One thing I think contributes to this problem is people treating all violations as equivalent to the maximal form of the violation. In my mind, the explicitness of the verbal consent should be proportional to the harm of getting it wrong.
For example, if I think "I think this person wants a hug," and I get it wrong, either they're awkward for a few seconds, they say "stop," or (hopefully) I recognize that the hug isn't working and I stop. I don't want to discount the modicum of harm they experience, but, like, (rounds down to) no harm, no foul.
On the other hand, if I think "I think this person is interested in rape play," and I get that wrong, it's a *crime*. More explicit verbal consent needed.
I used to be in a leadership position where questions along these lines were brought to me (not frequently but) regularly.
Whenever anyone would get up in arms about EVC being the gold standard, implicitly (or even sometimes explicitly) shaming the use of anything else, I’d ask: Do you care about animals consenting? How do you know when your dog/cat wants pets?
Granted, some people genuinely hadn’t yet been taught to notice when an animal is freezing or fawning instead of positively consenting — but because these were always group discussions, someone would inevitably jump in to describe the signs. Numerous times, I noticed that it seemed easier for folks to talk about subtle body language in animals rather than people, even though the crossover was more than legitimate.
I mostly agree, buy i think your missing something important.
I'd like to propose three categories.
1. Verbal communication
2. Non verbal communication
3. Pre knowledge.
Neither communication style is more or less stranger tech than the other. I've done non verbal with strangers many many times. However with strangers you need some sort of in-the-moment confirmation/consent (verbal or non verbal), that you can sometimes skip when you already know someone well enough (i.e. if you have pre-established consent).
As Duncan says, some things are more efficient to say in non-verbal. Also, I doubt that more than a small minority of even the strongest EVC advocates are doing verbal only. I've been in spaces with very explicit EVC rules, and almost no-one fully follows them, because it turns out that verbal is not very good at communicating about touch in detail.
Thanks for writing this! This reminds me of an odd thought I've sometimes had: while I *overall* much prefer being a human to being any other animal, I do sometimes feel envious of some non-human animals' ability to connect with each other without ever uttering a single word (and without that being seen as weird/cringe/whatever). I do love our human ability to use language, but I don't love how it sometimes feels like we're pathetically useless without it.
I recommend setting aside a season (e.g. this fall) and making that an explicit focus of practice! I bet you would see dramatic improvements within a few hours of trying, and a huge and stable improvement over the course of a few months of intentional effort.
How much of this is solved by privileging verbal consent for initial meta-negotiations, and as a fallback? I feel like it might be acceptable to say that at the beginning of a relationship, or when stepping up intimacy, there should be some level of verbal negotiation required. This could be as casual as telling a new friend "Hey, I'm really big on giving hugs, are you okay if I do that and you can tell me if you ever don't want one?" and they can tell you "Sure / I'd prefer for you to try and read my mood first / I'd prefer for you to ask every time / I never want a hug" and you can proceed from there. Or it can be as intensive as a BDSM consensual non-consent relationship where you agree to a strong prior expectation that the other person can do what they want.
I think this might take us off of a spectrum from "EVC is supreme" to "No EVC" because in my view, allowing strong assumed or inferred consent requires a _stronger_ norm towards verbal _withdrawal_ of consent. Of course there are all kinds of ways to express nonconsent nonverbally (you hug me, I freeze up or flinch away, you stop). But I would still like to have a world where consent universally _can_ be withdrawn verbally and this is respected unconditionally. Do you see any costs or downsides to that, similar to the ones you talked about here?
I also suspect that many EVC extremists would actually be okay with this _if_ they believed that explicit withdrawal of consent would always be immediately respected, without stigma. Or at least, if that had always been the state of the world, we would never have had the pendulum swing that led to extreme EVC culture.
Uh there are a bunch of different threads in the above, including some framings that make me go ?
But
> I would still like to have a world where consent universally _can_ be withdrawn verbally and this is respected unconditionally
Yeah, I agree with this. It does have costs, similar in form to the costs of "you can abruptly leave any conversation at any time" — spending that coin does create damage, and it's best used sparingly. But it's obviously obviously obviously (imo) the right tradeoff.
Sorry to be unclear, I'll come back to this if I think of a less tangled way to express my main question.
