Consent

[Rose White]

I work with kids and this year we’ve been teaching about consent. I think that’s good.

But what’s hard for me to wrap my head around is that I was consenting to all kinds of stuff as a kid and young adult that my current self sees as repulsive or abusive or manipulative. I didn’t know I was being mistreated because I was conditioned to not only accept it but seek it out.

I confused attention for care. I confused sex and orgasms for love. I thought jealous rage was love.

So I consented.

Which is confusing. When thinking about teaching consent.

I’m not the one teaching it. Thankfully.

I guess I would say that even if some kids are conditioned to accept abuse and don’t know when they are being abused, that in general teaching consent is helpful. Even if some kids already have their minds f*cked by abuse-codependency dynamics. Even if some people weaponize consent. Because the basic premise is helpful for people able to communicate clearly and honestly.

In other words it’s a good start.

Am posting in this section because I know that consent and love and care were all distorted and twisted in my mind and I’m still trying to sort them out.

 

[Friday]

I work with kids and this year we’ve been teaching about consent. I think that’s good.

Contracts. Favorable ones. Very child-friendly. Agreed. Unfavorable contracts should begin later/older/more worldly-wise.

But what’s hard for me to wrap my head around is that I was consenting to all kinds of stuff as a kid and young adult that my current self sees as repulsive or abusive or manipulative. I didn’t know I was being mistreated because I was conditioned to not only accept it but seek it out.

Yep. There’s a not-child-friendly aspect, illuminated in vivid detail. Exceptions to the case. Expectations. A middle-grade teaching, rather than an elementary one. Reality, rather than ideal.

First? The IDEAL. To meld it to the bone. Then? The f*cked up perversions that baseline “normal”. To create repugnance.

This is one of those, good for others, brutal on one’s self.

 

[Midnightmoon]

But what’s hard for me to wrap my head around is that I was consenting to all kinds of stuff as a kid and young adult that my current self sees as repulsive or abusive or manipulative. I didn’t know I was being mistreated because I was conditioned to not only accept it but seek it out.

These guys explain it pretty nicely I think (but obvs this is UK legislation), it helps my brain cause yeah, I dance around the 'but I consented' spiral too. You can't consent to something if you've been groomed into believing that this is what you want- that's the very opposite of consent

Gillick competence and Fraser guidelines | NSPCC Learning

Gillick competency is often used to assess whether a child is mature enough to consent to treatment. Fraser guidelines are used for issues relating to sexual health.

learning.nspcc.org.uk

 

[shimmerz]

I think one can't learn about their own role in what people call consent until they learn about the broader topic of power dynamics. How power dynamics work, why people want power, and what signs there are from the person usurping power from another. This is a very complex thing for a child to understand. Thus, why a child is such an easy target for these types of cowards who prey upon them.

 

[Rose White]

You’re reminding me that there is a widely held view that children can’t consent to sex with an adult no matter what. Which gets into the power dynamics. And youth rights. Children do not have the same rights as adults because they do not have logic and autonomy, they have no political power so they can be manipulated into giving consent. And there are adults who have been raised to accept and be comfortable with manipulation.

 

[shimmerz]

You’re reminding me that there is a widely held view that children can’t consent to sex with an adult no matter what.

Do you agree with this widely held view?

 

[Rose White]

Yes

 

[arfie]

there is a widely held view that children can’t consent to sex with an adult no matter what.

i tried to explain, "consent" to my eldest son. he is now a 44 year old, homeless crackhead. i hold the 80's concept of trying to explain adult concepts to children as an utter, abject failure. here in my second parenting career with three orphans, i hold that i am the grown up and responsible for what they are exposed to. you are finishing that homework, whether you consent, or not. no sex, pornography or crack pipes, whether you consent or not. why? because i'm the grownup. children are not ready for adult decisions. it's my job to prepare them.

can you hear my vote for that widely held view that children can't consent to adult, no matter what? as for the adult seeking consent. . . ya better hope the police catch you first.

just opining. . .

 

[Rose White]

As an adult I gave consent too but I was blind and deaf to bad behavior, I sought it out. Still, I see the benefit of beginning the conversation. T used to talk to me all the time like I knew what was up when I didn’t. She treated me as if I were wise enough to understand. I guess talking about consent with kids is like that.

