#like we could run a MILLION theoretical experiments that irl could end in death but not in the sim

[transingthoseformers]

Remember that episode of TFA where Soundwave, using spiked Oilnog, convinced the Autobots that they were humans?

I could do so much with that technology. And well not every one of those uses is exactly nice but hey some of the uses are nice. You can run so many experiments with the simulations, so so many

[lecognito]

When Consent Goes Haywire

I recently came across a phenomenon called “flirting without consent”. For anyone in the 21st century, consent has become a hot word, but this concept appeared to me like the bastard child of a movement with good intentions. 

There’s no denying that there’s a history of men “crossing the line”, and while we can rail on men for not “teaching children properly” or setting a good example, it’s just not that simple. 

Ok, for the record, rape and assault are inexcusable. The reality is that sometimes consent is set aside and men openly violate a conduct of trust and a communication of trust (i.e. a no means no). But sometimes it’s not that, and there’s more to understand. Sometimes, a woman says no but is less insistent on that no. Sometimes a person goes along with what’s happening only to feel some sort of perceived injustice after the fact, but not during. And it’s moments like these that have proven this decade to be a confusing whirl of legalities regarding consent. 

This isn’t to blame women or to defend the men who have clearly crossed a line and that’s not the purpose of this article. It just means there are more factors to consider before coining a concept like “flirting without consent” because there are deeper implications something like this has on future interactions. 

Before I get into it, let me just say I GET IT. I get why this concept exists. But can we understand that flirting is an ORGANIC and NATURAL part of human interaction? It’s part of social intelligence--picking up on if someone is responding to your advances or not. It’s a way we let someone know we’re interested and a way we gauge the level of interest that someone may or may not have in us. Put guard rails on this organic process and very quickly you lose a lot of what romance and courtship is about, which in turn makes men seem inherently awkward, boring, and stale when that’s the bag of tricks that was given to them.

Of course things get tricky with flirting. Some people don’t have good social intelligence and don’t read social cues very well. And that makes things vastly more complicated. Add to that the fact that everyone’s experience of romance and courtship can be drastically different and that everyone’s preferences are different. There are women who preach that guys “need to be more aggressive” and welcome the bad boy attitude, there are some who like to be the one who leads, and then there are those who like to set clear expectations. Tone of voice during a conversation, body language, and the level of relationship that two people have all come into play. At the end of the day, everyone falls on a different part of that spectrum of experiences which informs their decisions, their ability to pick up on social cues, and how they perceive a given action or inaction. In short, things become exponentially more complicated. Oh, and that’s not even including whether or not they’ve had drinks.

The need for some sort of structure is understandable. But consent to flirt is not that. A structure like consent to flirt is essentially a form of gatekeeping—a way to justify swiping left IRL just because you think you’re not interested. We can agree that there are some things that are clearly over the line, vulgar, and inappropriate. That’s what we as a society have termed, “harassment” and “sexual harassment”. Both are obviously wrong, and consent to flirt tries to wrap the idea of harassment under the gallant flag of “transparency”. Really, it’s like slapping a Smart Water label on a bottle with your normal house tap water—it’s a gimmick, a fluffy phrase, while providing no clarity to the confusion of consent. 

Bear with me here with what I think could be the worst case scenario, but with something like consent to flirt, a girl could sue a guy who came up to her at a bar and gave a compliment to strike up a conversation. You could argue that even a positive comment that was stripped of any sort of sexual or inappropriate intent was perceived by the woman as “crossing a line”. That’s how romance dies. That’s how courtship becomes a bureaucratic, robotic transaction that deems your advances appropriate or inappropriate based on whether or not you have “premium” features. Again, probably the worst case scenario.

Even so, the question remains, how can you really know if someone isn’t right for you? Feelings change. Perceptions change. And consent to flirt destroys that opportunity for learning and discovering aspects of a person you would’ve never expected to see or know. This isn’t to say that we can’t form judgments about a certain person because in a way, that’s inevitable. 

When we get down to it, what a concept like “flirting with consent” and consent in general seems to reveal about the heart of our broader culture is the desire to set intentions and expectations. Why do celebrities get into problems with consent? Why does anyone get into a problem with consent? Precisely BECAUSE no one knows when or where consent is necessary. You might be saying to yourself, it’s simple: no means no. Consent seems like a very obvious thing when you put it strictly in terms of “no means no”. It’s a good rule of thumb to go by, but realistically as we’ve seen, a variety of factors complicates even a simple construct. 

