The Politics of Consent

Why would I even choose to write about this stuff?

When I consider the potential blowout from this article, I can't help but wonder why I'm writing it at all. Is it worth it? I guess I'll know in ten years.

Consent is perhaps one of the thorniest issues in today's landscape of antagonistic male and female interactions.

To women, the question of consent is fairly simply. Yes is yes. And no is no. Unless the yes is an unenthusiastic yes. What about the no? Well it can be enthusiastic or not. It's still no. And it can be withdrawn at anytime during sex. Or even immediately right after it. Thankfully, it cannot be withdrawn a while later. Except under certain circumstances. Maybe she said yes when she was drunk. Or when she thought you weren't lying to her. But now that the truth is out and she's sober, she's seen the light. And since the consent was gotten through deceit it's fake and it has now been withdrawn. Thank God for that. Asides from that, it's easy to understand.

For men the question of consent is also simple. Yes is yes. Whether enthusiastic or not. No can also be yes if it's not enthusiastic enough. After all there's ample difference between “No jhur” said with a smile and a wink, and “NO LEAVE ME” said with a scream. Silence is also consent. Because why wouldn't you scream and fight if someone is raping you? And if you fight but it's not hard enough, then it's still consent. You're just proving hard to get. Because if you aren't, why would you be here anyway? We just went on date that I paid for. And I sent you a hundred thousand for your uber. Merely accepting that money and coming here was consent. You're only fighting because you don't want to seem cheap. And it's okay. He doesn't care. Asides from that, it's easy to understand.

It's easy to see why men and women have a lot of disagreements on what rape is. There is no man who's accused of rape who admits it. No man ever says, well, yes, I raped her, why not? It's always some mixture of well, we had sex but it was consensual, or we didn't have sex at all. Despite what many retarded talking heads might say, no one likes getting into that sort of drama.

Jack And Josie Dancing At A Party, F.U.C.K.I.N.G

Let's consider a twenty four year old boy named Jake and a twenty four year old girl named Josie.

They both attend a house party and get drunk at it. They find themselves attractive enough to start making out, and Jake — while completely drunk — invites Josie — who is also completely drunk — to an empty room in the apartment. Josie follows him of her own volition, despite being almost passed out drunk.

They start to undress, and they have enthusiastic drunk sex in all its slurry goodness. Not a word of consent was asked and things proceeded mostly without words because both of them were too drunk to even form words.

The next morning comes and Josie finds herself in a quandary. She cannot remember anything that happened after she began making out with Jake downstairs. She certainly cannot remember giving consent to having sex. Importantly, she realises that Jake isn't even that interesting to look at and she might not have given him a second glance on a regular day. She cannot believe what has just happened. She packs her stuff and leaves the apartment.

Jake wakes up much later. He sees a used condom which is evidence of sex. He also cannot remember what happened, but he knows that he surely must have had sex. He cannot believe his luck. What a neat night, he thinks to himself. Even though he cannot remember the sex itself.

Josie goes home and tells her friends what happened. They tell her what she needs to hear — you've been raped, they exclaim. Did you give consent? No, she retorts. I cannot even remember talking to him! But even that doesn't matter. Even if Josie gave consent, it would be irrelevant since she was drunk when she gave that consent.

And so it begins. She jumps on the retarded wasteland called Twitter and sews a magnificent dress for Jake to wear to his festival of shame. A scandal!

I suppose the most common reaction from certain readers — I hope— by now will be, but what is this? How common is this scenario, you foolish boy?

Well, it's common enough for a poster like this to be printed out.

One study claims that a three quarters of all college rape victims experienced it while they were drunk and couldn't consent. That's an exceptionally high percentage. Of course these are numbers gotten from American studies. Whether this is the case for Nigerian women I cannot tell, and I also cannot find any study that provides such statistics. However, I think the numbers would be similar in Nigeria.

I understand that all rapes that occur while the victim is intoxicated doesn't follow this pattern. There are many where a clearly rejected man takes advantage of a woman who just happens to be drunk in the vicinity. For example the dynamic I described with Jake and Josie here isn't the same as one where Paul, a random unknown guy, comes into the room and then has sex with a Josie that cannot consent to the act. I hope it's obvious that that's clearly a different situation altogether as the working assumption should be that Josie wouldn't have consented to that if she could.

