Don't Understand Sexual Consent? It's Like a Cup of Tea.

Forums: Rape, Date Rape, Consent, Sex, Sexual Consent
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Type: Discussion • Score: 9 • Views: 5,195 • Replies: 40

[+4] - Robert Gentel - 12/21/2015[quote="maxdancona"]Can a person give consent to their partner to initiate sexual contact while they are unconscious?[/quote] No, not at that particular time. [quote]My girlfriend...
[+4] - glitterbag - 12/21/2015I think it's a very good way of defining consent. Not just sexual consent, because it is applicable to other situations.
[+3] - Robert Gentel - 12/21/2015[quote="maxdancona"]This is ridiculously simplistic propaganda that misrepresents what should be a valid discussion over what constitutes sexual assault.[/quote] I disagree, I think it...
[+3] - edgarblythe - 12/21/2015I believe talks like the tea one should be given to young people and many older ones rather consistently.
[+3] - Robert Gentel - 12/21/2015[quote="maxdancona"]The "tea metaphor" represents sex as "pouring tea down down someone's throat". This is a horrible metaphor for sex in that it is something that one...
[+3] - Robert Gentel - 12/21/2015I do think that the video is really just trying to educate young people about those basic concepts of consent that you do not find controversial and that you are bringing a2k debate baggage into...

@Robert Gentel,

Clueless a2ker (AKA a member of the prorapist clan) will soon ask:
But what if it's green tea? Or Lapsang suchong tea? Or iced tea?

1 Reply

Consent-rate on this.

0 Replies

This is a ridiculously simplistic argument that misrepresents what should be a valid discussion over what constitutes sexual assault. All of us agree that forcing someone to have sex with you constitutes rape which is a crime. This message isn't really necessary.

In this day and age begging for sex is often considered rape. The "cup of tea" argument doesn't do anything to help this discussion.

Here is an interesting rebuttal

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/consent-its-a-piece-of-cake/17594#.VngienUVhBf

Quote:

Rule of thumb: If we’re told that an issue widely viewed as complicated is actually incredibly simple… it’s probably not that simple. Mind you, the principles explained in the tea-and-consent clip should be obvious to the average 10-year-old.

...

But suppose your friend says, ‘Oh come on, just one slice. It’s really delicious!’ And you say, ‘okay, sure’. Or maybe you keep saying, ‘No, I really don’t feel like it’, and your friend keeps pushing, coaxing and wheedling you until you finally say yes. Maybe she uses guilt: she slaved for hours baking that cake just for you, or made the rounds of a dozen bakeries trying to find the perfect cake! Maybe she tells you you’ve ruined her whole evening, or just sulks and pouts visibly.

....

Is your friend being obnoxious? Sure. No one would blame you if you weren’t in a rush to visit that friend again, or complained to mutual friends about how annoying her behaviour was. On the other hand, if you suddenly decided that what your friend did was no different from grabbing you by the nose and forcefeeding you cake when you opened your mouth to breathe, or forcing you to eat the cake at knifepoint… well, your mutual friends would be likely to think there was something wrong with you

....
When it comes to sexual assault, though, respectable mainstream studies are increasingly relying on definitions that include ‘arguing and pressuring the victim’ into unwanted sex, or ‘using guilt’. On college campuses, there are educational posters asserting that ‘if you have to convince them, it’s not consent’ (obviously, someone doesn’t get the dictionary meaning of ‘convince’!), and ‘if they don’t feel free to say no, it’s not consent’. In the media, we have rape narratives that boil down to ‘I kept saying no but he kept trying until I went along with it’.

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

Quote:

Clueless a2ker (AKA a member of the prorapist clan)

Robert, this will be an interest example of what happens when someone questions the mainstream opinion on a political topic. There is nothing I am saying here, or anywhere else, that is "prorapist".

Let's see what happens...

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This is ridiculously simplistic propaganda that misrepresents what should be a valid discussion over what constitutes sexual assault.

I disagree, I think it is a brilliant PSA that helps young men understand date rape issues. It does not seek to address all sexual assault and is focused on young British men who don't understand concepts like "she said yes then passed out, why shouldn't I have sex with her?"

It is not seeking to define sexual assault, it is seeking to show young men a common-sense way to understand consent.

Quote:

All of us agree that forcing someone to have sex with you constitutes rape which is a crime. This message isn't really necessary.

It's simply not true that everyone agrees on this. Many young men think that if a woman says "let's have sex" and goes home with you and passes out that it is still ok to do so.

Quote:

In this day and age begging for sex is often considered rape. The "cup of tea" argument doesn't do anything to help this discussion.

This doesn't have to cover all possible discussions about sex for it to be helpful.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

If the shoe doesn't fit then don't put it on, I have no idea what you are complaining about a post that was made before you even appeared on the thread and that is quite obviously not directed at you. It cannot be helped if you insist on seeing it as being about yourself.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I suppose there is one example... having sex while your partner is passed out. If young men think that, then I suppose that is a good message. However, I have been woken up with a sex act that was started while I was a conscious and unable to give consent before the act was started.... I don't consider that rape.

When I am in an ongoing relationship, there is implied consent... I think this is true in most adult relationships (when was the last time your lover ever asked you before initiating sexual activity). This is sacrilege in many places.

