A vital and often-misunderstood concept!
Here's what everybody needs to know to make sure every sexual encounter is a good experience for everyone involved.
The key is a concept called Consent. Sex without consent is rape, so make sure you have consent.
What exactly is "consent?" The Minnesota Criminal Code has an excellent definition. Let's take a look.
Consent means words or overt actions by a person indicating a freely given present agreement to perform a particular sexual act with the actor.
Let's walk through this definition, piece by piece.- Words or overt actions: She's ripping off your clothes. She's pulling you to her. She's telling you to hurry up. Remember: consent is active. Non-consent is the "default" that has to be over-ridden by words or overt actions.
- Freely given: There is no threat, no fear, no coercion of any kind. If you tell her that she has to have sex with you or else you'll attack her little sister, you don't have consent. If she allows the act because she is intimidated or scared in any way, you don't have consent.
- Present: As in, right now. She had sex with you yesterday? Doesn't matter. She's going to have sex with you tomorrow? Doesn't matter. Unless she wants to have sex with you right now, you don't have consent.
- A particular sexual act: Advocates run into this one pretty often in a date-rape situation. Cuddling and kissing in her underwear is one specific sexual act that she is consenting to. But that in itself does not signal consent to any other sexual act. You have to make sure you have consent for every sexual act that takes place. Sometimes a boy will howl, "Well, she was kissing me, in her underwear, so what did she expect??" That's easy: she expects you to be a man. A man doesn't have sex unless his partner is showing enthusiastic consent. And if you have to ask why, you're not a man yet. Some people will argue that it's not very smart to cuddle in your underwear with someone. But that's irrelevant. Poor judgement is not a substitute for consent. And you have to have consent.
"Consent" does not mean the existence of a prior or current social relationship between the actor and the complaintant or that the complaintant failed to resist a particular sexual act.
- A prior or current social relationship: You're boyfriend and girlfriend? Doesn't matter. Former boyfriend and girlfriend? Doesn't matter. In my county, a husband was arrested for having nonconsensual sex with his wife.
- Or that the complaintaint failed to resist: Consent is active, and very easy to recognize. Consent is not the absence of "no." Consent is "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
A person who is mentally incapacitated or physically helpless cannot consent to a sexual act.
- If she's drunk, or drugged, or passed out, she can not give consent. This brings to mind the case of Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir who has been in the news lately. He drugged women and raped them, and said that it was consensual. He figured that any woman that came into his room was consenting to sex. Obviously, this guy just didn't get the whole concept of consent. Now he's in prison, hoping that his cellmate is more enlightened than he was.
Go to the next page to learn about corroboration.
