When I came up with Empathic Consent (aka DELI) back in May, one of the things I wrote about was that I had countless opportunities to practice DELI outside of my sex life.
Which is good, cause right now I’m celibate and uninterested in romance, and well, every relationship benefits from both parties understanding what’s being agreed to.
While I’ve formerly written mostly about rape and that trauma, those of you who follow elsewhere will probably already know I agree with this author (who is also a very good friend of mine): We need to rethink the importance of consent on a very basic level in all human interactions.
In fact, my most recent experience with the kind of consent ambiguity I’ve been talking about revolved around a completely unsexual friendship, when I accepted someones offer to half-live in their house when I knew damn well it wasn’t feeling right for either of us.
Consent is a fundamental element of shifting our culture around rape, in addition to addressing the sexism and patriarchal shaming elements of our society which make getting sex from others the most accepted means of belonging and validation.
And how do we get sex, usually? Sex that matters to us, and can seemingly fill those voids? We get it through relationships. How many relationships of mine have actually been consensual in the terms outlined below? Zero.
If we haven’t practiced skills in consent in areas outside of sex, and pressure to have it is coming from everywhere around us including our confusing and overwhelming bodily responses, how the fuck are we supposed to know we’re on the same page and not raping somebody? Even *without* intoxicants at play?
I really like this derivative of DELI consent, and not just cause the acronym IDEAL is like.. SO way better. It illustrates more succinctly the ’empathic’ part of the consent model that the original name I’d had for it spoke to, which was lost when I changed to an acronym — the part where you’re in touch with yourself, and are in touch with your empathy in regards to the other person, and you *stop to address it* if actions aren’t lining up with words.
Really happy to see the improvements and the continued conversation that’s been happening around all this since I wrote I Don’t Like Being Raped; Apparently That Makes Me a Weirdo. Nice work, Ava of Attractive Arts.