By Tasha Maxine Flores-Bulado
What does our society mirror more? Consent culture or rape culture? There is a huge gap between both, yet the lines somehow get blurred in the context of understanding the real meaning of consent.
Consent is a term tossed around so lightly yet its ethical background weighs heavily with the people involved. Should there be more emphasis on the significance of consent? How often do we take for granted giving and honoring consent?
Before we delve deeper into the theory of consent culture, it is important for us to understand its polar opposite: rape culture. Rape culture does not simply gravitate on the criminal act of sexual assault. No, it goes beyond that. It is the culture of abuse and the lack of respect – even a modicum of it – towards our fellow human beings. It boils down to the very core of our animalistic side…Power. Dominance. Violence.
There is a strangeness about having a taste of power; hence, such a phrase as “being drunk with power” exists. Society has made us into sophisticated animals. The juxtaposition is deliberate. We are not simply like the quadruped beings that merely function for survival. We are more complex than that.
Yet, there is a darker side to us – our id. I am no psychology major to expound on such a subject, yet I do understand that we have our own animalistic sides. The sides which do not give any ounce of consideration to morality and understanding the difference between right or wrong.
The world, with all its edges, have more or less managed to mold or shape us into beings able to suppress such urges. I say suppress merely because such urges are there – lurking and waiting – inside all of us. All it takes is one little push. I am not implying that such urges are all negative.
As a matter of fact, there have been cases where people have survived the harshest circumstances simply because they allowed their survival instincts to take over – morality be damned.
Though in this column, I want to shine the spotlight on the negative side of man – our negative side. In the book Unf*ck your Boundaries I’m reading, the author Dr. Faith G. Harper quoted social systems scientist and cultural historian Dr. Riane Eisler about a certain dominator model: in society, there are still cultures that follow this model – there is a hierarchy backed up by violence or threat of force. This means that dominance is physically or verbally imposed among the inferior.
This means that some humans exercise power over others. All throughout history, this model is present – during the time where slavery existed, where social classes abused the rights of the ones at the bottom, where there is captivity and kidnapping, rape and pillaging, and human trafficking. The brutality may have been extreme in the past, but it does not excuse the present – people right now do not have access to proper healthcare and education; the justice system do not favor the lowly; and some individuals are still denied their basic human rights. With all this, one can easily say that the dominator model births rape culture.
Harper defines rape culture as “a term that refers to a norm regarding sexual violence.” Rape culture can easily relate to sexual violence simply because the general social mindset tolerates and condones these sexually abusive acts.
What’s even worse is that there are individuals who glamorize such acts – in the case of Ted Bundy and his multitude of fans idolizing and romanticizing him and his crimes.
There is even the presence of victim blaming and letting the victim feel guilty for standing up for themselves.
In some cases, these criminals are given a light sentence especially if the victims were not able to produce proper evidence against the criminal (and some, because it is not manslaughter).
Victim blaming occurs when people sympathize with the criminal over the victim because the person committing these lascivious acts still “have a bright future ahead” or they “have a family” or they “exemplify being a model citizen with a clean background.”
These cases puts the victim as the one at fault for destroying the criminal’s life and the lives of the people around him. There is then a shift of looking at the criminal for their act to looking at the victim and finding reasons why they found themselves in that incident – some even going as far as saying they deserve it.
To me, this is all because they do not properly understand consent. That is why it is important that we become open to the very definition of consent. When it comes to consent, no is no and only yes should be yes. Once we understand that concept, it is easier for us to be able to accept that culture.
In rape culture, we justify the behavior (be it ours or the behavior of others) while in consent culture, we start owning up to our behavior and being responsible to our responses. If someone says no, much to our dismay, we should allow ourselves to feel upset about it but not be forceful towards the person denying us.
In this society, we are so used to imposing ourselves without regard for the boundaries of others; we are also so used to allowing others to impose themselves on us in fear of creating our boundaries. It becomes difficult to do so because our culture bred us to embrace that saying no and respecting our boundaries becomes an act of rebelliousness.
We have a social hierarchy – though it may be subtle, it is ingrained in us much deeper than we care to admit. In our family, we were taught that talking back is an act of rebelliousness and disrespect. We were taught that when the older ones request us to do something, we should drop what we are doing and follow suit – no questions asked – mainly because we need to be respectful. That type of family dynamic is very common in the Filipino household.
Yes, growth starts at home. Thus, the home becomes the very platform we build our foundations on – it determines who we are as individuals. The concept of saying no becomes foreign, taboo, for us.
This may be a coincidence, but I have been surrounded by people who attempt to draw their boundaries yet follow it immediately with an apology or a justification – as if saying no is a crime. Perhaps I am not the only one in this boat after all. Then again, we aren’t clean. For those who fear of drawing boundaries may not also be familiar of the boundaries that others have drawn for them.
Admittedly, I am guilty of that. When someone denies a request, I get slighted (and sometimes, even upset at the person). No, they do not owe me anything and even though, in terms of social class, I may be in a higher position, I should not have any right to impose myself upon them. If I do find myself allowing these negative thoughts to fester, I mentally slap myself to wake up from this contemplation and right what I have wronged. It takes a while to compose oneself after having been brought up in a society void of consent and to slowly accept the concept.
Once we do so, there would be a shift in cultural paradigm, a human evolution of sorts. According to Harper, “to respect boundaries is to respect personhood”; once we are able to do that, we can then achieve a culture of consent – because I’d rather be a decent human than a sophisticated animal.
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