Quote:

Many young men think that if a woman says "let's have sex" and goes home with you and passes out that it is still ok to do so.

This seems complicated.... many people have sex while both choosing to use drugs or alcohol. If this is an activity that two adults choose to engage in, how do you decide where the line is?

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Maybe I jumped the gun Robert. If Tsarstepan wasn't referring to me, or the fact that I want to respectfully question the message of this PSA, then I apologize to him.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Can a person give consent to their partner to initiate sexual contact while they are unconscious?

My girlfriend has on several occasions initiated sexual contact on me while I was unconscious. She has my implicit consent to do so (I don't think I have ever explicitly given this consent).

1 Reply

I believe talks like the tea one should be given to young people and many older ones rather consistently.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

However, I have been woken up with a sex act that was started while I was a conscious and unable to give consent before the act was started.... I don't consider that rape.

That's fine, but other people might and you don't get to confer your consent onto them.

Quote:

When I am in an ongoing relationship, there is implied consent... I think this is true in most adult relationships (when was the last time your lover ever asked you before initiating sexual activity).

My partner has told me she is absolutely fine with being woken up that way so that's obviously not rape, if there is consent there is consent. I wouldn't however presume that all sexual partners feel the same way.

But this PSA is not directed at married people, it's directed at young men whose judgment on implied consent is often not very sound. Let's say a woman has sex with a guy, did not enjoy it and mentally decides not to do it again and they go to sleep. Then the guy tries again while she is sleeping. This is a case where the consent is not given and is not appropriate.

I can get that calling this "rape" is problematic because rape covers such wide range of things that this seems to make light of, but there should be no difficulty in understanding that consent may be withdrawn and that a sleeping person is unable to communicate that.

Quote:

This seems complicated.... many people have sex while both choosing to use drugs or alcohol. If this is an activity that two adults choose to engage in, how do you decide where the line is?

It's not easy and there's no clear line that can be established that will work for all situations.

Being slightly inebriated is not an impediment to giving informed consent but if someone is so drunk that they don't know where they are this is obviously not someone capable of giving consent.

Like many things you'll have to use common sense and judgement to draw the line and like many such things these lines are blurry.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Can a person give consent to their partner to initiate sexual contact while they are unconscious?

No, not at that particular time.

Quote:

My girlfriend has on several occasions initiated sexual contact on me while I was unconscious. She has my implicit consent to do so (I don't think I have ever explicitly given this consent).

I see nothing wrong with that. The implicit part of the consent is where things get tricky, some assume implicit consent when it is not there and in general with new sexual partners I think it is good to talk about these kinds of things and make sure you understand what your partner consents to or not.

Of course explicit consent is not always easy to get (much of consent tends to be implied in sex) and should not always be required but if you start having sex with your sleeping wife and she says "hey, don't **** me while I"m sleeping asshole" then it's obvious that you should never do that again.

Not everyone in a relationship considers sex while they are asleep to be fair game. That is and should be their prerogative.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

I don't follow you around enough to know your stance on this topic. I literally didn't know you wrote anything on this topic. I was referring to the two major proponents of the subject, Hawkeye and BillRM.

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@Robert Gentel,

My girlfriend has implied consent. Obviously if I tell my girlfriend "no" for any reason, she stops whatever she is doing. But, other than that, there is implied consent... she understands correctly that she is free to initiate sexual activity without checking with me first.

I have been an adult for a long time. I have never been in, or even heard of, a lasting adult sexual relationship (more than a night) that didn't have implied consent.

Maybe this is something that two people should discuss explicitly. I think in real life, most people started a sexual relationship understand this.

I would like to hear from anyone in a lasting relationship that doesn't have an understanding of implied consent with their partner.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I don't think I stated my question correctly. If someone says... "I am about to drink myself stupid, and then I want you to f*** me silly" does this give you the right to have sex with them while they are inebriated (i.e. it would be pre-consent since they are unable to give consent at the moment you start having sex with them)?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Not when you're having an argument.
Not after an argument until the reason for the argument has been resolved.
Not when you feel sick.
Not when he's sloppy drunk.
Not after the one who wants sex has been looking at porn (for some people).
Not when Grandma's funeral is in 20 minutes (unless you weren't that crazy about Grandma).

I mean. There are plenty of times people don't want to have sex.

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@Robert Gentel,

This is for people in England?

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@McGentrix,

Not that the message only applies to them but it was produced or promoted by the Thames Valley Police and uses the very English tea bit as the metaphor and the goal was educating youth about consent and primarily in "date rape" kinds of situations.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't think I stated my question correctly. If someone says... "I am about to drink myself stupid, and then I want you to f*** me silly" does this give you the right to have sex with them while they are inebriated

Yes, in that case they specifically gave informed consent to future inebriated sex (though they have the right to withdraw it at any time).

If however you get someone stupid drunk and get them to agree to sex this is not informed consent.

And if they consent to sex at some point and at another are stupid drunk and this inebriated sex consent is not given (implied or otherwise) then it is not ok.

Seems simple to me, what's the confusion?

2 Replies

Don't Understand Sexual Consent? It's Like a Cup of Tea.

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