Bring consent out of the bedroom. I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line ‘it’s not okay to force someone into sexual activity’ is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general. Cut that shit out of your life. If someone doesn’t want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable—that’s their right. Stop the ‘aww c’mon’ and ‘just this once’ and the games where you playfully force someone to play along. Accept that no means no—all the time.
I loved this quote when I first read it, and I still do. But I do think it lacks one important point, and that is all the ways in which ‘cutting that shit out of our life’ requires that we collectively stand up to break down systems of non-consent.
When you are young you are prevented in a thousand ways from saying ‘no’ to school, no matter how abusive your education is. After that, you you are prevented in a thousand ways from saying ‘no’ to jobs, no matter how abusive most jobs are. You can not say ‘no’ to the presence of police in your public spaces, no matter how much they murder people just for looking like you do. You can not say ‘no’ to prison. You can not say ‘no’ to immigrant detention and deportation. You can not say ‘no’ to living in a system that exploits you while keeping basic necessities from you.
What good is a politics of consent that allows me to say ‘no’ to a party but not to a stop-and-search by a gang of cops? How consensual is my life when I can say ‘no’ to a lunchable but not to a job that is slowly killing me without even giving me enough to survive?
Consent culture requires a revolution, the actual ‘smash the state’ kind.
(via queeranarchism)
QueerAnarchism 