When to Touch a Woman (or, Things I Wish My Male Friends Knew)

[eponis]

This is for all the nice guys out there. I love you all, and I know you mean the best, and I know you want the women around you to feel happy and safe. Well, this is one part of how to achieve that. Unfortunately, it's a part that I see being violated all the time -- and trust me, guys, most of the times when it happens, you'll never hear about

Comments

[sen_ichi_rei]

Wonderful post. I hope it will make a difference. (Even if it prevents one person from touching someone else unwantedly it's worth it.)

[eponis]

Thanks. I really hope so too.

[paul_the_nerd]

I about 95% agree with this. But I feel that sometimes it's necessary to 'take a chance' as it were in situations where permission is, at best, ambiguous

[paul_the_nerd]

Sorry, "too nice." Damn hands typing without thought.

[bedofbones]

It's interesting you posted this now. I've been thinking about it a lot because in my community (a specifically kink-oriented place) we've been having a pretty intense kerfuffle about some consent issues that went on over the past few days. It's been a really miserable experience for absolutely everyone involved, and is having some terrible fallout. Just makes me want to shout JUST COMMUNICATE DAMMIT at everyone I know.

In addition to a hearty yes to everything you just said, I want to add something. I don't want to engage in any kind of victim-blaming, and I know it's so so hard to have confidence in yourself to say 'no' or assert yourself negotiation-wise, but sometimes people really need to try to express their boundaries and desires in healthy ways. There are gray areas when it comes to unwanted touch, and it's the responsibility of everyone involved to be clear. Because of our social conditioning the responsibility should be primarily on the person doing the touching, but it's still a two-way street.

[eponis]

Ugh, that kerfuffle sounds very frustrating. I hope you can resolve them. One of the things that I actually really like about negotiated kink is that people do make more of an effort to think about and address questions of consent up-front, so it's always hard when that fails.

I agree entirely with your second paragraph, and no, I don't think it's victim-blaming. Clarity about one's own boundaries can sometimes be really hard to communicate (for a whole host of legitimate reasons), but it's always important to try -- not just for our own sake but for the sake of others genuinely trying to keep us comfortable. It's a side of consent issues that I didn't address much in this post, but it's still a really important part.