A lot of people say that consent is really simple; yes means yes and no means no and as long as you communicate clearly everything is fine.

That's a dangerous oversimplification. It's not *wrong*, but it ignores a whole heap of nasty and subtle failure modes. The degree to which our culture ignores consent can take a lot of unlearning, and to say that it's simple makes it easy to gloss over dangerous underwater currents that can sweep away the unwary.

Honestly starting to think that rigid emphasis on the letter of consent can be a way of /hiding/ nasty patterns, both on an individual and subcultural level.

It's way too easy for a person to be able to say "I asked and they said yes, so there can't be a problem."

Or even "...and if they say there's a problem, they're lying."

And really? If you, reading this, think you're 100% perfect at handling consent, that you're guaranteed never do something a partner is uncomfortable with, *you're probably wrong*. Thinking you can't fuck up is a dangerous complacency.

@starkatt All I can say is there should probably be a balance, 'cause right now I'm on the "terrified of touching anyone for any reason even when they've told me it's okay" side of understanding consent and in my more depressed moments, I wonder if I'll ever honestly feel anything positive from touching another person ever again.

@starkatt @mawr This.

This conversation is of a piece with the social community fallout. There's a culture being created that leaves no room for mistakes. Too many assholes have exploited too much goodwill for grace to be offered to anyone. Now the assholes may be deterred, but so are people we don't want disengaging because the risk of being a party to harm is too high.

At some point, if I can't trust that yes means yes, I have to assume "no" and disengage.

@literorrery @mawr So I finally figured out the core of what's bothering me about this.

It's fine and necessary to say "this kind of thing is really complicated, and must be approached with nuance, patience, and understanding." But this (and a couple other posts) feel a lot more like "this problem is hard and scary so I'll try to only superficially engage in the hopes that I don't do something Wrong."

@mawr @literorrery Regardless of how much it sucks, these are real problems we have to deal with.

@literorrery @mawr And the fear that ultimately we can't separate bad actors from good doesn't mean that we should just throw up our hands and write it off as unknowable every time.

@starkatt @literorrery At some point, we have to trust the people we care about to tell us the truth when we ask them for consent. If we can't trust them to answer honestly, the only option is to assume the answer is "no" every single time.

If we assume that some people will at some point retroactively change a yes to a no, the only safe response is to hear all answers as "no."

I've fallen into the latter camp, 'cause I don't know what else to do and I'm just scared. All the time.

@mawr @literorrery It's possible to both trust a yes and be mindful of the established context though.