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 @mawr I don't think anyone is saying we can't separate bad actors, or even that we shouldn't try. It's that I have yet to hear anyone else say "I am willing to forgive those who hurt me who are trying sincerely to do the right thing but fail." And if there's no expectation of forgiveness after failure, there's no safety in trying.

Yes, we need to be able to identify the people who will hurt us; we also need to be able to identify the ones who are sincerely trying not to do so.

@literorrery @mawr Someone who gets hurt doesn't exactly have the luxury of consciously choosing how bad the hurt is though.

Like, sometimes there genuinely is no net. There doesn't have to be malice for someone to be hurt catastrophically badly. It's okay to think forgiveness is often a good thing (I think it is), but this feels a lot more like demanding forgiveness?