Sexual consent: Out of the bedroom, into the conscience, and then to where it belongs

Hi there! I would like to have your consent for a very important conversation. Before you give it, I would like to establish what exactly I mean by the word.  It may seem that I'm labouring my point a bit much.  There's way less talk and much less action when it comes to sexual consent than there needs to be.  I know that the length can kill the mood but I'll try to make the ride worth it.

Why is this conversation important right here and now? Apart from it being an issue of justice to the individual, governments and the courts of law in India have taken turns in making it clear that marital rape is not a crime i.e. they believe marriage implies consent as a one-time signoff, blindly and without question. This drives home the straight point that a bunch of us believe, in our heart of hearts, that marriage is all about an absolute right to sex. It is quite possible that they're right. The only question that remains is who's right is it?

Certainly not only or just about the sex, sure, but it's a pretty darn important thing on the list. When we are attracted to people we marry, we do it because of the same reason that we have sex with them. If we didn't intend to at some point, we wouldn't make the attempt to pursue. If the two people aren't attracted and marry, they have only have sex with each other after marriage, at least to have children and hopefully for satiation and pleasure. That's one of the key things we sign up for eventually - fidelity.

That explains why lawmakers and upholders find it such a problematic thing to make marital rape a crime. A good look at their excuses will explain why they're toeing the line with the rest of society as it pushes the topic of sex into a deep, dark abyss, right into forbidden territory - right before they need to bring it out to ask about children next.

So, let's drag it out and lay it bare starting at the bottom with the hot topic: Consent. We all assume the sex factor because we get it. There's nothing to explain there: sex is good and we like it because it is good. Everyone gets that. If someone were to ask why we like it, it would be a very strange question unless they were asexual or have legitimate physical or mental/traumatic issues that cross paths with it. With the right awareness, they know that they wouldn't be asking the question in another set of circumstances.

In an everyday world when we like things, we do them with other people who like them too. Liking something is the simple and biggest most arbitrary factor that drives most large and small practices and habits. From what we eat to how we talk to when and how we have sex, most norms exist because people like to do them, and it just so happens that many people liked something enough for it to pass as a good practice that should be passed down for its benefits or advantages.

That's consent spelt out for you: I like, you like, let's do this. Since it's arbitrary and well(-enough) accepted, it needs no explanations of why. It only offers clarity of why not, because everyone gets it. If they don't, we respect that and we move along (or the others sit this one out without hard feelings) - if we're being civil about it. Just because we get it, it doesn't mean everyone else does. Everybody doesn't want all the things that they like all the time.

Being arbitrary, it is enough for them to be fickle about what they want and when. If someone doesn't want something, them or ever (or wants it differently), and it seems odd because they're the only one not getting this clarity of 'why not', it's still their choice to refuse. The full courtesy to keep their right to choose is what consent is all about which we would like for ourselves too for our own arbitrary and fickle choices. The problem is that we just don't imagine that ours could be ever defined as 'arbitrary' or 'fickle', which is the sum total root of most human behaviour.

With sex, consent works exactly like it works with everything else. If we don't want it, we just simply don't. We may not want it then, want it later or never want it with someone, or at all. We are allowed to be as fickle as we want and those who don't like that are free to leave. It's as arbitrary as that - even if mid-intercourse. Those who call this erratic just don't cue well enough to what makes it erotic enough for the other person to want it as badly as they do.

Amid all the fickleness is also a sense of functionality. Sex is the vessel of a lot of, some or absolutely no meaning. It just depends on who wants it. On one end of the spectrum, it's a bare instinct that we don't think, or think through with. We're wired with it and a happy circuit demands it. The other end wants to plug into life as a whole, which defines how we choose engage in it with the other person. And, as you may have guessed, unless both people have the same ideal, it isn't the happy thing it is supposed to be or it brings very short-lived happiness. 

Somebody who doesn't mind a one night stand will call someone who wants a relationship a prude, maybe. Somebody who wants a relationship will be disgusted by someone who revels on one night stands. Somebody who is willing to trade a few minutes of sexual pleasure with a random person won't understand that it is necessary to connect and converse first. Someone who's married won't understand why their partner refuses sex at a particular instance despite them being married.

Sex offers a lot of things: pleasure,  emotional connection, children, satiation among the top few. Among all the things that both people are looking for in a consensual sexual relationship, unless they have largely similar answers to the question: Sex then what?, it isn't making anyone happier than they were without it.

