Scott Madin

& 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.

I just...we're on a precipice where "Be gay, do crimes" is being countered by this new and weird misuse of consent that's, like, "don't wear clothes people don't like, don't throw bricks, don't trespass, don't break indecency laws, and don't work binding magic against abusers".

It would genuinely not surprise me if we start seeing "consent" laws that require trans people to get parental and spousal "consent" before we transition, and that require pregnant people to get "consent" before aborting. We need to be prepared for that next step.

And that isn't going to happen if we treat all demands for "consent" as valid and all accusations of non-consent as equally dire. There is a difference between non-consensually groping someone vs, idk, borrowing their car without consent. There just is.

And I'm...as a rape survivor, I'm pretty damn annoyed to see women being called out for "consent violations" when my read of the situation is that of an abuse victim trying to protect herself and praying that her abuser has a change of heart and stops hurting her. But that's me.

Yes! And I actually *have* seen people argue that you can't "non-consensually" prevent someone from driving home drunk because of bodily autonomy. That is an actual real argument I've witnessed.https://twitter.com/Rook_Stone/status/1403936163669299202 …

I have for reals seen people say this, yeah. https://twitter.com/Azure_Husky/status/1403937490264809473?s=19 …