Consent Isn’t a Fucking Grey Area

Oh look, a thoroughly tasty and necessary subject. It’s a hill I will willingly die on, with both middle fingers blazing and screaming profanities at anyone who disagrees.

I get to say no. To anything. For any reason. At any time. And you can go fuck yourself if you don’t like it.

I’m not obligated to see to your happiness. I’m not obligated to entertain you or wet your winkie when you are horny. You can literally fuck yourself. That’s why you have hands, fingers and your imagination.

No, I don’t want to stop what I am doing to Google your random curiosity while you sit right in front of a computer. I am aware that’s a control tactic.

No. I don’t want your hands down my pants. No, I don’t care that “they won’t notice”,

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU?

And no, I did not consent to you trying to fuck me while I was unconscious. I was asleep. You want consent from an unconscious person? Are you kidding me?

Note: If somnophilia is your kink and you’ve got actual negotiated consent? Go off, my freaky friend. No kink shaming here. But for me? Hard pass. Full stop. Don’t fucking try it.

I was raised, unintentionally I believe, to believe that I didn’t get to say no. That my comfort was secondary or not even a consideration. Every Gen Xer/Xennial has stories about being forced to hug creepy relatives, the ones whispered about but didn’t want to “offend” Because that’d be rude, right? I was taught that adult’s were entitled to my body because “Well Bee… that’s just how it is.”

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

That’s the same level as the phrase “Boys will be boys”. Pure ableist bullshit.

When I was 9, due to feeling like I was invincible and being incredibly stupid I got sick, with pneumonia. -10,000/10, do not recommend. After a staycation in hospital and the beginning of my intolerance of antibiotics, I got to spend the day with the daycarers who’d been looking after my sibling and myself since we were tiny. I barely remember the woman aside that she was a raging thundercunt, but the man, he was safe and he cared. I thought he was safe.

Until he wasn’t. Until he put his hand down my pants while I was trapped in the front seat of his car on the highway. Because he could.. Because he knew I was smaller than him, sick, weak and I couldn’t fight back.

I did have enough brains to tell my mother, even when he told me it was a secret. All I got from telling her though was medical abuse in the form of a clinical, invasive exam, a hot pink winter coat and no trauma counselling. What did you expect? It was the 80’s in Australia. Only complete nutters got counselling!

That was my first taste of how women or in this case, girls, are expected to bounce back and just smile. Because we are prettier when we smile. Right? Hide that trauma Bee… if we don’t mention it, it didn’t happen and you’ll be fine.

Only I wasn’t fine. I started hating myself. I heard family and society talking. I must have done something to deserve it. I was disgusting and this is ALL MY FAULT.

And here comes my bad coping mechanisms, roaring in like knight in shining armour, shouting their irrefutable logic… If I make myself undesirable, then I won’t get hurt. Apparently men liked skinny girls. Fine. I won’t be one. I created my first mask and disappeared behind it, and used tried to use it as a shield.

It didn’t work.

In my 20’s the message from my well meaning family changed to encouragement in showing off my femininity. Attracting a partner. Becoming a mother. I was pretty sure I didn’t want that. I didn’t and honestly still don’t like babies and young children, they have no grasp of logic or ability to carry on a decent conversation. I heard that I was supposed to get married, and I figured that since I was so ugly, fat and useless, I’d better say yes to the first asshole who asks, because it likely wouldn’t happen again.

ENTER NAPOLEON:

Husband #1. Named this way because he’s a small man (literally and figuratively), who thinks he’s big; kinda like a chihuahua who thinks he’s a rottweiler.

US Military. Charming. Butter could not melt in his mouth, and in hindsight, a perpetual victim to mean, cruel and abusive women, who took advantage of him and his E4 lifestyle.

I married him and became a non-person. My time, my body, my wants, dreams and plans were his, and his dream was to retire to farm in Australia where he’d spend all day in his fields just peacefully scything away the long grass and chewing on a hay stalk, whilst I managed the farm, birthed the children and ran the household. Much peace. Much tranquility. For him. Such fucking bullshit. His spending habits and his wages would not come close to being able to purchase ANYTHING in Australia. What a laugh.

Because I was young and stupid, with no point of reference, no previous relationship experience I listened and believed him when he told me things like “All wives like to be touched all the time” or in the words of Robert A Heinlein, an author he emulated, who wrote “A true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes, and does her whorish best.” Go fuck yourself, Heinlein.

Didn’t matter if I was sick, literally 7 months pregnant, puking my guts out and he got his groove thing on whilst I vomited and then got angry because I ruined his experience because I wasn’t into it. Ya think, asshole? Puking doesn’t do it for me. If Napoleon had a “need” I was to immediately meet it, whether that mean leaving a screaming child in middle of the room to accommodate him or just to hold his penis for him, because it “gives him comfort”. If I didn’t, the verbal, mental and emotional abuse was off the charts until I apologised. My favourite (sarcasm) was when he got mad at me because I told him he wasn’t allowed to try to give me an orgasm in front of my obstetrician because he’d read on a forum online that the pain from giving birth would heighten the pleasure and make the experience a joy. Apparently, I was closed minded. Fuck right off.