Humans, however, are wont to over-simplify some of the best ideas in life because they are too stupid to understand them. How? Some people have arbitrarily set a halfway meet-up point (and have created a bedrock human practice) by taking everything about sex and putting it in a small, understandable little bubble so that people get along with it easier, along with a few ingredients they consider essential.

The big idea: It's like filling a glass - the more the better, and that flat rule works for everyone i.e. sex is great, so let's pile it on. What it sounds like is"let's ignore what, how, when and why the other person wants it and ignore why there's a disconnect between the two people's ideas of how it plugs into life as long as I can just get my kicks". But the thing about filling a glass is that it depends on what we put in, what it mixes well with and how it reacts. Owing to the variety that people actually are and their arbitrary and fickle desires, the flat rule makes the mix really, really flat - a very bad substitution of how sex should be.

Outside of that bubble, sex, in its element, is as selfish as it is. It is greedy and jealous. Just like that glass being filled, we choose sex for reasons best known to us then. Sometimes, they are harmful and it is evident. Sometimes, it turns out to end badly. All of that is part of deciding on the relationship that we want to have with it - when the choice remains wholly ours. The bubble wants to prevent those bad outcomes but nothing really can. Heartbreak, being friend zoned, being ghosted, not being wanted by a particular someone and all the generally horrible romantic experiences of life teach us that. Ideally, we should live, observe and learn but that's another story.

Let's try to burst that bubble where it clearly fails. It has three elements. It's based on a Cake and Cherry situation, where there's an easier guarantee without doing the distance. The cake is what you go for and the cherry is just a perk. If you like only the cherries, you don't really need to buy the whole cake.

Most scenarios tick all boxes i.e. you satisfy society with marriage to fulfill family requirements (children) with sex while keeping things largely peaceful, amazing and positive with love, as opposed to hate, detest or anything toxic, negative or damaging. 

Sex: Not just physical intimacy but the entire idea of your sex/gender, the social constructs you have been taught about them, the kind of people you are attracted to, your biological urges and needs etc.

Love: Everything you ever hoped for in a romantic relationship with another person condensed into one idea.

Marriage/Family: Everything you've ever been taught about how it is done - the wedding,
religious/social customs and rules, having children, the role of each partner with the other etc.

Scenario A:

Pro: Modern people

You get: Love

You also get: Marriage & Sex

How it works: Marry the person you love and get to have sex with them (leading to the possibility of children)

Scenario B:

Pro: Society & Religion

You get: Marriage/Family

You also get: Love & Sex

How it works: Choose love with the person you marry and get to have sex with them (consequently having children as a result)

Scenario C:

Pro: Anti-marital rape law lawmakers and judges

You get: Sex

You also get: Marriage & Love

How it works: Marry someone so that you can have sex with them (and have children) first with love nowhere to be seen (especially with coercive ways)

For its champions, it's a simple no-brainer because they don't want to use their brains. The bubble works. Follow these rules and avoid heartbreak and all that jazz. Get your kicks without the drama, while at least another person also gets theirs.

For its detractors, sex is bigger that than the bubble. It existed before the bubble and cannot be protected by it, with even the most valiant attempts. It leads to collective dissonance about it.  Read on to understand why.

In Scenarios A & B, marriage and love lend themselves to each other. When you love someone, it makes most sense to marry them. When you want to marry, it makes better sense to choose to love the person you marry, as opposed to hating or detesting them. Sex is better when there is amicability at least between the two people. If that's what you want primarily and do hate or detest someone, you may as well not marry them. It doesn't serve a happy purpose.

Scenario C is where love is lost and dragged through the mud, as is marriage, and the only thing left is sex, left dry without any context. If this scenario is anyone's eventual hope, that hope is as dry as the nature of wholesome sex they can ideally expect from the relationship.

See, sorry, C is exactly how we like to put sex on the table most of the time. Sometimes it's the centrepiece, the other times it's tucked away in the corner.  A lot of mankind has navigated around it hoping to keep it in, without it messing the place up. In all these centuries, we can't keep a consistent stance that works for every situation.