Now that we've gotten all the caveats out of the way, we can tackle this situation like learned people. The first problem here is that it's assumed that Jake raped Josie, and not the other way around. Since both were drunk, and we argue that intoxicated people cannot consent to sex, then it follows that the only reason Jake is portrayed as the rapist is because he's a man.

Another problem is the assumption that drunk people cannot consent to sex under any circumstance. It's a standard that we only just magically invented for women and sex. Men who do anything while drunk must take responsibility for their actions. In fact, in some cases getting drunk while doing certain tasks is grounds for imprisonment. A man who kills another in a fit of alcoholic rage cannot say he cannot be held responsible for that because he was intoxicated. A man who beats his wife cannot claim that alcohol impaired his thinking. A man who rapes a woman cannot claim that alcohol made him do it, even though in reality all those claims may have an element of truth. After all, about 60% of all domestic abuse are committed under the influence of alcohol. We rightly don't blame the alcohol for the actions of such men (or maybe we should! It actually is not so cut and clear), so why should we automatically dismiss the actions of women just because it was done while under the influence?

Any society serious about equality or equity or whatever the liberal shibboleth is these days must also hold women to the same standard. It gets even worse when you realize that such standards isn't extended to the man in the scenario. The man cannot be raped, even though he was also intoxicated and cannot give consent according to this weird double standard.

To be fair, I understand why this is the case. It's mostly because we assume that sex is something that is done to women, not something women partake in. Our society conceptualizes sex as an act that begins when the man makes an offer to the woman. Then the woman considers, and then accepts. But that's false. That's not how a majority of sexual encounters occur. For the most part women give nonverbal cues that entice men into making an offer — if I may use such crude legalese. Hence, claiming that women are generally indifferent bystanders until they are made an offer for sex is an awful misunderstanding of sexual dynamics and is an argument that can only be conjured by a stupid virgin.

So what's the way out? Who was wronged in the scenario of Josie and Jackie here, and is there even a logical way to navigate such issues without harming true victims? There is.

The way out is to teach young women (for old women know this well), that drunkenness isn't a get out of jail free card. Consent, even given while intoxicated, remains consent — especially if the other party is intoxicated as well.

This isn't a fantastic proposition. It's the standard we use for every activity that isn't women-having-sex. The good thing is this also means that rejection can be given during intoxication as well. It's the same standard we use for everyday activities. There's no need to turn it upon its head to appease young women.

Or better still, tell young women that it's retarded to get wasted enough that this even becomes a problem in the first place. That seems like good advice for most people, but I have a feeling it won't go over well.

It honestly baffles the mind that any sane person — especially women — would get so drunk that they would be unable to make good decisions or get so wasted that they totally forget the events of the last night anyway. It's self harming behaviour, and should be just as frowned upon as a drug addiction. I've only gotten so wasted once in my life, and that was 8 years ago. I have friends that get drunk that way every week or so. It's a recipe for disaster, even for men. If a man gets so drunk and in his drunken mindstate does something he wouldn't ordinarily do — like commit a violent rape for instance, he would have deserved whatever punishment he gets out of the endeavour. No one should be drinking alcohol to that extent anyway. Such problems are not ones that clever people of any gender should have.

Before I move on to other aspects of the politics that is consent, I'll respond to the only argument I can't think of against my aforementioned position. And the argument is this; oh foolish Elewa, don't you know that under the law women cannot give sexual consent when they are intoxicated? It is the law! It says it right there in the poster.

My answer is simple. The law is stupid and quite retarded, and I don't care for it anyhow. If your mind cannot process arguments without appealing to authority, you're a bugman of the worst kind and my arguments are wasted on you.

The Consent Of Social Norms

I've found that people who reduce consent to merely a matter of yes and no are either A) idiots or B) sexless idiots. I daresay most consensual sexual encounters do not start with verbal consent.

But to some people, that's precisely how it should go. Sometimes when I encounter people who make such arguments in real life I wonder if they suffer from a chronic case of dropped-on-the-head-as-a-childism.

People in committed relationships, for instance, usually don't go through the ritual of asking one another for consent. In fact, it's ordinarily assumed that consent is given unless withdrawn. That's why a man may start undressing his girlfriend without explicitly asking for her permission to do so, and it would be assumed that it's permitted unless the girlfriend in question rejects his moves. If the man goes on after she rejects, that would be nonconsensual sex. But if she doesn't reject the advances, and they go on to have sex — even if she doesn't participate enthusiastically or at all — that would still be consensual.

