Dr. Zhana is an NYC-based sex researcher, writer, and educator who teaches Human Sexuality at NYU. She has a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University, where she studied how different aspects of sexuality are linked to health and well-being.
Over the past couple of years, we have started emphasizing the importance of sexual consent more than ever before in U.S. history. But what often gets left out of these discussions is how exactly you go about the business of obtaining and providing consent in real-life sexual situations. And especially, how to do it without the much-feared “ruining of the mood.”
There's more than one way to approach consensual sex. The debate is still raging over where exactly the line of consensual sex versus sexual assault should be drawn: Some insist that the old “only no means no” approach is adequate, which is the idea that unless you explicitly say “no,” you are implicitly consenting to whatever is being done to your body. Others argue that we need a new standard of “only yes means yes,” which is the idea that unless you explicitly say “yes,” you are not giving consent. But regardless of where you think the legal lines should be drawn, we can all agree that we want both ourselves and our partners to be enthusiastic about any sexual encounter. That is to say that every sexual encounter is ideally met with enthusiastic consent, rather than a situation where someone feels obligated or pressured to say yes, despite not being totally excited about participating.
There is no single approach for negotiating enthusiastic consent that will work for every person in every situation, but here are some things you can do to ensure that both you and your partner will be happy and comfortable with the physical activity you engage in.
The person initiating the sexual encounter, or initiating the escalation of sexual intimacy in the sexual encounter has a lot of responsibility in making sure the other person feels safe, comfortable, and is truly enjoying themselves. Here’s what you need to know about obtaining enthusiastic consent.
Avoid partners who are vulnerable
When people are intoxicated, sexually inexperienced, in a new situation, or acting recklessly or immature, their physical and/or mental capacity to make informed sexual decisions is impaired or limited. The more vulnerable they are — and the more vulnerable than you they are — the greater the risk they will feel coerced or regretful the next day. If they are particularly vulnerable (like heavily intoxicated, asleep, unconscious, or not of legal age), they are not legally capable of providing consent, and sex with them is by default sexual assault, no matter how eager they seem.
Establish reciprocal interest before you start thinking about physical touch.
Part of this is the good old art of flirting and building erotic tension: Are they making eye contact, smiling at you, leaning in, chatting excitedly… Don’t just come up to someone out of nowhere and ask them if you can kiss them, or worse, touch them. The other part of this has to do with trying to ensure your partner’s intentions and expectations of the sexual encounter are in line with yours. If you just want a casual hookup, but they are hoping for a relationship, try to find out if they’d be OK with it.
Negotiate consent verbally.
Explicitly asking for permission is the most obvious way to escalate to physical touch, and the one most commonly discussed when enthusiastic consent is brought up: “May I kiss/touch/take your shirt off…” “Is it OK if I ____?” For safest results, it’s good to ask permission for any escalation in intimacy, so a permission to kiss someone is not an automatic permission to touch them below the belt. This is an effective method that is preferred by some people, but it is also the one many people feel is a potential mood-killer.
Luckily, there are other ways to verbally obtain consent. Instead of asking for permission, you can offer your partner something you’d like to do for them. “I would love to kiss you/give you a massage/take your shirt off. Would you like that?” Or, alternatively, you could invite them to do something to/for you: “I’d love a massage. Would you like to give me a back rub?”
Another way to do this is to tell your partner what you plan on doing for/with/to them before you actually do it, an approach known as safe-porting. That gives them a chance to process that info and decide whether they are on board with your ideas. For example, if you’re making out with your clothes on, you can say “I’m gonna slide my hand underneath your shirt. ” then wait for their reaction — verbal or nonverbal — before you decide whether you should actually do it or not.
Establish “blanket consent” ahead of time.
One strategy for people who are more experienced is what sex educator Kenneth Play calls “blanket consent:” Explicitly agreeing on a “only no means no” policy. At some point — either before you start anything physical or after you’ve already obtained consent for a few individual acts — tell your partner something like, “I'd like the freedom to hook up without continually asking permission for each individual act. But consent is really important to me, so I’d like you to tell me if something doesn’t feel good, if you want me to slow down or stop. Does this work for you? Do you feel comfortable saying ‘no’ when you want to say ‘no’? Or would you rather me check in with you more regularly? Totally cool either way.”
This is for people who are more sexually experienced, because it assumes that both partners know exactly what they (don’t) want and are assertive enough to communicate that. While this is an ideal we should all strive to, in reality, many people are not ready for an agreement like this. I would caution against taking a blanket consent approach with partners who are in any way vulnerable (see point #1). Remember that at any point, no matter what you agreed to, you or your partner can say no or change your mind about what you already established.
