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Roderick

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i really try to avoid creepifying specifics on the video game forum, but getting somebody to errrrr emphatically consent is fully hot and these nudniks should get their heads out of their asses. 

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Right?! I was going to bring that up myself but forgot!

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i really try to avoid creepifying specifics on the video game forum, but getting somebody to errrrr emphatically consent is fully hot and these nudniks should get their heads out of their asses. 

 

Sex being something that "just happens" without any conscious input from the people involved is a prudish myth anyway.

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Ahh man, Shinji Mikami, so great. I really want to play the Evil Within, but those VRAM requirements...

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The Daily Show had a report tonight on catcalling / sexism tonight, with Jessica Williams. It wasn't over any specific incident that happened recently, it was just a general awareness piece.

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Ugh, can these people move to the Arctic or something?

 

No thanks, you keep them.

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Sex being something that "just happens" without any conscious input from the people involved is a prudish myth anyway.

 

Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine having sex without both people being like "hey, let's have sex" in some explicit, if not necessarily verbal, way. I mean, in any context that wasn't obviously rape.

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No thanks, you keep them.

I was thinking more like no mans land. Like trapped in ice forever and ever, or at least until after everyone else dies out and they can hang out with their buddies and just agree with eachother in lonely sadness.

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I was thinking more like no mans land. Like trapped in ice forever and ever, or at least until after everyone else dies out and they can hang out with their buddies and just agree with eachother in lonely sadness.

 

Can we call it bro mans land?

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I'm pretty sure if we call it that, we can get them to go there voluntarily. 

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Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine having sex without both people being like "hey, let's have sex" in some explicit, if not necessarily verbal, way. I mean, in any context that wasn't obviously rape.

The romantic vision that we have all been sold is that you're kissing, then hands start wandering, then clothes start coming off all without many (or sometimes any) words spoken. If you watch sex scenes in movies, few have explicit consent. Not saying it's right, just that we are a generation of people taught incorrectly by popular media.

For the life of me, I can't remember if I had explicit consent when I first had sex with my (then future) wife. It was especially risky because we're old fashioned and had originally intended to save it for marriage. Many misunderstandings could have occured there, it just happened to work out in our case I guess.

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The romantic vision that we have all been sold is that you're kissing, then hands start wandering, then clothes start coming off all without many (or sometimes any) words spoken. If you watch sex scenes in movies, few have explicit consent. Not saying it's right, just that we are a generation of people taught incorrectly by popular media.

For the life of me, I can't remember if I had explicit consent when I first had sex with my (then future) wife. It was especially risky because we're old fashioned and had originally intended to save it for marriage. Many misunderstandings could have occured there, it just happened to work out in our case I guess.

 

Yeah, especially for young people who only have that to go on, it's tricky. In a weird way, I think being socially awkward saved me from making mistakes because of what I'd seen before. My girlfriend and I were both teenage virgins when we met, so I've only had the one partner and don't have a lot else to go on here, but the first time we went for it the last things we said before were:

 

Her: So... I guess this is the part where we fuck?

Me: Yeah, ok. Sounds like a plan.

 

Super romantic. "Enthusiastic" consent may be the wrong term for it, but there was no ambiguity about us both saying "now is the time." In the seven years since, there have only been a few times when one of us hasn't asked the other "hey, you wanna?" first, usually these involved a lot of alcohol. I was, however, pushier when I was younger, not being over my socialization as a North American boy yet, and that led to some questionable situations that I have come to regret in retrospect. Even then, while questionable, there was still consent. I can't imagine someone going for it without at least a "we cool?" beforehand. And "we cool?" is a degree of casual reserved for long-term partners. Earlier in a relationship, especially the first few times, I actually have a really hard time understanding how someone wouldn't WANT to make as sure as possible that both parties are really into it.

 

I guess that's a roundabout way of me wondering what exactly qualifies as "enthusiastic"? I hope I've established my feminist cred enough to not sound like a shithead for saying this, but I'm uncomfortable with using subjective terms like "enthusiastic" in legal terminology, so when people ask for enthusiastic consent laws it makes me uncomfortable. Dating someone who has struggled with depression for a long time probably has something to do with it, because this means that there are long periods of time where she is unable to muster what most would call enthusiasm for anything. Hell, even when she initiates things in these situations, it's not with enthusiasm but with a "hey, this could be a thing to do." I'd be more comfortable with terminology like "unambiguous consent" or something like that. For all I know, that's what the term "enthusiastic consent" actually means and it's just poorly named, but if that's the case then this needs to be made clearer. Can anyone help clarify this for me? Earlier in the thread I remember people expressing the stance that, especially in a long-term relationship, sometimes you need to go along with your partner even if you're not feeling it at that particular moment just for the health of the relationship, and I wonder how that kind of situation fits into that discussion.