Regarding the part you quoted, I want to make sure we distinguish between the cost of withdrawing consent and the cost of respecting withdrawal of consent. I agree that when deciding whether to bail out of a situation I should 1) consider how it might negatively impact everyone involved and 2) accept that it might lead other people to model me as more likely to bail out in the future.
But _if_ I decide to bail out and I tell this to the other person, I expect them to stop doing whatever it is to me and to let me withdraw from the situation without interference* or punishment. When I said I don't see any downsides, I'm only talking the latter, compared to saying it's ever okay to not respect my decision.
* I know some people think asking eg, "would it fix the problem if I _______" constitutes interference but I'm only talking about really unambiguous coercion.
This feels like a bit of apples and oranges. Both are fruit and can be made into juice, but biting into one is not as fun as the other. Not knowing if your partner is feeling apple-y or orange-y may require some verbalization (or may, with experience together, not).
"May require some verbalization" is an interesting defaulting back to the verbal channel.
From my perspective, "May require shutting up and actually paying attention for a second" is at least equally valid, and this is sort of the whole point in microcosm.
The *assumption* that words are the place to go when things get confusing is (a little) suspect. Words really truly often *are* the place to go when things get confusing, but they're not actually the bedrock.
I did say 'may' and I also did say 'may not' with experience. Knowing a partner's non-verbal expressions and if they are ones that express willingness or if instead are traumatic responses 'may' take some time and intimacy.
I re-read the missive with my partner (who is more coded in the direction of 'talking RUINS things' that I).
I am not trying to say that verbal is the 'safe' option, but I think I am pointing to something that my first words hit on.
Skill Issue
It seems that a way to understand things is: Alignment carries Intimacy.
Seems that Guess Culture points to alignment, and fosters different interactions where verbal gaffes are in the explicit space (rather than the implicit).
If a partner (or the self) is in the camp of 'talking ruins things' it is hard to know that without alignment and intimacy. One can find that out by trial and error and avoid verbal interactions, but... why?
I do get that once alignment and intimacy are achieved insisting on verbal interaction can be disturbing to some, but... maybe discuss that when the thing that will be ruined isn't in play?
I'm also not sure I'm on board with those that view that verbal deftness is required for EVC, and that a lack of deftness would be quite the barrier that it seemed painted above.
Late Hot Take: Maybe soften intimate spaces or wear shoes rather than carpet the land with a new non-verbal paradigm of intimacy?
> maybe discuss that when the thing that will be ruined isn't in play
Yes.
> carpet the land with a new non-verbal paradigm of intimacy?
Uh. Horrible strawman? Sort of DARVO-y? Like, what's actually going on is I'm objecting to people carpeting the land with a new VERBAL paradigm of intimacy, and having *that objection* characterized as trying to carpet the land with a new (false) non-verbal paradigm is :///////////
I just had a reaction to what I felt was a missive about the culture shifting past a point that a person or community enjoys and what seemed like an ask for a shift in culture in an opposing direction...
...and it centered around painful experiences in intimate spaces.
> If a partner (or the self) is in the camp of 'talking ruins things' it is hard to know that without alignment and intimacy. One can find that out by trial and error and avoid verbal interactions, but... why?
Communicating non verbally is real communication! It's not just guessing.
I'm not in the camp 'talking ruins things', but I am in the camp 'absence of a non-verbal yes is off putting'
I don't know if the specific language of non-verbal I 'speak' is universal or not. But that's not super cruxy. English is also not an universal language. Because non-verbal communication is a back and forth interaction, I'm able to tell if we are communicating or not. I just don't know if when I can't 'hear' them, this is because they don't speak non-verbal or because they speak a different non-verbal. I lead towards the former, but I don't know.
I have defiantly been able to communicate non-verbally with people from other countires.
In no way am I indicating that non-verbal communication is not valid. It seems that fluency in the (a?) language of 'non-verbal' may be needed(?) for those who prefer it as a communication style during certain activities where verbal would appear to 'get in the way'?
Feels (to me) like we're back to square one - asking (expecting?) others to be fluent in one's preferred communication method can be friction-al until alignment/intimacy is reached.
One thing I think contributes to this problem is people treating all violations as equivalent to the maximal form of the violation. In my mind, the explicitness of the verbal consent should be proportional to the harm of getting it wrong.
