Sarah: Hi everyone!
My name is Sarah and welcome back to Everyday Consent.
Our camera today is a little bit different because our normal fancy one ran out of battery
so please excuse the slight changes today.
But we're back with another really fun Consent Chat with my good friend Chelsea.
So Chelsea, go ahead and introduce yourself.
Chelsea: Hi, I'm Chelsea.
I am not in any relationships right now, and I identify as gray asexual which for those
of you that don't know what that means, asexuality is a spectrum like everything in this life.
And asexual essentially means someone who isn't interested or doesn't have sex.
For whatever reason.
Whatever sex means to them or whatever reason they don't do it.
That is the general definition and label that some people choose, but on the, you know,
someone who is in the middle of that spectrum is gray asexual.
And it's really fuzzy.
And I honestly think that most people are a little bit asexual.
Like I've never met a person who's always down to do everything all the time.
So I think that--but choosing that label really helps me actually navigate consent a little
bit better because it helps people understand that I may not be as willing to do things
as previous partners they've been with.
And that consent really needs to happen on a more continual level.
So.
Sarah: Awesome, thanks.
So let's just go ahead and jump in then.
What--so what does consent mean to you?
Chelsea: I think consent is ongoing.
Like needs to be happening all the time.
I think that it is both verbal and non-verbal.
Preferably both at once.
Like words can mean one thing but you should also watch for someone's non-verbal cues to
make sure that they really mean what they say or that that is as enthusiastic a "yes"
as you want.
I think that you can definitely like, you know, go beyond that definition with a partner
you've been with for a while and have a good standard communication with.
But the default level of consent should be words and non-verbal cues.
And I think that--I'm actually a little bit concerned with--I love that consent is becoming
more a part of our conversations but I'm a little concerned with the definition that
people have fallen back on of like "No means no and yes means yes" because those are just
words and like, "YES!" is way different than, "yeah".
Like those are two different things and I think that we really need to be looking for
both the verbal and the non-verbal at the same time.
Sarah: That makes a lot of sense.
Cool.
Do you have any creative ways that you've figured out to ask for or give consent.
Chelsea: Not really.
I think that, you know, you can figure that out with your partner but words are so important.
And I think that--I'm a little concerned with the hesitancy in both our age range and our
society to actually use our words when talking about sex and during sex.
Like that could come from a whole variety of places but I think that "creative consent"
is probably not something you should do with someone if you're just sleeping with them
for the first time or if you're just starting to get to know each other.
It's definitely a--it's a standard you establish after the sort of like baseline of explicit,
clear consent.
Sarah: So you would say for new relationships then definitely use your words as clearly
as possible?
Chelsea: Use your words.
Use your words, yes.
I mean like in--you've already talked about this about how you need to use a lot of words.
There's no such thing as too many words and if you are sleeping with someone and they
think that like more words are ruining the mood, unless you've already had a talk about
what else you could use, that is a time to back off.
Like that's probably not gonna go well in the end.
Sarah: Have words and consent always come easily to you?
Chelsea: Uhh, not always.
Like I wasn't raised in the most sex-positive environment and consent wasn't a word I heard
until college.
So like I--as I was sort of discovering that I may be asexual and having this very mixed
range of experiences, I had a lot of difficulty finding the right words and having a conversation
with my partners and to be honest it would have been helpful if they had been there too,
like trying to have a conversation.
I take as much responsibility for not using my words as I did but there wasn't really
a conversation and so that took me a while to figure out like what I actually wanted
and how I actually defined myself and what I actually wanted to be doing in sexual relationships
because I wasn't ever sure if like the lack of communication and the resulting bad sex
was my fault.
You know.
So it took me a while to figure out that I had just a different way of going about things
than people, so.
Sarah: So would you say that what made it easier for you to learn to use words was mostly
just learning about yourself?
Chelsea: Mhmm, learning about myself.
Learning that it was okay to say "no" to things that other people might--you know, would be--"normal
people" might say "yes" to.
That even when you're really comfortable with someone and attracted to them, that doesn't
mean you have to have sex with them.
And because--you know, when you're not really raised in a area where that really explicit
and ongoing consent is the norm or portrayed as the norm, like in high school, what you
hear about sex is through--or middle school for those who went to middle school--you hear
about sex through really convoluted channels.
Though the internet, through like lots of channels that aren't communicating that well
that consent is as necessary as it is.
So it took me a while to figure out how to both establish standards of consent and deny
it.
Sarah: So what messages about consent did you learn while you were growing up and from
what avenues?
Chelsea: I mean, like you don't really hear, especially as a young woman, you don't really
hear about consent being necessary.
Like there's definitely roles you're supposed to play in sexual relationships and I think
that it's all tied up with like really problematic gender norms in our society that women are
sort of supposed to be the like the silent receivers of sex and men are supposed to be
the active givers of sex, like that's sexual objectification in a nutshell.
So umm, I think that it feels really abnormal at first when you're young and starting to
explore your sexuality to--trying to be seeking consent, especially if you don't have a definition
of what that is or have an idea of how necessary it is.
Sarah: Sure.
So you said that you sort of were like learning about this in college or earlier than that?
Chelsea: Uhh, I first heard the term consent when I came to college.
And I went to like a very liberal college so I learned quite quickly like what consent
was and how to--like different standards of consent.
I still think that even in this liberal college there was just an emphasis on like "yes" and
"no" and I think that is such a low bar.
We really need to be raising that bar to--
Sarah: It's really just the most simple version.
Chelsea: Yeah, it's the simplest and people--everybody can get on board with it.
Like I think that--
Sarah: Baby steps.
It's a good start, but--
Chelsea: Yeah, it's a good start, but it's like a--very much a baby step and I'd like
to see us take bigger steps forward.
Particularly in college environments where consent can be such a huge problem.
And I really think that we need to be taking bigger steps towards like a more active, engaged
definition of consent which is beyond like, "One yes is enough.
Everything after that is a go," you know?
Sarah: Yeah, exactly.
Can you think of some of your favorite moments of consent that you've had in your life?
Chelsea: Yeah.
All of them involved words.
I'm big on words.
Someone once asked me, well they didn't ask me, they just said, "I want to kiss you."
It was like asking an open-ended question which was really nice.
Like if someone says, "Can I kiss you?"
like that's good.
That's definitely a great thing to ask.
It's very hot.
But then you kind of are like left in a "yes" or "no" situation and I think that it hands
a little bit more agency to you to ask like an open-ended question of like, "Here's what
I wanna do.
What do you wanna do?"
Sarah: So that they're making just a statement of their desires rather than just like giving
you something to act on?
Chelsea: Yeah, 'cause like that's gonna have a limited range of options.
I mean I could have been like, "I don't want to kiss you, I want to climb a tree with you!"
and I--that would have been a perfectly reasonable way to respond to that desire.
Chelsea: I guess that's like the benefit of being abnormal is that you get to break out
of this--like "abnormal"--you get to break out of the scripts a little bit more and you
get to make up your own rules, you get to decide what consent looks like for you and
I think communication can be a lot easier because you know there isn't that same script
to fall back to so like you gotta figure out what's gonna--how this is gonna go down.