Some of the most crucial of choices include the decisions we make about our significant others and our love partners. In a previous era, I would have said husbands and husbands only, but today there are many kinds of categories of people with whom we have various kinds of intimate relationships.
These decisions come up to be made during the entire process and trajectory of a relationship between people. If we do not – or cannot – see that a relationship is a process, which takes time, and has a direction and a shape, we will not be able to understand the significance of the choices we make, which determine the quality and value of the relationship, and our role in creating this, at every stage of its development.
Variety of knowledge and experience in the realm of emotion and sexuality is not socially sanctioned for most women. Our sexual expression is often monitored and controlled – both overtly and subtly – by the society in which we live. Women’s experience of life is often generated and restricted by their reproductive capacity and their fertility: their virginity, as a young woman, and their birthing and rearing of children in their teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. The biological clock dictates our choices, and social expectations further refine our anxieties and give a framework to our desires.
Within all this, and the key to it is the issue of a woman’s consent. Without the freedom to say no, a woman’s choice in whether to have a relationship and to what degree she engages in it, is not a real one.
Many confusions arise in matters of emotional and sexual intimacy because partners impose expectations and assumptions on each other, and on themselves, without checking on the actual status of their own wishes. Many acts of harassment, coercion and sexual assault, including rape, take place in the context of utter lack of clarity about the need for a partner’s affirmative consent, and a sense of the stages at which this consent can and should be asked for.
I was once told by a man I greatly respect that, in his view, a woman should be in charge of the pace and degree of intimacy in a relationship. She should decide if the relationship is engaged in or not, and to what degree she shares herself within it. And she should have the right to withdraw or disengage emotionally and physically within the relationship, as and when she wishes. Saying ‘yes’ to one aspect should not lead to assumptions that all consent is then implied, and can be taken for granted, for every aspect, both physical and emotional, thereafter.
It was a revelation to me at the time that a man could appreciate the range of emotions inherent in the romantic and sexual experience of a woman. So when people speak of men ‘only wanting one thing’, and reducing women to sexual objects, and disregarding their feelings, although this indeed does happen a great deal, and always with damage to people, I have an alternative perspective to balance this against.
In the context of the #metoo movement, we should be aware of how damaging our own confusion and the mixed signals we sometimes give can be to men.
Men who are – possibly – subsequently accused of misbehaviour and harassment towards us, by implication, by a hue and cry, by the allegation, doubt and suspicion.
I am not talking about vicious and systematically predatory men, but of the men we like, flirt with, work with, joke with, and build trust and companionship with. The anger of women towards the sexual mishandling they have experienced as a gender seen as comparatively vulnerable is absolutely valid, but it is also currently being fuelled by various entities and interest groups with a variety of agendas.
We should not make false or wild or messy accusations. And before such an outcome is even in process, and to pre-empt it, we should be careful to behave soberly and with awareness, in our dealings with our fellow human beings, trying not to trigger or exploit their vulnerabilities. I say ‘soberly’ here, because alcohol and other disinhibiting recreational substances impair our moral judgment, at the point of interface between us: between our bodies and our hearts and minds, and those of the people who have expressed interest in us. Lives and careers and reputations and personal dignity and self-worth are invested in these interactions and how they play out, between consenting adults.
Of course, for choosing to be exercised in full freedom, women should be fully aware of their own rights and responsibilities in relationships. The imbalances of power between the participants in any relationship, which are inherent and socially endorsed, often make such awareness very difficult. This awareness cannot be felt or exercised by women as young as 12 or 14, or girls growing up in societies where sex education is seen as unnecessary and sexual awareness and experience is not encouraged.
The state of ignorance in which girls are often brought up, in the name of feminine modesty and innocence, places them in great danger. Let’s take a prevalent example. Aware that her beauty is desirable, and feeling the power of that, a teenage schoolgirl is asked by a person she does not know to share photographs of herself on social media. This transaction exchanges a desire for attention, recognition and intimacy, for money (not for her, but for those selling the images online) and social endorsement, via images of her face and body, which are trafficked. By sending the pictures, she consents to however they will be used. She may be unaware of the implications and consequences of her action in engaging in this.
In a real-life encounter, her personal safety, as well as her reputation, are at risk. Most men are physically stronger than women and can enforce their wishes and preferences on the physically less powerful partner. Threats of violence and fear of emotional abuse often operate to control and terrify women in intimate relationships. Their consent is often assumed and given in these circumstances not freely and under duress.
Consent is a political issue between people. It is like an electrified border fence along which both parties walk, as they get to know each other and understand their own intentions and desires in the relationship. When it is violated, the trust in the relationship is affected. But when it is respected and honoured, the whole relationship lights up, with the heat and light – and joy – of power properly exercised between people.
In my view, the right of consent is one of the core aspects of any connection: the recognition of the equivalent centre of self in the other, and the respect we offer our partner in recognizing their right to choose. Even if at times that means they do not choose what pleases us, or even that they do not choose us.
We need to know that the choice was offered and that the choices which are then made indicate a clear preference, to which we can respond, in our turn.
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