Preemptive vs. Concurrent + Reflective Consent

Here’s an idea I heard from someone else and want to pass along.  It’s relevant to starchythoughts’ post Hermeneutical Injustice in Consent and Asexuality, and I’m writing about it partially in response to Vesper’s more recent reflection post and the kinds of things they wrote about here.

Abuse and Nontraumatic, “Good” Sex

As an addendum to this post on/response to the “how was it experienced”/”should it have happened” distinction, I wanted to share this excerpt from Lundy Bancroft’s book on abuse, from a passage describing the reasons why an abusive man might create positive sexual experiences for his partner in an abusive relationship.

[O]n some level he hopes that his ability to transport you sexually will tie you to him, so that he can have power over you in other, nonsexual ways.  And, in some relationships, the abuser’s belief in the power of his sexuality is self-fulfilling: if much of the rest of the time he acts cold or mean, the episodes of lovemaking [sic] can become the only experience you have of loving attention from him, and their addictive pull thus becomes greater.  In this way he can draw you into being as dependent on sex as he is, although for a very different reason.

Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?, p.174

It’s not the kind of consideration that often features in ace-based discussions, but as long as we’re going to be raising challenges to mainstream sex-positivity, this seemed relevant.

What is “knowing” no?

Apologies for the cryptic title.  This post is another one for the gray area convo, again about consent and its parameters.  TW for rape and implied pressure from partners, as well as compulsory sexuality more generally.  Except for the paragraph after this one, this is mostly an abstract/exploratory post about relationship ethics and feeling like you have choices.

A Concern

This post is a response to Sennkestra’s comment on Queenie’s gray area of experience post.  So, consequently, expect talk of consent, sex, and trauma in the abstract, with vague example situations here and there of rape culture.  In their comment, Sennkestra made a distinction between two different models of consent, one ethics-based, and one experience-based.

A More Detailed Topography of Social Cost

This post delves more into what I earlier termed “conflict-aversion,” perhaps better described as interpersonal cost, or social cost, although the latter refers to something different in the field of economics.  I’m conceptualizing social cost here as a factor that may be anticipated or taken into account in an individual’s decision making, particularly in the case of concession or “compromise.”  The rest of this post considers various examples of how and when this can apply.

[ tw for talk of boundaries, coercion, and emotional manipulation ]

Words Update

[ re: mapping convo, with the associated warnings ]

So that idea I’ve been trying to get at with revancion/inverse repression…

I just realized.

That’s grooming.

That’s what it is.

Grayness, Uncertainty, and Sexual Violence

So.  Now that I’ve produced a mess of words on the subject, I want to return to the mapping convo from a different angle.  Namely: How do we respect the status of survivors who don’t see themselves as survivors?

Talk of (non)consent, boundary violation, and internalized victim-blaming ahead.

A Reply & Some Reiterations

I’ve recently read Olivia’s post in the gray area conversation (if you click the link, expect to see a large, close-up picture of two people lip biting), and I had too many things to say for a single comment, so instead y’all are getting a post.  Same warnings apply as usual for this conversation: talk of sex, consent, rape & rape culture, etc.