Scott Madin

I am really worried how "consent" is being watered down and applied to things that it shouldn't be applied to. We saw this at the pride discourse, where we had to explain that others don't get to "consent" to your clothes. That would imply everyone has veto power over your body.

And I feel I witnessed it again today re: a young woman taking protections against a controlling boyfriend. I really feel we're a step away from "she left him without his consent" discourse or "she took the car and the kids and fled without his consent".

Consent is vitally important and applies to things besides sex, but something being "non-consensual" doesn't mean it's automatically on the level of rape. A non-consensual drink thrown in the face of a bar lout, for example, isn't consensual but it's not the same thing at all.

There are times when overriding someone's consent may be necessary or even good. Someone taking the car and the kids and fleeing to her mother's house is "non-consensual" but it may also be saving her (and the kids') life.

& There are some things people don't get to consent to (clothes, makeup, your own sexuality and gender). That's important to remember as anti-abortionists continue to ramp up the idea that abortion doesn't have the consent of the embryo or the sperm donor.

We need to be careful that "consent" doesn't become misused, nor that it become elevated to some kind of idol. Civil disobedience means going against certain people's consent. Protests and marches don't have popular consent. Homeless people don't need consent to exist and camp.