Make Sure You Have One Type Of Consent When Having Sex
Oxford dictionary defines the word consent as: ‘Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.’ The word itself has a general meaning but it’s also used as a term in some specific fields such as medicine, research, law, and sexual relationships. Today, we will focus on the last typical aspect – types of consent in sexual relationships, as we feel pretty sure that the term needs to be clearly defined and spread more among people.
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What does consent mean in sexual relationships?
According to Love is Respect a consent is a form of open communication about every physical/sexual activity that you want to engage with a partner in any healthy relationship. Assuming that the other person is comfortable with something, is not always permission or a clear yes. Therefore, It’s very important for partners to communicate and feel safe prior to agreeing to any sexual act. However, an agreement doesn’t mean that people can’t change their mind. It’s their right to choose anything they feel comfortable with their body, even though the other partner might not like their decision. No matter if it is a one-night stand or a long-term relationship, it is always important to get consent from the partner before moving on to sexual activity. Below you can find some types of what actually consensual sex entails.
Types of consent
There are three common types of sexual consents according to Rooster and they are:
1. Verbal Consent – In this type of consent you can only know that your partner wants or doesn’t want something if they tell you by means of words. That’s why expressing it with words, is a great form to understand each other’s boundaries. However saying yes for a kiss, doesn’t mean that it’s a yes for sex or anything further. This is why verbal consent is needed when it comes to agreeing or not to have sex with a partner and understanding each other’s limits. The phrase “Is this Ok”? works pretty much, if you want to change the type or degree of sexual activity, and in this type of consent, words are the hallmark of everything.
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2. Implied Consent – This type of consent is not expressed with words, but granted by a person’s actions or body language. However, this might be open to ambiguity as according to Avert one shouldn’t assume that flirting or kissing is always an invitation for more. Nor it means that a particular choice of clothes means somebody is being playful and inviting you to have sex with them. Overt and expressed actions also mean that both of the partners are actively participating as the sexual activity is ongoing, meaning that none of the partners are feeling coerced or hesitant.
3. Enthusiastic or Affirmative Consent – Medium Corporation wrote an entire article on enthusiastic consent and it is explained like this: It’s the type of consent that is more than a yes when the other partner is showing the same interest as you by being enthusiastic and engaging the same way in sexual activity. As this article implies, enthusiastic consent is probably the same state of mind of two partners during the sexual encounter. Whereas Metro writes on this issue like this: “Consent for sex needs to be enthusiastic, stated clearly, happily, and without any pressure to do so. If someone is drunk or under the influence of drugs, they’re not able to consciously give their consent. If someone’s asleep, they can’t give their consent”. So, it’s important to have an enthusiastic yes, because that means both of the partners agreed to have sex and they are enjoying it.
Also, if a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol it is largely known that this might affect their ability to consent to sex. In addition, unconsented sex makes one also potentially more vulnerable to STIs including HIV, unwanted pregnancy and/or even rape or sexual assaults. In different countries also there are different legal laws on consent, for example in the UK the law states that consent cannot be given if either person is under the age of 16.
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