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Great sex is passionate and exciting, partly because there is some novelty, uncertainty, or vulnerable honesty to it. This keeps it interesting, but also runs the risk of the encounter going in a direction that you may not want. To keep the right balance between risk and permission, both people need to know how to handle the matter of consent.
This is especially true when it’s one of your first sexual encounters, because you may not know each other well yet, so it’s hard to know if you both want the same thing. This makes it easy for someone to feel unhappy about how things evolve.
In order to prevent a lot of heartache on both sides (not to mention legal or Title IX charges), let’s talk about what makes sexual consent so difficult and what you can do to make sure that a sexual encounter is a positive experience for both people. This all assumes that both people have generally good intent, but sometimes mess things up—clearly coercive or predatory consent violations lack that good intent and go beyond the scope of this blog.
How someone feels about what happened in a sexual encounter is very much up to interpretation. People can also have very different memories of what happened, how, in what order, and by who, all of which makes it really difficult to agree afterwards. Even though both people were in the same room, that doesn’t mean they had the same experience.
Programs that aim to improve consent often teach participants to communicate more clearly about what they want and to get clarity from the other person. This is helpful and important, but like so much else about relationships and sexuality, it’s complicated—formulaic recommendations of what one should ask, when, and how aren’t enough. In order to communicate clearly enough to prevent consent violations, both participants need to know themselves and each other better than most people do in those heated moments. This is even more true if alcohol is involved—and really true when too much alcohol is involved. Applying these seemingly simple communication strategies more effectively requires important psychological skills of self-awareness, empathy, and negotiation.
Know What You Want
You’re much more likely to be happy with how something works out if you’re clear about what you want, whether this is dinner or a sexual encounter. What makes this harder in sexual encounters is that what you want can change as events unfold, especially if this is a new partner where you don’t know what to expect. You may find yourself wanting things to progress further than you initially planned—or you may decide to pull the plug. Some of this uncertainty can make the encounter more exciting, but it can also create moments of ambivalent indecision, where part of you wants to continue but part of you wants to stop or at least not move on to other activities.
People get physical with someone for lots of reasons, so the more clear you are about why you’re there and what you’re hoping to get from it, the more likely you will be happy with what happens—by which I mean, how you influence what happens. This is true not only physically, but also emotionally and maybe even relationally (like, is this a one-off hookup or the start of something ongoing?).
Before the first touch, ask yourself why you’re there and what you want to happen. Then keep asking yourself that, since it may change as events unfold. If you’re unsure of what you want and what’s happening, then take a moment to check in with yourself. If a trip to the bathroom or grabbing a drink of water gives you the room to think, then do it. If you feel mixed (which you probably will), then sit with those conflicting feelings, identify what you feel and why, and take the time you need to decide whether to keep going forward, slow things down, or step things back. Just because you started a specific sexual activity with someone, doesn’t obligate you to finish it.
Know What the Other Person Wants
If you’re fooling around with someone else, it’s really helpful to know what they’re thinking, feeling, and hoping for. We usually rely a lot on non-verbals to tell us how the other person is doing. While this feels more “natural,” it too often leads to misunderstandings, especially in the heat of passion where we get overly focused on our own experience and what we want. There has to be something better than relying on psychic abilities.
This begins with knowing ourselves well, so that we don’t confuse what we want (or fear) with what the other person wants. Being really clear about how you feel, including the contradictions, makes it easier to see beyond your feelings to what the other person wants. It makes it easier to read the other person’s non-verbals without reading in what we think they are feeling.
Good self-awareness also makes it easier to use your words and say what you want, as well as to then ask the other person what they want. If you’re not sure what the other person wants or if you feel like you’re getting mixed messages (their words say one thing but their vibe says something else), then ask. If you can’t use your words, then you’re probably not ready to have sex with someone else.
Be Willing to Discuss the Differences
It’s easy to say that you should say what you want and ask what the other person wants, but then what do you do when you don’t want the same thing? This is the hard part. You definitely want to ask for what you want, but you also need to be considerate of what the other person wants. The key to consent is that a no beats a yes—if there aren’t two yeses, then the answer is no.
If you are the one slowing things down or stopping, then be clear about what you’re doing—don’t be soft or vague and hope the other person picks up on it. Maybe explain why, but not wanting to is all the reason you need and the other person doesn’t get to vote on whether your reason is good enough. They only get to vote on what is good enough for them.
If the other person is putting on the brakes on what you’re suggesting, then you need to really pay attention to what the other person is saying and also not saying. This is probably a good time to ask some questions—what do they want? What are their concerns? Perhaps, what would make them more comfortable going forward? Maybe it’s a problem of pacing, that things are moving too quickly. Or maybe they have hit their limit and this is a hard stop.
This is a really good time to make it clear that you can handle a no—if the other person is worried about your reaction (accurately or not) then they will have a harder time sticking to their no. And playing dumb or claiming that you didn’t notice their hesitation is just a lie. You may be disappointed that you didn’t get what you wanted in that moment, but you have shown the other person something really good about yourself and how you see them if you can handle it respectfully. This may lay the groundwork for something good to happen later or next time. This may be more of a long game, but it also means that you can feel good about yourself afterwards.
It can be emotionally provocative to be in one of those moments where one person is putting on the brakes. The person saying no may feel some social pressure (maybe real, maybe imagined) to continue, or may have a hard time tolerating the other person being disappointed or angry.
The person who hears "no" may have their insecurities triggered and worry that the rebuff is based on them not being attractive enough or good enough in bed, provoking a bad reaction. These can be tense and vulnerable moments where one or both people are flooded with difficult emotions. But no one ever said sex is easy—if you want the fun, be prepared to also do the work.
Consent Is Hard, But Worth It
None of this is clear cut or easy, but think of it as the cost of admission for any sex and especially for great sex. Getting better at these important skills will also benefit you in your relationships and other parts of your life. Maybe the next great sexual encounter is the motivation to do the work.
Read more about another important aspect of consent in "Sexual Consent is Hard and Complicated, Part 2: Regret."