For example, if I think "I think this person wants a hug," and I get it wrong, either they're awkward for a few seconds, they say "stop," or (hopefully) I recognize that the hug isn't working and I stop. I don't want to discount the modicum of harm they experience, but, like, (rounds down to) no harm, no foul.
On the other hand, if I think "I think this person is interested in rape play," and I get that wrong, it's a *crime*. More explicit verbal consent needed.
I used to be in a leadership position where questions along these lines were brought to me (not frequently but) regularly.
Whenever anyone would get up in arms about EVC being the gold standard, implicitly (or even sometimes explicitly) shaming the use of anything else, I’d ask: Do you care about animals consenting? How do you know when your dog/cat wants pets?
Granted, some people genuinely hadn’t yet been taught to notice when an animal is freezing or fawning instead of positively consenting — but because these were always group discussions, someone would inevitably jump in to describe the signs. Numerous times, I noticed that it seemed easier for folks to talk about subtle body language in animals rather than people, even though the crossover was more than legitimate.
I mostly agree, buy i think your missing something important.
I'd like to propose three categories.
1. Verbal communication
2. Non verbal communication
3. Pre knowledge.
Neither communication style is more or less stranger tech than the other. I've done non verbal with strangers many many times. However with strangers you need some sort of in-the-moment confirmation/consent (verbal or non verbal), that you can sometimes skip when you already know someone well enough (i.e. if you have pre-established consent).
As Duncan says, some things are more efficient to say in non-verbal. Also, I doubt that more than a small minority of even the strongest EVC advocates are doing verbal only. I've been in spaces with very explicit EVC rules, and almost no-one fully follows them, because it turns out that verbal is not very good at communicating about touch in detail.
Thanks for writing this! This reminds me of an odd thought I've sometimes had: while I *overall* much prefer being a human to being any other animal, I do sometimes feel envious of some non-human animals' ability to connect with each other without ever uttering a single word (and without that being seen as weird/cringe/whatever). I do love our human ability to use language, but I don't love how it sometimes feels like we're pathetically useless without it.
I recommend setting aside a season (e.g. this fall) and making that an explicit focus of practice! I bet you would see dramatic improvements within a few hours of trying, and a huge and stable improvement over the course of a few months of intentional effort.
How much of this is solved by privileging verbal consent for initial meta-negotiations, and as a fallback? I feel like it might be acceptable to say that at the beginning of a relationship, or when stepping up intimacy, there should be some level of verbal negotiation required. This could be as casual as telling a new friend "Hey, I'm really big on giving hugs, are you okay if I do that and you can tell me if you ever don't want one?" and they can tell you "Sure / I'd prefer for you to try and read my mood first / I'd prefer for you to ask every time / I never want a hug" and you can proceed from there. Or it can be as intensive as a BDSM consensual non-consent relationship where you agree to a strong prior expectation that the other person can do what they want.
I think this might take us off of a spectrum from "EVC is supreme" to "No EVC" because in my view, allowing strong assumed or inferred consent requires a _stronger_ norm towards verbal _withdrawal_ of consent. Of course there are all kinds of ways to express nonconsent nonverbally (you hug me, I freeze up or flinch away, you stop). But I would still like to have a world where consent universally _can_ be withdrawn verbally and this is respected unconditionally. Do you see any costs or downsides to that, similar to the ones you talked about here?
I also suspect that many EVC extremists would actually be okay with this _if_ they believed that explicit withdrawal of consent would always be immediately respected, without stigma. Or at least, if that had always been the state of the world, we would never have had the pendulum swing that led to extreme EVC culture.
Uh there are a bunch of different threads in the above, including some framings that make me go ?
But
> I would still like to have a world where consent universally _can_ be withdrawn verbally and this is respected unconditionally
Yeah, I agree with this. It does have costs, similar in form to the costs of "you can abruptly leave any conversation at any time" — spending that coin does create damage, and it's best used sparingly. But it's obviously obviously obviously (imo) the right tradeoff.
Sorry to be unclear, I'll come back to this if I think of a less tangled way to express my main question.
