#self gaslighting
content warning: non-graphic description of a questionable consent situation; non-graphic talk of sex, rape & trauma; self-gaslighting.
this is the third and final post in a series of posts in which i’m writing about my personal experiences with sexual abuse / violence and consent issues. the first post on sexual abuse / violence can be found here. the second post on consent issues and asexuality can be found here. this post is about something that happened during a past relationship in which consent is / was questionable and the ramifications of it.
consent. not a topic that i’m at all well informed about, but about which i’m writing a lot at the moment as i attempt to unpack and navigate things from my past that i have up until this point avoided doing.
as i mentioned in my previous post, i’ve been in two long-term relationships spanning 9 years in total, 5 of which were sexually active and all of which happened before i came out to myself as asexual (among other things). during the first relationship, something happened that has resulted in me now questioning what even ‘counts’ when it comes to consent.
in a relationship (like far too many) where sex had been consented to multiple times to the point of becoming assumed; where actual yeses and noes are no longer said because attention is no longer paid to asking for / giving consent at all, but rather to respecting when assumed consent is retracted… in that context, if i didn’t act on my ‘responsibility’ to explicitly retract my consent by verbally saying “no,” does that mean i automatically consented…?
how “active” and “enthusiastic” does consent have to be to ‘count’? and once one has consented to sex, how “active” or “enthusiastic” does retracting that consent have to be to ‘count’?
i don’t expect anyone to actually answer those questions. for now, it’s enough for me to just be able to think aloud by blabbering into the void that is the internet. as usual.