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For anyone who doesn't follow Patrick Klepek's Tumblr, this morning he posted a bunch of snippets from a 1980 Siskel and Ebert special about (now hilariously tame) slasher movies that wouldn't be out of place in one of Anita's videos. The notion gaters have that feminist criticism is a new thing or that it applies exclusively to video games is pretty baffling to begin with, but this is downright sobering.
 
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Entire thing here:
 


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For anyone who doesn't follow Patrick Klepek's Tumblr, this morning he posted a bunch of snippets from a 1980 Siskel and Ebert special about (now hilariously tame) slasher movies that wouldn't be out of place in one of Anita's videos. The notion gaters have that feminist criticism is a new thing or that it applies exclusively to video games is pretty baffling to begin with, but this is downright sobering.

Wow, thanks for findind/sharing those.

 

I guess that's a roundabout way of me wondering what exactly qualifies as "enthusiastic"? I hope I've established my feminist cred enough to not sound like a shithead for saying this, but I'm uncomfortable with using subjective terms like "enthusiastic" in legal terminology, so when people ask for enthusiastic consent laws it makes me uncomfortable. Dating someone who has struggled with depression for a long time probably has something to do with it, because this means that there are long periods of time where she is unable to muster what most would call enthusiasm for anything. Hell, even when she initiates things in these situations, it's not with enthusiasm but with a "hey, this could be a thing to do." I'd be more comfortable with terminology like "unambiguous consent" or something like that. For all I know, that's what the term "enthusiastic consent" actually means and it's just poorly named, but if that's the case then this needs to be made clearer. Can anyone help clarify this for me? Earlier in the thread I remember people expressing the stance that, especially in a long-term relationship, sometimes you need to go along with your partner even if you're not feeling it at that particular moment just for the health of the relationship, and I wonder how that kind of situation fits into that discussion.

I think when talking about "enthusiastic" consent, its really a message aimed at people hooking up or early in a relationship. though I agree it is an imperfect term and probably doesnt have a place in a law, where clearer language would be preferred. I dont think it applies to long term relationships. A couple still needs to have communicated expectations for themselves though. Like, my wife and i typically operate under an implied consent understanding, where if one person is up for it, the other obliges. When youre talking about a couple of middle aged people, working full time, raising a kid, plus other social obligations, there just isnt always overlap between when each person is wanting or needing sex. That said, both of us have the power to say no and the other respects that. But we've also had dozens and dozens of conversations about consent, libido, changing libidos, sexual needs, the effects of hormones as we age, etc. you solve tons of consent/sex problems in a long term relationship just by talking about sex on a regular basis.

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I think the idea of 'enthusiastic' consent is mostly to rule out badgering someone until they sleep with you to shut you up.

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I interpreted the phrase as also referring to the idea of recognising when a partner is uncomfortable with what they're doing but not saying anything about it - just because they're going along with something and not saying no, doesn't mean they're happy about it. To reverse the phrase, when her mouth says yes but her eyes say no.

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There's a good piece by Dr Nerdlove on enthusiastic consent here. The term in the California bill, though, is affirmative consent, I believe, rather than enthusiastic consent, which I think is a little different - enthusiasm is hard to judge legally, whereas affirmation - whether somebody verbally consented to a sexual act - is relatively quantifiable. The University of California campuses are already using the form of words "affirmative, unambiguous, and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity."

 

I think there are inevitably edge cases around that - at what point can someone say that they perceived consent as unambiguous, for example (which is where "enthusiastic" is a useful term) - but if that encourages people to err on the side of caution (which here means securing unequivocal consent) that doesn't seem like a terrible thing. The idea that college students might be prevented from having sex by the "unromantic" need to give and receive affirmative consent seems to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding of college students and what they are prepared to go through to get sex.

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It's not a woman's job to explain feminism to a man, unless of course, it's actually that woman's job and she gets paid for it.

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Today, I couldn't take it anymore after seeing the umpteenth GamerGate atrocity show up on my Twitter feed, and posted a long diatribe about it on Facebook. I really don't want to get into a discussion about it there, but there was this angry knot in my stomach and it had to be excised by words. I expect mostly support, but probably also a few unfortunate turns among my contacts.

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