You have known your partner for years. You know and celebrate their quirks and strengths, even their flaws. They’re your best friend, supporter, and lover. You may share a room, living space, responsibilities, dreams, and a life with them. In intimate moments, you share your bodies, but you don’t own their body. You own your body. And since you each own your own bodies, each is responsible to decide when, where, and how to be touched on their bodies. You each decide for yourselves and not for the other. And how do you do so? Well, through consent.
The main key to a fulfilling, happy, and healthy relationship is communication, and consent is a huge part of this. Open and honest communication is ever better! Consent can apply to all different expressions of intimacy and not just sex such as hand-holding, hugs, kisses, touching, groping, etc. The dialogue surrounding consent is ongoing even if you have known your partner for years and years. People are constantly changing and growing, and so their desires, views, and preferences for intimacy and sex change too. This is why it is important to ALWAYS ask for consent before, during, and after sex.
You may be thinking, “well I know what my partner likes and what we have done in the past, so I don’t have to ask because they’re good with whatever or what we usually do.” This is FALSE. This thought stems from the negative concept of “implied consent”, which is an inherently flawed concept. To consent is to permit, approve, or agree to something, and how can one fairly agree to something if they don’t know what they are agreeing to? It is also wrong to assume and pressure consent. Silence or inaction is NOT consent. An enthusiastic and conscious “yes” IS consent. According to Planned Parenthood, consent is like FRIES:
- Freely given
- Reversible
- Informed,
- Enthusiastic
- Specific.
A conversation is necessary to consent to acts of intimacy. Again, even if you learn and know your partner’s boundaries, that is not enough. You must respect them too, and so when they say “No”, you listen, accept, and respect their answer. In order to show our loved ones and ourselves respect, kindness, and decency, we should always ask for consent.
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