Consent or Compliance? The slippery slope.
Sex is a messy affair. And I’m not just referring to the interlocking of body parts and the exchange of fluids. The ethics of sexual relations, the dos and don’ts of intercourse and everything that leads up to it, are areas of contention despite our bravest attempts to demystify them.
Take, for example, consent, that great determiner between a perfectly legitimate encounter and an abusive one. The first part of the word’s definition seems simple enough – permission, approval or agreement. But then we come up against compliance and the long slide down the slippery slope begins. To comply, you see, is to yield from a position of weakness. Can a sexual encounter be deemed appropriate even though one party complies?
Compliance, it seems, is the grey area - that part of the spectrum that lies between fully consensual sex and rape. The messiness starts here.
And for me, here is where the crux of the matter lies, not at consent but at the delicate balance of power that starts to tip at the point of compliance.
Sex, like any other human interaction, is shaped by the dynamics of power, perceived and real. The direction it takes depends primarily on the way both parties view themselves in relation to the other. And when one party sees itself as dominant or seeks to achieve dominance, abuse becomes a very real possibility.
“You’re on your own, sister. Figure it out!”
by Samantha Campbell
Consent is one of those simple-looking words that give many of us pause when asked to describe it. It seems an explanation should simply roll off the tongue but as I learned over the years, you can’t fit ‘consent’ and ‘sex’ into one tidy box.
When asked to write this piece, my mind raced back to the 11 year old girl who was alledgedly gang raped last year by at least 18 boys and men in a tiny Texas town. The girl’s neighbour horrified many by telling reporters that she was often seen unsupervised, wearing makeup and provocative clothing, as if to suggest that she had it coming, never mind she was too young, in the eyes of the law, to agree to such acts.
Such half-baked rationalisations are shameful and far too common in sexual assualt cases, where some victims are hastily judged to be sending out the wrong signals or worse yet simply dismissed as sluts. For the record, no girl asks to be raped or otherwise assaulted. PERIOD. But this idea of sending right and wrong signals got me thinking. If consent is not often verbalised, how can we ever be sure that our partners were willing participants?
Fathers and Daughters by Simone Leid
Fathers. Whether they’ve been a constant presence in our lives or they’ve been absent -by choice or circumstance - our fathers’ influence in our lives is manifest. For some women, he is the embodiment of what we expect a man to be. For others, he is our first lesson in heartbreak, the cautionary tale, the bitter medicine and the ill.
Our parents are the first ones who teach us how to navigate the world. Fathers and mothers, being our primary agents of socialization, influence the way we see ourselves, how we interpret various situations and the values and codes to which we adhere. And even though we may change our outlook as we grow up, our fathers, and our relationship with them, always serve as a point of reference.
For me, my father has been a loving parent: the provider, the protector. Yes, the stereotypical “man of the house” who worked hard to ensure his children were taken care of. I cannot deny the importance of these traits and roles that my father played in my life. I have never felt abandoned or concerned for my welfare. This ‘comfort’ has enabled me to pursue my ambitions without fear. Even when there have been failures that left me feeling broken, I always knew that my father, along with my mother, had created a home for me - physically and emotionally- that I could always turn to.
Interview with Debra Providence
WomenSpeak talks to Debra Providence about her poem While Walking Up Back Street
WS: It feels like this poem is based on a real incident that happened to you? What made you decide to write about it?
DP : Yes it is based on a real incident, of course, without the blood and mucas. I decided to write about it because in the moment I felt reduced to a piece of my anatomy. I felt that the comments in essence placed more value on the breasts than the person and writing the poem was my way of confronting being objectified in that way.
WS: Your poem is quite graphic, even violent. Do you feel that sexual harassment in public spaces is a kind of violence against women?
DP: The incident triggered a strong emotional response and I wanted to write in a way that captured my state of mind. On a level I do feel that sexual harrassment, street or office, is a kind of violence. It strips away your wholeness as a person, your layers and complexities and reduces you to a thing. It is something women experience every day, but that doesn’t make it any less disconcerting when it happens, for me at least.
Added to this is the fact that I have a keen interest in the Science Fiction and Speculative (SF) ficiton genres which often depticts the human body as being capable of trancsending pre-given limitations.I love the “What if?” aspect of SF. I thought, what if the persona could give the copper exactly what he asked,
No Small Victory
by Nicole Green
Two years ago I was stuck in a job I used to love, battling the prejudices career women face when they decide to have a family. I’d worked hard to get where I was – Senior Management at a well-connected Financial Services company. I developed a reputation for expecting excellence – from my team, from my vendors, but most of all from myself. I took broken messes and turned them into well oiled machines. I was good at it, and I got my satisfaction not from any accolades (if you’re in IT in the business world, you know you only hear about us when things are broken!) but from knowing that we took insurmountable odds and triumphed time and again. I was lucky to have a special team of really talented individuals. I was dedicated to them, and we became like a family. I also expected what would happen when I became pregnant.
I had a really tough pregnancy with my daughter, and from time to time I would sometimes be too sick to go into work or even check emails. Unless you have experienced it, there is no way to relate to you how debilitating round-the-clock nausea and vomiting can be. Still for years prior
MAYBE IT’S JUST ME
by Des Seebaran 
He leered at her halter-top and fitted pants from the doorway.
“Mi waan fi talk to yuh,” he drawled.
“Well, I don’t wanna talk to you,” was her firm retort.
I rolled my eyes to the heavens, wishing I were somewhere else.
“Come ‘ere!” he demanded.
“No!” she replied and walked out of the room.
See nothing wrong with this conversation? Well, then it’s probably just me.
I studied at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus. Often, whenever I would object to the overtly suggestive and often rude comments made by some of the men on campus, women would leap to their defense, saying sweetly to me, “Well, is so man stay” or “Yuh mustn’t tek dem on”, or my personal favourite, “Ah joke him a mek.”
A joke? What is it about women that
