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It’s Not Really About Consent
Especially when it’s supposedly about consent
Though I have political viewpoints, I tend to restrain myself from writing about them online. And one may think that entering into the discussion about the #metoo movement is political — but it’s not.
There is nothing political about sexual transgressions. It is a moral issue — where morality requires that you respect the sexual boundaries of your fellow humans, and those boundaries involve whether or not they want to have sex with you.
This piece of writing started off as a comment on one of the many stories flooding the internet about Aziz Ansari’s immoral sexual conduct. As I was writing it, it occurred to me that I have a few thoughts about sexual morality that I haven’t seen clearly laid out in what I’ve read thus far within the deluge of editorials about sexual assault, harassment, and other terrible goings on. Being a writer by nature, I decided to write out said ideas. My hope is that they give even a few people (let’s face it, mostly heterosexual men) pause, so that they may reflect on their response to the public discussion about sex and consent.
I have seen, in the wake of stories like the one about Ansari, a reaction from many men of throwing their hands up — being unsure what they are supposed to do in order to get clear consent…
