent.

Everyone innately understands consent. Have you seen the tea thing? Where it explains all the ways that you should and shouldn't give someone tea, somewhat ludicrously, which is the point. There's another one which uses various examples like insisting someone finish watching a film they aren't enjoying or just taking someone's car whenever because they let you borrow it before. We know all of this - we completely understand where the boundary lies in almost all areas except sex. Society teaches us that sex has different rules.

ymmv's article on page one was a nice summary of how this happens.