Regarding the part you quoted, I want to make sure we distinguish between the cost of withdrawing consent and the cost of respecting withdrawal of consent. I agree that when deciding whether to bail out of a situation I should 1) consider how it might negatively impact everyone involved and 2) accept that it might lead other people to model me as more likely to bail out in the future.
But _if_ I decide to bail out and I tell this to the other person, I expect them to stop doing whatever it is to me and to let me withdraw from the situation without interference* or punishment. When I said I don't see any downsides, I'm only talking the latter, compared to saying it's ever okay to not respect my decision.
* I know some people think asking eg, "would it fix the problem if I _______" constitutes interference but I'm only talking about really unambiguous coercion.
Skill Issue indeed.
This feels like a bit of apples and oranges. Both are fruit and can be made into juice, but biting into one is not as fun as the other. Not knowing if your partner is feeling apple-y or orange-y may require some verbalization (or may, with experience together, not).
"May require some verbalization" is an interesting defaulting back to the verbal channel.
From my perspective, "May require shutting up and actually paying attention for a second" is at least equally valid, and this is sort of the whole point in microcosm.
The *assumption* that words are the place to go when things get confusing is (a little) suspect. Words really truly often *are* the place to go when things get confusing, but they're not actually the bedrock.
I did say 'may' and I also did say 'may not' with experience. Knowing a partner's non-verbal expressions and if they are ones that express willingness or if instead are traumatic responses 'may' take some time and intimacy.
Yes but you are saying that verbal is the one to use if there is doubt, right? That's my read after reading both your comments.
That is still treating verbal as the safe option, rather than seeing them as two diffrent equaly valid options.
I re-read the missive with my partner (who is more coded in the direction of 'talking RUINS things' that I).
I am not trying to say that verbal is the 'safe' option, but I think I am pointing to something that my first words hit on.
Skill Issue
It seems that a way to understand things is: Alignment carries Intimacy.
Seems that Guess Culture points to alignment, and fosters different interactions where verbal gaffes are in the explicit space (rather than the implicit).
If a partner (or the self) is in the camp of 'talking ruins things' it is hard to know that without alignment and intimacy. One can find that out by trial and error and avoid verbal interactions, but... why?
I do get that once alignment and intimacy are achieved insisting on verbal interaction can be disturbing to some, but... maybe discuss that when the thing that will be ruined isn't in play?
I'm also not sure I'm on board with those that view that verbal deftness is required for EVC, and that a lack of deftness would be quite the barrier that it seemed painted above.
Late Hot Take: Maybe soften intimate spaces or wear shoes rather than carpet the land with a new non-verbal paradigm of intimacy?
> maybe discuss that when the thing that will be ruined isn't in play
Yes.
> carpet the land with a new non-verbal paradigm of intimacy?
Uh. Horrible strawman? Sort of DARVO-y? Like, what's actually going on is I'm objecting to people carpeting the land with a new VERBAL paradigm of intimacy, and having *that objection* characterized as trying to carpet the land with a new (false) non-verbal paradigm is :///////////
I just had a reaction to what I felt was a missive about the culture shifting past a point that a person or community enjoys and what seemed like an ask for a shift in culture in an opposing direction...
...and it centered around painful experiences in intimate spaces.
Sorry if it was DARVO-y, not my intention.
> If a partner (or the self) is in the camp of 'talking ruins things' it is hard to know that without alignment and intimacy. One can find that out by trial and error and avoid verbal interactions, but... why?
Communicating non verbally is real communication! It's not just guessing.
I'm not in the camp 'talking ruins things', but I am in the camp 'absence of a non-verbal yes is off putting'
I don't know if the specific language of non-verbal I 'speak' is universal or not. But that's not super cruxy. English is also not an universal language. Because non-verbal communication is a back and forth interaction, I'm able to tell if we are communicating or not. I just don't know if when I can't 'hear' them, this is because they don't speak non-verbal or because they speak a different non-verbal. I lead towards the former, but I don't know.
I have defiantly been able to communicate non-verbally with people from other countires.
In no way am I indicating that non-verbal communication is not valid. It seems that fluency in the (a?) language of 'non-verbal' may be needed(?) for those who prefer it as a communication style during certain activities where verbal would appear to 'get in the way'?
Feels (to me) like we're back to square one - asking (expecting?) others to be fluent in one's preferred communication method can be friction-al until alignment/intimacy is reached.