Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
Consent is a useful but also utterly bananas magic concept. Eg: *If you're 16, your ability to consent to sex depends on the age of your partner *consent only counts if it's enthusiastic *Must be verbal to count *Only important for your body, not your livelihood or property 1/
19
234
Aella
@Aella_Girl
*you become less able to consent the more famous the person is you're consenting to *Animals can't consent to sex, we say as we artificially inseminate them *It's impossible to consent to sex for reasons other than arousal, like money for food *consent violations are The Worst 2
3
116
Aella
@Aella_Girl
What the hell is consent? It can't be "the individual wants the thing to happen"; lots of young/vulnerable people/animals feel this, but we consider their consent invalid. And there's lots of "don't want this thing to happen" that we're ok with cause we justify it, e.g.-
2
86
Aella
@Aella_Girl
ppl who don't wanna pay taxes or kids who don't wanna go to school or people who want to take the wrong kind of drugs or people who want to sell their bodies for sex. It's ok to violate their consent because it's "for a greater good". 4/
2
87
Aella
@Aella_Girl
So the actual cultural definition of "consent" is closer to: wanting/rejecting something that society deems is for the greater good, and where validity of that desire/rejection being dependent on how much power that person has. 5/
3
84
Aella
@Aella_Girl
To be extremely clear, I'm not arguing that since consent is a bananas concept, we should throw out everything. For example, kids often "consent" to sexual experiences with pedophiles because they're kids who don't know better; the bad thing here is the intense betrayal. 6/
1
71
Aella
@Aella_Girl
I'm arguing to quit consent as a magical concept. Take it off the pedestal; there's lots of other ways to handle understanding "boundaries around what we want", and it's often different for different types of situations. Thinking in consent just blurs what's actually going on.
1
Retweet
1
Quote Tweet
137
Likes
Stalemateable Čhepulis • • •
@ingleeshh
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
The discrete nature of consent has its value (and origin): "you're not guilty of a transgression in the eyes of the society". Just accepting blurred lines might be the more fitting to the complexities of real cases, but w/o the safe hard line how the hell can people relax and do?
3
General Cusswords
@yaycapitalism
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Here's a fun one: if the girl is drunk she can't consent, unless they're both drunk in which case only the man can consent, unless they're in the military in which case the first one to claim rape is the one who couldn't consent.
1
5
TK-421 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁮󠁭󠁿
@tk42132
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
I actually don't think consent is that complicated in the context of just respecting the bodily autonomy of sentient beings. I agree it is a deeply quixotic and complicated concept, but it is also an extremely important one.
1
Noam Daplúm
@nomduplume2
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Judges weigh the general welfare against individual rights all the time. What’s a public health curfew but a blatant infringement on fundamental rights, carried out under the auspices of the general welfare?
—e
@emdashii
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
I don’t realize it was put on a pedestal until you pointed it out, and it definitely was. They talked about it like magic in hs and made you take a course on it before entering college. Like understanding it fixes everything
2
Zaharo Tsekouras
@ztsekouras
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Agree. And re different situations, affirmative consent standards can even be harmful; on college campuses, for example, these standards have violated due process rights of students accused of sexual assault.
1
JamesonLaw
@JamesonHalpern
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
The concept of Consent still has tremendous importance. The old Common Law definition of Consent still works the best. Consent exists as long as someone competent doesn't actively express a desire to disengage in any part of the activity.
2