So what do we do? How do we mend this broken system? We need a simple construct where consent is already implied. What is that construct? The oldest form of love, courtship, and romance in the books: marriage. I know what you might be thinking, but hear me out. 

Call it the idealized form or what it should be, but marriage is a covenant, a promise between two people who have essentially AGREED in the presence of witnesses, to being with each other. Keyword: AGREED—from the very beginning of anything happening. Within this covenant is a sense of trust. You have roles, you know who the other person is, and you know what to expect within this relationship. But let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean one person can do whatever they feel like or that they’re entitled to the other person in any sense. It doesn’t mean one person loses their individuality or their autonomy. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of bad things happening--they still do. It’s just that when it comes to the issue of consent, there are certain things that aren’t totally uncalled for. 

Marriage maps out and clears out the murky forest of consent. You can be flirtatious, you can be suggestive, you can have intercourse—because you both agreed to it! It doesn’t mean you can’t get uncomfortable about certain things but you still have that sense of TRUST that allows you to express that discomfort openly, safely, and unabashedly. That trust and that relationship takes you so much farther with someone you know and love than with a complete stranger, where it may be awkward to voice a concern at the risk of appearing inexperienced or being a mood killer. 

But doesn’t this agreement exist already even without marriage? Aren’t there plenty of extramarital relationships that demonstrate that level of agreement? Isn’t that what consent is all about? Yes, our culture of sexual freedom and companionship have applied the blueprint of  marriage to relationships without the words and the paperwork of marriage. Yet that’s where it falls short--the lack of a proper covenant. The very existence of millions of relationships in this moment is dependent on a commitment that isn’t real. Sure there’s a verbal recognition of some sort of feeling of commitment but that’s all it is: a feeling. And for anyone with an inkling of experience in a relationship, feelings can and do change. If that’s the case, then commitment can change. 

Marriage brings into focus a certain expectation, which is that while your feelings can change, your commitment shouldn’t. That’s the point of making vows to one another and that’s the point of “til death do us apart” even if many would consider it just an antiquated trope that romantics and movies say. Some might say that there shouldn’t be any labels on a relationship and that love is love. Sure, but is love only love when you feel like it? Shouldn’t it go beyond just a purely personal emotional satisfaction? 

None of this is meant to be accusatory towards extramarital relationships or to say that marriage is the cure-all. It is however, to draw attention to the idea that “labels” if you will, help us know exactly what something is and know what to expect from it. You don’t look at a strawberry and say “I don’t like putting labels on it,” because then it becomes very difficult to describe what to do with a strawberry. Do you eat it? Do you use it as ink? Do you throw it like you would a baseball? On that note, labels help you understand what to expect: what you get from a strawberry is very different from what you get with a strawberry milkshake, a strawberry smoothie, or strawberry milk. Without a name for a strawberry or any produce for that matter, the produce aisle would be chaos.

Sure, a strawberry is not a relationship. But the same logic applies—relationships have the potential to be utter chaos without the label. A boyfriend or girlfriend who runs off is theoretically off the hook. A label-free relationship can invite multiple people into it and people do. But it breeds a nebulous and subjective ground of emotions and expectations that can’t be adequately expressed or fulfilled. In other words, there’s no consistency. And when there’s no consistency, what can and can’t be done can change. It’s your word against theirs. It’s your feeling against theirs. 

That “label” of marriage gives a greater sense of security. It helps us to know that the intimacy that happened the night before wasn’t “a mistake”. It gives us emotional fulfillment and the expectation of that fulfillment. It doesn’t leave us hanging in the wind. 

No, this is not a call to get married and this is not a judgment on anyone on how they pursue relationships. It’s to address and contemplate why our culture (and most probably the entire world) struggles with consent. Consent to flirt doesn’t make things any easier or any clearer in that struggle. In fact, it moves in the opposite direction of what we need. It cripples the creation of organic relationships and enables an even more confusing set of rules under the guise of honesty and transparency. Consent as a whole is crucial, but pursuing it and being an advocate for it requires us to exercise caution with careful consideration of the words we attach to it. No matter our zeal, we can’t push for it blindly. Specificity is important, but not all specificity serves to clarify.