Consent!

Consent! There is sexual abuse seemingly everywhere and has become commonplace. At the University of Ohio almost daily there are reports that girls have group chats where they can go to each other’s aid to help them get out of uncomfortable situations. Our President got elected despite his long reputation for sexual encounters. Now he wants to elect a Supreme Court Justice who may have has a sexual abuser past. It’s not making love it is all about having sex that someone else just doesn’t want to do. It is about moving too fast till it gets ugly and forced and violent and hurtful and downright criminal.

Why aren’t there any laws governing the use of a penis? We have an abortion law many want to change. Why not a law giving convicted rapists at least a vasectomy? How about even repeat offender’s castration? There are only 2% of rapists in prison. Why? Do we need such strict laws to curb the violence, the abuse? After all there is the Me Too Movement unifying those who have had enough of the crimes.

Bill Cosby abused at least 60 women and is the first to go to jail for his crimes. Why did so many other rich and famous abusers get millions of dollars to leave their job? Their victims didn’t get money. Consent or lack of consent is when you become less of a person and more like a thing. The respect for your feelings is nonsense. It is no longer making love. Often it is simply an assault. You yell NO but to the abuser that means more and more violence. So sometimes you let your body to be used just to avoid the violence. At that point safety and your life is of premium importance.

What constitutes consent? There has to be a discussion between two people as to what will happen and what one is not comfortable with what will happen. All too often abuse happens when people have had too much to drink. So there is NO discussion. There is violence. We live in a media world where dancing is simulated sex acts. Parties involve booze and sex. Years ago you couldn’t get a job unless you agreed to have sex with the boss. Is our society centered around   sex and violence instead of ethics, integrity and morality? Even the Catholic Priests who should be the center of abstinence and morality have been sexual abusers all the way to the Pope. So that means since sexual abuse is so commonplace it should be the norm?

Trauma is experienced by people differently. The notion that boys will be boys in their aggressiveness is traumatic to others. So the fact is that men and women do not communicate about sex. Consent is all about understanding and being clear with your emotions. Rape is not emotional. It is a violent sex act. There is no apology. There is just a release.  The rapist doesn’t even know the depth of the harm he has done. Survivors need to have a voice, some validation and to be able to tell their story in a safe place. The details don’t matter. It is the act that matters.

The victim wants to know if the rapist is forced to think about it every day like they do. Do you know how it feels to cry daily? Do you know about the years of therapy and the panic attacks or when the doctor tells you that you will be managing PTSD for the rest of your life? You never get to forget because your body remembers. Does the rapist know that you drop out of school or have failing grades because all of a sudden nothing else matters? Do sexual abusers know that it is their power to put a stop to the pain? You know what you did!

Booze, pot and sexual abuse is all too often the nasty combination experience. Humility over humanity has to exist and it just isn’t. Brett and Doctor Ford is the nation’s example of all this. Men have to start to take responsibility for their actions. If we can’t change the past we all can take steps not to repeat it.