It is the natural result of a culture that literally plays taboo with sex before, during and after the context of marriage. At the same time, it runs back to it and (en)forces it for sweet solace when they feel left dry. Imagine a taboo (the game) card where the word to be guessed is "marriage", and one of the tabooed words is sex. If it isn't something you nurture, you shouldn't even expect it to be around when you want it. The C lot are better off opting for just the cake without the cherries.

Sex is the open secret we don't want to admit to, and the perk we build this entire thing around - two opposite viewpoints that cancel each other out. That's why we suggest that two people get married off the moment we know they're dating. That's why we caution boys to stay away from girls, and vice versa, because we think they're "too young". That's why we're scared of our parents finding out and hiding our relationships.

Scenario C moralists will bemoan the fact that sex everywhere is damaging society and they make a little sense with very few points - a negligible percentage. Whether religious or moral, some comparatively 'freer' sex practices don't always serve a healthy, happy purpose but some of them are a part of discovering it: flirting, dating, engaging etc. Some are certainly unhealthy and will happen with or without the taboo. It's this slippery territory that makes handling, understanding and learning what sex is the progressive experience that serves the learner well. There are a few losses but there are far more gains. Also, it's not really rocket science unless you've been taught to fear it for your life for God's sake (before you're hounded to make babies with it by the same people).

The perspective C people lack is that we can be sex-positive in a way that doesn't have to be self-deprecating. We can have honest discussions without shutting it down as if it doesn't exist at all - until it suddenly does. We don't have to sell our bodies and minds to people and ideas about it that lead to a sad ending. There can be a balance in our approach to everything about it: how you approach someone, open flirting protocols, where to draw the line and why, where should religious & social imposition begin and end, and honour and self-respect etc. If we don't strike the balance, we will never get to experience the best of what it has to offer as an open subject and avoid the worst that over-handling it can cause.

So, if we are going to taboo something, it should be the taboo that we play around sex. Let's, instead, call it what it is and struggle for a healthier way to handle it, if we have to. But why struggle some would ask. Because we do a bad job with navigating sex.

But why do we have to even "navigate sex," you ask? Because even in a world without sexual morals, people know its dangers and risks. They know that it can cause babies being born and emotional scars, among other things too. That should only mean that we draw reasonable lines to prevent these things.

It's also true that we can't always prevent them either from happening all the time. Though we can some of the time by judiciously involving ourselves with it making the bad experiences, our own and others', a learning process. So we will have those scars and we will have those unexpected babies and just use our heads to act with better wisdom as best we can. There is nothing that sexual morals, from society, religion or culture, will change about that except restrict our learning process and give control of the rest to a few, who will only cause more of those instances. Values, on the other hand, without overreaching into becoming morals just might teach us more - values being optional and clear in their benefits, with morals being imposition without consent (the two words are as oxymoronic as words can be).

The taboo culture has penetrated so well that it even affects attempts to break free from it. General prevailing dating culture and expectations from people, other than parents, family and society, still look at eventual marriage as a marker. They factor in love through the viability of them spending the rest of their life with that person - not love outside of these bounds. They are also careful about sex till they have all the 'right' reasons to engage in it - including the two factors above. Some people,  though, do these without the taboo and with a clear mind. As long as they fully reasonably consent to the guidelines they adopt, we're still in the safe zone. If they've been moralled into this behaviour, we have a problem far deeper than they're able to admit.

As we grow up, many of us expect to fall in love, get married and celebrate that, in one way, through sex with the people we love. The idea of a marriage based on that foundation is not far-fetched, but instead complimentary. It's all a pretty reasonable loop. Despite being tied in tight, sex, love and marriage are not isolated concepts in how we approach, practice them, and in real life. Ideally, we look at them as whole units that flow from one to the other in no particular order, sometimes from different starting points, but with almost the same destination.

There's no binding to hold one ransom to the other because our intention is either sincere or transparent. They are strong individual units that assert their identity and add value & beauty to the whole as independent ideas. When we break those boundaries and martyr one for the other by blurring boundaries, we undermine their individual value and their contribution to making the loop a happy one.

So, as much as we try to get the balance right with Scenario A & B, we end taking a warped route that lands us directly at Scenario C.