 

[Friday]

As an adult I gave consent too but I was blind and deaf to bad behavior, I sought it out. Still, I see the benefit of beginning the conversation. T used to talk to me all the time like I knew what was up when I didn’t. She treated me as if I were wise enough to understand. I guess talking about consent with kids is like that.

We live our lives. If we’re not fools? We’re changed by them.

WHAT we consent to, as adults? Is based on our experience & understanding.

 

[Sideways]

So, I’ll preface this with something that I hold to be true: adults can choose how they live their lives, which includes the right to make terrible decisions.

With that out of the way - my own (potentially irrelevant) experience. As a child, I was conditioned to believe that I was obliged to provide men with sex when they wanted it, however they wanted it.

Needless to say, that played out as some pretty unpleasant experiences as I grew up. After I hit legal age it went on.

When I was a little way into treatment (finally) in my late 20s, well before the worst of my abuse had come out, my then psychiatrist was very clear with me: I did not have the capacity to consent to sex. He considered (and I agree) that I wasn’t expressing my own free will when I indulged men in the sex I knew they wanted, even when I had gone out of my way to let the cards fall that way.

I had the capacity for other things - nothing about my illness interfered with my voting, or paying rent. But since I wasn’t, in my mind, able to say no to sex, ever, to any man, for any reason, no matter what the consequences…I couldn’t consent.

There are, in my mind, multiple mental health conditions that can, in the unique ways they impact individuals, preclude the person from having the capacity to consent. To all sorts of things - sex included.

I doubt that human social systems like the judicial system will ever be able to deal with that. And I don’t go round thinking every man I had sex with during that period was a rapist. But consent, conceptually, to me, is limited by a lot more than just age. Weinstein, for example, didn’t have consent from the 17 year old who believed her career depended on it.

I raise an eyebrow now whenever the circumstances around sex aren’t mutually beneficial and enjoyable, coming from a healthy and informed place, sober, between equals a the list goes on.

And further, just because I can consent, doesn’t make it right, or healthy, or in my best interests.

 

[Rose White]

@Friday i see your point. “When I knew better I did better” was is a mantra for my recovery.

@Sideways what you wrote resonates very strongly with me. I still am not to the point of

mutually beneficial and enjoyable, coming from a healthy and informed place, sober, between equals

Which sometimes makes me feel like even though I’ve grown up so much and individuated from the enmeshment that I am a permanent child with respect to this domain—that I am developmentally stunted when it comes to intimacy. Maybe I can develop that ability and maybe I can’t. I can do many adult things that I couldn’t do before recovery—friends are a big important one.

People tell me that it will happen when my body-mind is ready, but I think once my body-mind found out I didn’t have to be a sexual servant it said “not going to take any more chances of being captured.” So when I think of sex with an other a protector tells me I’m a whore and to back off so I won’t corrupt myself since the only way I know how to interact is to provide service. My body-mind shuts down if the other wants to focus on me. I can perform but I can’t interact, and all my parts know this. So basically the part of me that had sex in the past is an exile and all the other parts know what a problem she is/was, and we keep her needs taken care of but will NOT let her interact with other humans.

Because there is no mutually beneficial equals, healthy informed. Appreciate the dialogue, helps me see it a bit more concretely. Uncomfortable to realize that part is an exile but makes sense as to why I hate that part of myself. I think sometimes the SI is a wish to get rid of her. If she didn’t exist everything would be great.

That’s part of my cognitive distortion. That if I didn’t have this sexual exile I would be great. But a nagging part of me says that. Wouldn’t be able to connect with my friends and people in general if I had no sexuality. But asexual is a thing and they have friends. I’m not asexual in the sense that I don’t experience, but some parts of me wish we could kill off that part. But other parts of me want to accept her and say she makes us more human and more able to understand others, because sexuality is a human/animal/alive experience so having it helps us connect in some small way. Even though we don’t do it we did it before so we understand something about it even if we only understand what it’s physically like or understand the wrong ways.

Am babbling but something unloosed. So helpful. Not going to edit because I want to let the thoughts rumble along in their imperfect state. Hope I made some sense.