consent
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.
consent
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.
consent
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."
consent
@starkatt I think the real question here is, if I ask and they say yes, what then? We can always investigate the answers we get, validating and reconfirming, but we can never guarantee others know their own minds and we're not telepathic as a species. At some point, we must choose to either proceed or stop, and there's always a chance that we make the wrong choice in hindsight.