I was trapped in America. Forced to give birth to children I didn’t want to have, to care for them, raise them, fight for them… protect them. Not allowed to use birth control. Not allowed to ever deny him. Always being told “But I can still hear their voices… my future children saying don’t stop yet!” Sir, I’m pretty sure that’s an possible aspect of schizophrenia, maybe you should look into those auditory hallucinations.

Napoleon was and is the poster child for the Duluth power and control wheel. You can google that. I’m not your bitch. The coercion was constant. If I didn’t comply immediately to whatever the demand was, I was being cruel and withholding. If I made friends, I was having an affair with all of them at the same time and he was angry because 1) I was cheating or 2) I hadn’t invited him to the orgy I organised between school, pre-school and occupational therapy appointments.

He decided he was polyamorous. Cool, if that’s your jam. But the rules where that only he could be in a relationship with someone else, and I had to let him play and let her live in my house. I was so beaten down, physically and mentally at this point, I believed him when he said that if I went to the police, he’d lose his job and then we’d get kicked out of the house and it would be my fault that our children were homeless and probably taken into care. He arranged for me to be sold to strangers for sex. No choice. No voice. Just compliance. Or I was the reason why the kids didn’t eat that week. The humiliation, whilst he charged stranger to have sex with me, do whatever they wanted with my body… I still have nightmares about it. Intrusive thoughts. Feel their hands in my hair, on my skin.

Then he decided he was a swinger, and that meant I had to attend parties at swingers homes and if I didn’t let them touch me, fuck me… do what they wanted to me, then I had hell to pay because I was boring, I had to participate or I wasn’t a real partner and I wasn’t keeping him happy.

He treated me like property, and the world around us reinforced that I should just be grateful I had a husband at all. I had no way of getting out. No passport, no money, no friends, a created fear of services and the belief that I would die there. Isolated from my family. No way of getting home.

Until I suddenly found the final piece of the puzzle to get out, a small piece of legitimacy is a massive plan formed over years, based on lies, to get free. When we got to airport to leave the US, leaving him there, I flipped him off as he walked away. I. was. free.

I spent 15 years in survival mode. The first 5, unknowing, the second 5 trapped and aware and the last 5 years planning and playing the long game. Once I was home, I remained in survival fight or flight. I was hypervigilant, being near an unknown male terrified the fuck out of me. I was constantly trying to figure out the actual meaning of behind words or actions and it was always negative. I wasn’t safe.

But I gathered up the spite and anger and went back to university and got my degree. I looked after my children. I worked. I rebuilt. I went to therapy – that didn’t work because the therapist did not know what the fuck to do with me. I learnt to hide, mask and pretend even stronger.

ENTER GUNNA:

Husband #2. Named thus because he’s “gunna” take responsibility for his actions and go to counselling, but hasn’t, because he doesn’t understand, hasn’t tried to understand and thinks that I am forcing him to waste money on therapy he doesn’t need when YouTube videos would do.

When I got married again, I thought it was to someone who understood me, or wanted to understand me. That could see through the trauma and abuse and would be willing to walk with me. But that was damn rose coloured glasses. Gunna, is not a good person. He likes to think he is. But he’s not.

What kind of person ignores their partner telling them for years not to touch them sexually when they are sleeping. Ignores them when they tell say that their behaviour is making them feel like an object or a useless scrap of skin attached to a vagina? What type of person ignores and discounts the ideas of consent? What kind of person puts on a performative display of suddenly understanding your deep seeded physical, mental, emotional and sexual trauma for the marriage counsellor and then shows that he really doesn’t give a fuck the next day? What kind of person claims to care, but refuses to learn how to not hurt you?

What kind of person says: I don’t snuggle you at night because I won’t be able to stop myself from raping or sexually assaulting you?

He said it like I should be proud of him. Like I should applaud his honesty. I think he genuinely feels that I should be grateful. That not raping me is proof of his love. That I should feel safe because he wants to hurt me, but is protecting me by not touching me at all when I slept in the same room and bed as him. Like he deserves a gold star and certificate that says “I R #1 Partner” because he thought about violating me but didn’t.

Bugger that. I’m not giving out gold stars or certificates for having basic decency by NOT raping someone. I’m not going to give him a round of applause for not assaulting me. Way to go.. you had to dig a deep hole to set the bar that low.

I have been violated, dismissed, disbelieved, gaslit, objectified, and fucking discarded by men who claimed to love me. I have screamed “NO” in words, in silence, in stillness—and still been touched, taken, used.

And every time, I was told it wasn’t “rape” because I was married, because I didn’t fight hard enough, because I didn’t leave fast enough, because I should’ve known better. But here’s the truth:

Consent is not a grey area.

I am done apologising for the space that I take up. I am done with having my voice silenced and ignored because he doesn’t see himself as a bad person.

I am saying no.

I can say no. To anything, For any reason. At any time.

I don’t need your permission or approval.