Once again, the men are talking about consent. From a High Court acquittal in the Farooqui case to the attendant buzz of “well, actually…” on social media, they’re pontificating mainly on how consent exists even where it is not intended. Sexual consent, of course — the distinction between rape and sex.
This is not, even in disagreement, a useful discussion.
For a useful one, we need to move beyond instances where consent has been withheld. We can’t discuss consent only retroactively. This leads to confusion among those who actively want to practice it. To establish and normalise consent as a part of general sexual behaviour, we need to speak not only about desire or its absence, but bring three elements into familiarity: respect, communication and emotion.
Respect for another human being is common civic sense, and if that is inculcated in all contexts, it will naturally trickle into the sexual context too. For instance, if a heterosexual man doesn’t really believe that women should be given respect unless they conform to certain roles, he isn’t going to be respectful to his sexual partners who don’t. His lack of respect for people outside the bedroom will, at some point, translate into a lack of regard for them inside it. Or even in a boardroom, where he perpetrates sexual harassment. And it doesn’t matter then how nice he seemed, or how many female friends he has, or how he hasn’t had those problems with his exes. If he cannot respect where one person has drawn the line — that is more than a mistake. That is a crime.
Communication is not just a question of how loudly you say ‘No’, but what you mean even if you say ‘Maybe’. We need to stop and ask each other, reassure each other, and sometimes stop entirely even mid-way through an encounter because of what one partner has conveyed. Communication, as always, is only part articulation — the other part is listening and understanding.
Which brings us to: emotion. India has a dysfunctional relationship with sex and sexuality. We’ve been taking our recent sexual cues from the West, which is not a problem, except that we don’t think and talk through the emotive aspect, which is impacted and subjectivised through cultural and societal contexts. For instance: can you really have casual sex like you see on TV shows living under your parents’ roof? Unlikely.
So how do we actually make these negotiations, and how do we deal with deep conditioning like shame, fear or secrecy? The shame around rape is deeply connected to the shame around sex and desire. We must destigmatise pleasure itself. Only then can we become clear on why the absence of desire in an encounter is so very egregious.
Learning healthy, well-adjusted ways to be sexual beings is a comprehensive — and in many ways even lifelong — process. Maybe it will be easier for us to honour each other’s right to extend or withhold consent when we see all of it in a holistic fashion. Not just ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. But ‘If’ and ‘When’ and ‘How’, too. And ‘Why’ (and especially — enthusiastically — ‘Why Not’?!).
(The Chennai-based author writes poetry, fiction and more)
Sharanya Manivannan
Twitter@ranyamanivannan