The Role of Fiction in Enthusiastic Consent
“Hey,” whispers the first, breaking off the kiss to nuzzle the second under the ear. “I want to take off your shirt. Is that okay?”
The second chuckles. “Maybe….”
“Oh,” says the first, pulling back to look into the second’s eyes, looking for sincerity. “You’re not sure?”
“Silly person,” says the second. “Of course it’s okay. But it’s more fun if you have to convince me. Earn your prize.”
The first’s eyes narrow a bit. “So you’re pretending to need to be convinced?”
“I suppose. If you want to just say it out loud like that.”
“Okay, I’m up for a little roleplay. But I need to have a way to know the difference between a pretend no and a real no. We need a safeword. So there’s no misunderstandings.”
The second’s eyes roll. “You’re weird, you know that? You’re not going to tie me up or anything.”
“I don’t think it’s weird at all.”
“Alright, fine. My safeword is ‘No.’ If I actually say ‘no,’ that’s what means stop, no, I don’t like this.”
“I can work with that.”
The second leaned back on elbows. “So come on. Convince me.”
A crooked smile grew on the first’s face. “Yes.”
Consent–full, enthusiastic, well-communicated consent–is and must be the central pillar of the sex positivity movement. We must respect not only ‘no’ but also ‘not now’ and ‘um…’ and ‘well…’ as they could be an emotional veil for a ‘no’ that dares not be voiced. There’s no doubt that this complicates matters. It means things need to be discussed that we’re not used to discussing. It means that we need to express like and dislikes, fears and desires that we often are not used to expressing. But there really is no getting around it, so we need to learn how to do it.
For many of our interpersonal interactions, we follow scripts. This goes from meeting people at a party, to asking for a date, to buying groceries, to putting children to bed. There’s a security in knowing that everyone involved tacitly understands how things are going to go. It smoothes things out to follow the script, play the game by the rules.
Culturally, however, scripts for negotiating enthusiastic consent are not widely enough understood. We generally aren’t privy to the private conversations of others, and portrayals in popular media rarely model anything close to ideal behavior. In fact, popular media often shows us the opposite; the masculine role is the hunter, always interested in sex and rarely respectful of boundaries; the feminine role is the prey, whose defenses must be worn down in order for the hunter to win his prize. In the real world, this script is toxic, and it needs to be rejected. And the only way to do that, is to write new scripts.
As a creative person, I believe that I can help to establish those scripts. Now I am by no means a widely read author, but change has to start somewhere, and if I’m not willing to commit to this idea myself, then I have no right to ask anyone else to.
Now none of this should imply that everyone should write stories where perfect people lead perfect lives and never overstep boundaries. Just the opposite. In fact, the violation of taboos is a source of tremendous drama. But when boundaries are transgressed, whether they are personal or social, that event is significant. It should have consequences. Things should happen. Lives could even change. To do otherwise should feel tremendously artificial.
Speculative fiction, especially, embodies the stories of our world as it could be, as it should or shouldn’t be, as it might have been. It can be the literature of metaphor, extrapolation, and experimentation. That context is, in my opinion, the best place to write new scripts for human interaction, and the best place to critique the old ones. It’s no accident that the first scripted interracial kiss* to appear on American television happened on a science fiction program.
So for this reason, I keep the concept of affirmative, enthusiastic consent in mind when I’m writing about sexual relationships. I consider what I’m writing in terms of the scripts it affirms or critiques, and what it says about them.
*Interesting side note: this kiss is non-consensual. For both parties.
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This is very definitely some good stuff. I am already tempted to write a short story in this vein (particularly since most of my erotic fiction is pretty bad about consent by design so far).
Great post, lots of things to ponder and a really positive message. Thanks for this one.
It’s interesting you would mention the Aliens Made Them Do It kiss from Star Trek: The Original Series because I mention it in my post tomorrow as well–that and how we as authors and creators stand in the best place to ‘write the scripts’ as you say, for the people who come along next. Excellent post!