Of course this puts to test the oft-spoken liberal shibboleth that silence isn't consent. In some cases it truly isn't. A clearly intoxicated person who cannot even speak isn't giving you consent through their silence when you sleep with them. However, when the same happens with a sober person and they refuse to voice discontent it doesn't beat the imagination that a partner would take that silence as consent! And why shouldn't they?!

Verbal consent makes things clearer and can be of great help in situations where either side fears that nonverbal cues aren't enough. But regular human interactions don't usually follow such formal rules. Human sexual activity is not a court room where everything must be in white and black. I honestly wish it were, as it would make things easy for me since I can be rather socially inept. But it isn't, and there's nothing I hate more than reality denying clowns who insist on distorting truth for status games that they will never win anyway.

The sterile way internet idiots speak about such matters only serves to mislead young boys and young girls about the norms surrounding sex and consent. That's the politics of consent, and it's stupid.

Boring Details For Young Men

I was quite late to having sex. By the time I had sex for the first time I was already neurotic and paranoid enough to keep well documented evidence of given consent from the women I slept with. I remember telling a female friend who asked me how I knew I was going to have sex with someone on so, so day. The question was dumb to me. How wouldn't I know? I'd already asked before hand and gotten explicit consent. Explicit here means something like; yes, I'm coming over to have sex on Friday. She could hardly believe it.

I knew even that wasn't enough for anyone stupid and neurotic enough to falsely accuse me of rape, but as Yoruba people often say, if someone wants to burn you try not to rub your body with gasoline.

I was this paranoid about such events because I'd had a close call with a false accusation, and I was sure I wasn't going to allow it happen to me again.

Most of my female friends do not behave in this manner, and how can they? One told me that sometimes she only decided on whether or not to have sex upon reaching a potential sexual partner's place. That's a kind of sexual flexibility I don't think I can have the liver, so to speak, for.

I remember speaking to a friend about sex recently, and he told me that he was a master of seduction. I wondered why he would have to be one, and he said it was because his go to dick-wetting strategy was to invite women over and then seduce them to have sex. He did this many times without speaking about it with them beforehand. These are women he isn't in committed relationships with. I wondered if he was mad.

Despite what I've written here about sexual norms being largely nonverbal, that's still such a stupid risk to take considering what the potential blowout could be. One, you could be rejected and embarrassed by the lady. Two, you could be accused of sexual harrassment — or even worse, rape! Even if the woman doesn't verbally object during the act itself. Why would you take such huge risks for at most 3 minutes of seggsy time? It befuddles my mind.

Now, this isn't to say that my friend is entirely retarded. He isn't. His behaviour does have some logic to it. If a man who's no doubt trying to sleep with you invites you over to his house, and you come, you should understand that you've told him “I'm listening”.

It's even worse if you have have engaged in sexual activity with him once before.

While that in itself isn't consent to sex, I struggle to think how it should not be interpreted as consent to be seduced or convinced or persuaded to have sex. It's basically the woman saying;

Some women like to deny that this is the case. They are detty liars. It's even more complex when you consider the women who reject you just to hope you try harder, and the women who tell you they are disappointed in you because you didn't make a move on them before asking (which has weirdly happened to me once before).

Some clever fellow may ask, well, if you're so legalistic about consent in your private dealings, why are you telling people that it is unnatural to be so sterile about it?

Here's the thing bucko, I've been in committed sexual relationships, and I can assure you I am not legalistic in those contexts at all. But when you're outside such trusted confines and whoring your way about, you should take extra care — even if it's unnatural. No one will care for your drivel when someone tarnishes your image just because they regretted having sex with you. (Which happens QUITE A LOT actually).

In any case, here's my advise. Quit the whoring while you're ahead, and if you cannot quit it, be legalistic and formal about getting verbal consent. Not because you should, or because it's natural, but because you're playing it safe and you must assume that most people you're hooking up with are extremely neurotic and almost clinically retarded. Also, they have like zero emotional regulation.

Even though this article is correct — as far as I can tell anyway — you should still be legalistic about consent in your whoring dealings. You should also not get consent from drunk women, even when they seem enthusiastic. It's going to be very hard for you to explain your logic to idiots.

It's the safe thing to do. Except you don't care about social status, then by all means make your own rules.

I don't have any advise for young women.

“They should die if they want to die”

—My friend when I showed him a passage of this article and expressed my worries about getting a lot of grief from people about it. Indeed, they should die if they want to die. I give my consent.