Scenario A

Cake: Love

Cherry: Marriage

Boundaries blurred: Marriage => Love

Hint: Anti-Premarital Sex

What we say: Only if you marry me, do you love me, which is the only way I get sex

Instead of saying: I love you that makes marrying you the perfect thing to do and sex completely meaningful

Scenario B

Cake: Marriage/Family

Cherry: Love

Boundaries blurred: Love => Marriage

Hint: Pro-Procreational Sex

What we say: I love you and want to start a family with you but involves sex which can only happen if we're married, so let's get married, have sex and have children.

Instead of saying: I want to start a family, and you do too, so let's do that together by bearing children through sex and solidifying our commitment through marriage and love.

Scenario C

Cake: Sex

Cherry: Marriage/Family

Boundaries blurred: Marriage =>Sex

Hint: Sex is for marriage only

What we say:  Marriage is the foundation of society and we're it's only hope of balance so let's martyr ourselves boldly and marry, form a family unit through sex

What we don't: Pre-marital sex is not allowed and we have to play our role in the world so let's get our sex (or at least I get mine) while it also gives us some spawn to fulfill society's obligations.

Blurring the lines, we end up mistaking marriage (and love) for sex only to realise that we aren't really making a mistake at all. If we're being honest, we have to admit that sex is why marriage exists. It's called a romantic relationship (or expectation) for a reason - for marriages that are based on one. For those that are not, you can't have a family without it. Sex is pretty integral, and it all stays within the marriage in either case. It succeeds values of sexual morality, among a longer list. There is no scenario where any variety of the institution of marriage was not about sex where it admitted it. It always had a good reason to boot - the sham of 'purity'.

But marriage needn't be all that bad, thanks to people who see beyond just the sex, and rightly so. They see through it, keep the civility, prioritise the love and keep it happy. Though, that's just a case of making an evil good. If it took general civility, love and happiness to make an evil good, you don't need the evil, to begin with. As for the institution, What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.        

We just need to be decent happy people to our partners and accept, enjoy and normalize a sexual interest that's natural - giving it a safer context unlike unexpected babies and emotional scars. Both love and marriage play second fiddle to sex: which is the only context in which sexual consent is primary. That's literally the only case where you can't hold the argument that marriage must guarantee sex whenever a person wants it or to not make marital rape illegal. All other cases seek to explicitly deny that, ironically keeping marriage only about sex as they openly deny the fact.

If it's about sex first, and love and marriage play second fiddle, there are practically no rules. We consent to the specific rules we want to apply and get have sex on your terms only. You can choose someone you love (or at least like). A partner you hate or detest serves no happy purpose. Also, sleeping around with anyone and everyone, just for the sake of sex, is clearly not a solution to anyone's long term happiness - if that is the goal you desire.

Finding one person you can have sex with who also adds to your life as a partner playing any role that you desire and need: friend, lover, husband, family, support etc. is a total boon. It makes lesser sense to get your sex somewhere and a happy partner elsewhere, or father/mother your children through one and have the rest of your sex only with the other. If it's not enough about sex, we don't have to go through any of the effort to see it through the way we do. We also would not have first nights, infidelity, sexual purity, and virginity as ideas that are prevalent.

While we're being upfront about everything, we may as well address people and the perks they bring (which make them a better catch). It turns relationships a bit more transactional than we'd like them but, hey, if we're going to air all our laundry, we may as well clean the closet out. The big confession: we choose our partners for their perks - even when we make our most sincere choices. While that just kills the mood for people trying to build one, we'd be lying if we don't admit it. A big moment of silence for all those people who are asked, "Why do you love me?", by their partners.Without those perks, we would choose someone else completely. Between love, sex and marriage, we should decide what's the plug-in, what's the main thing and what's the side course, and be shameless about it.

Mistaking the cherry for the cake i.e marriage/love for sex only leaves one hungry for more with nowhere else to go. Temporary happiness through sex and the search for love is only as frustrating as the circles you have to run around in to find it. The more you attempt to find one that truly sticks, the more love becomes what love truly is - any bunch of excuses to accommodate your happiness (so that you eventually run around less). By any, I mean literally any. There could be a few things in common but what's more uncommon with each other are the cases you'd find:

A lonely person in love with one of the very few people who'd ever talk to them

Vs.

A social butterfly in as much love with one of the many friends they have

Someone in love with someone who sings and plays the guitar

Vs.

Someone as much in love with someone who is musically unsound

Love blossomed because two people are neighbours and knew each other really well

Vs.

