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In my last post, Sexual Consent is Hard and Complicated, But Important, I spoke about what makes sexual consent so difficult and how to better manage it so that both people feel good after the sexual encounter. But what about those encounters where both people consented, but one or both of them later regrets what happened? This is more common than we would want it to be and can get really messy and even hurtful if we don’t manage it well. So, to truly give informed consent, we need to consider not only how we feel about something in the moment, but also how we will feel about it later.
Regret is Part of Life
We all do things that we regret afterwards, despite giving full consent at the time—like, when you gladly ate another slice of pizza and then felt sick afterwards. This is a problem of regret, not consent, and a painful lesson to hopefully make different choices next time. Knowing yourself well and being in a position to remember how you will feel later (that is, not under the influence) makes regret less likely—whether it’s pizza or hook-ups.
There is a part of us that wants to do what is most enjoyable right now, consequences be damned. Unfortunately, when the bill for those consequences comes due, we may regret the earlier choice. Fortunately, there is another part of us that thinks about the future and pushes back against the temptations of the moment by reminding us of how we will feel later.
Some people have a better ability to pause before acting and bring the future effects into the decision-making in the moment. But all of us have a harder time pausing and exerting willpower when we’re tired, stressed, drunk, turned on, feel social pressure, or have other strong emotions, so we’re more likely to do what feels good in the moment but then have second thoughts about it later.
When it comes to sex, some people like to try lots of new things whereas others prefer to stay with the tried and true. Some people like to take a chance on new partners quickly whereas others want much more certainty that they are getting what they think they’re getting with someone new.
We all have to decide how we handle risk and safety—and therefore whether we tend to regret what we did versus what we missed out on. If you choose a generally safer path, then you need to accept that you will have fewer wild adventures. If you choose a generally riskier path, then you need to accept that not every adventure will have a happy ending. Managing regret is a package deal.
Be Clear About How You Will Feel After
People tend to have strong feelings about sex—what happened or didn’t, how it happened, and what it all means. This makes sex both really tempting, but also fraught with potentially negative feelings afterwards. Therefore, before taking the leap, we should ideally pause for a moment to think about whether we will be happy about it later.
Our self in the moment may give consent, but our future self may later decide that we should not have. Just as I discussed in Part 1 that two people need to negotiate consent, we also need a negotiation between our own present and future selves. This is especially true if we too often find ourselves really struggling with regret—if so, why does your present self ignore or over-ride how your future self will feel?
We may also want to consider whether our distant future self would consent. What felt OK and reasonable at 20 may feel very different at 30 or 40. Does this mean that we made the wrong choice at 20? Maybe. Or maybe it means that we had different priorities and acceptable risk. Or maybe it means that we made a somewhat reasonable choice at the time, given what we knew then (which turned out to be not enough). We can’t change the past, but how feel about it can certainly evolve.
Regret can be really painful, especially when interlaced with shame. And unfortunately, sexuality is too often sprinkled with shame too, making it really easy to feel awful about sexual encounters that didn’t go as planned. For all of that suffering, there may be some important lessons learned from that regret.
What does this regret teach us about why we do what we do? About what we want? About how hopes translate into reality? About how to be assertive? About the situations we put ourselves into? About the people that we involve ourselves with?
How do the lessons learned from regret shift what we do next time? Perhaps that gained wisdom makes it easier to tolerate the pain of regret.
Don’t Enable Someone Else’s Regret
Just as we should be considerate of how we will feel about a sexual encounter afterwards, we should also be considerate of how the other person will feel. If the goal is a positive experience that both people will feel good about, then it’s important to not be an enabler to someone else doing something that you know they will probably regret later. For example, if someone is drunk and hooks up with you when you’re pretty sure that they wouldn’t have done it sober, then you are complicit in their bad decision. (There’s also the ethical issue that being drunk means that someone can’t give full consent.) Likewise, if you know someone is in a relationship and will feel terrible afterwards for cheating.
Claiming that they consented (which they did) is a cheap excuse that your conscience shouldn’t accept. Also, in either of these situations, you may try to stand on the technicality that they consented and therefore shouldn’t blame you, but most likely there will be plenty of bad feelings to go around and at least some of it will land at your feet. If your reputation and integrity matter to you, you may want to consider this.
Avoid Unspoken Agendas
Are both people on the same page for this encounter or does one of them have a goal that they aren’t verbalizing, especially if they know the other person might feel differently? This is a set-up for bad feelings that may be made into a consent issue, but it’s really more of a problem of communication and honesty. The problem with unspoken agendas is that the two people aren’t consenting to the same thing. This only comes out after the fact at which point at least one person is going to be unhappy about what happened.
As I mentioned in Part 1, it’s really important to be honest with each other about what you both want and then negotiate the differences. If you can’t be honest in that negotiation, then you should probably take a hard look at why before you do anything.
Find a Way to Move On
Regret can be a painful emotion. We may blame ourselves or others or both. The challenge is to get enough perspective on the past so it informs our decisions in the present without limiting our future. Feeling like we gained some wisdom won’t undo that pain, but perhaps it will make it easier to leave behind.