Love that blossoms equally because two people met 10,000 miles apart and decided to stick with it on a whim

It shows that if two people believe in it enough to make it happen, and the "right" physical factors fall in line, "true love" based on absolutely any circumstance is actually possible. It's almost like it's a myth that you just need to have enough faith in to create and sustain the little bubble so that the illusion never dies. We'll tolerate anything (or most things) as long as the love keeps

 it alive. Outside of this, there's nothing remotely similar between most cases of true love (whatever that is). That doesn't make it any less worthy of your source of happiness but it isn't because a person's fate is written down.

Sex, in and out of the bubble, is driven by desire, which is fickle. The need for love, support and companionship are far more constant i.e.relationship/marriage. We judiciously end up seeking the constants and hoping that fickle too fits in. A lot of our 'search for love' is either this search for a guarantee or an outright, adventurous exploration of the possibilities of what a different kind of pairing up could feel like.

If it's a middle road between the two, it's more of the former and less of the latter - the same case of mistaking the cherry for the cake. We want the package of everything but don't want to admit that what we want the most, by design of how we do it,  is the package that's most important to us.  That passes as an understood assumption but in practice is like attempting to drive in two different directions at the same time. You only end up getting stuck in the mud and making a ditch in the road from all the friction.

The solution? Free up sex. Admit the secret out in the open (and be less crass while doing it). The more crass you are about it, the more it shows how much you are not actually free about it. Respect people's boundaries while at that. Let people attach their own meanings to it according to the purposes it serves them. Protect it less and talk about it more. Talk about consent upfront. Analyze, define and break the conditioning that society and religion has imposed on you and use only what is useful to you. 

Live and learn. Watch and learn. Observe and learn. Don't be scared to mess up. Also, use your head all the way and think it through.  Talk to someone you think you can, or find someone to talk to if you are not clear. Understand the consequences but don't be afraid to ride, if that's what you want to do. Don't jail yourself into a set of ideas based on any kind of fear. To recognize the fear first, see how many of those ideas you are able to rationalize and how much they actually benefit you.

Nothing is unquestionable. Refuse concepts that don't give clear, concise answers like "How dare you ask/think that?", arbitrary ideas of purity or "What will people say?". Don't let a priest, book, elder, moralist or law define how it should make you happy vs. define how you should avoid it more when admitting that you aren't.

Sex is too big to stay in that little bubble that we have constructed for it. It exists in a relationship with you the moment you're born, whether or not you confirm or deny that - single, married, dating, available, soon-to-fall-in-love or whatever you are. It has less to do with how much sexual intercourse you have during this period but more about why you want to, your gender (and related factors), your conditioning, the roles you play with people of the opposite gender and ideas that drive your behavior and limitations today. It also has too much potential to be trivialized without being made meaningful, to the point that it becomes harmful instead. The more you confirm and understand it, the fewer bubbles and ideologies you need to have to tell yourself that your method is right. If you make it a sure thing or follow a system that does, you make people means to an end, and the relationship is not about the person at all.

Sex is also complicated however often you have it. If we overlook the details, we over-simplify it. With consent, we simplify it just right. Generally going with happiness both ways is the thumb rule. But it's also anything but that nice boxed idea where you get what you want when you want it. The heart wants what it wants and we don't do ourselves a favour by denying it that privilege if we have the option not to. It is possible to see through the fluff and straight to the real stuff but then you also want your heart to race - even if just that little bit. Gotta have kill and thrill to keep the enthusiasm alive.

To make that work, we think romance does the trick but way too many factors have to come together for a romance to work completely. It's too much chance at play to justify the expectation, and it only leaves more people disappointed than not. They usually have to make do, and they do a pretty decent job of it going with general happiness. To make life and love easier for everyone, we can strip these expectations down to a more realistic level so that it's not so hard on the lucky ones too by sticking to simple general happiness.

That's a lot of undoing but, in the end, it's fewer miles to travel for a much happier destination. If you think that's a low bar, look at how ridiculously unreachable the high one is. This way, we can also leave the next generation a stripped, easier, happier version of love. So much less stress! It also helps when our social systems encourage lesser dependability and more independence for everyone. We wouldn't have to have lovers play additional roles only because we'd be able to take care of ourselves for most. The reason we talk about consent so much because we barely talk about the complete context that it comes along with. There's never a better time to open up the conversation.