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reversalitea:

pierrottheanxious:

More enthusiastic consent in pop culture, please!

“Sleep with me?” – “Absolutely!” (Benjamin Button)

I understand the criticism of the well intentioned “Consent is sexy” slogan: Consent is a prerequisite for any sexual act and it doesn’t matter whether anybody finds it sexy: IT’S JUST MANDATORY!

BUT I’m happy when I see enthusiastic consent portrayed as erotic in popular culture, because it’s still much easier to find the opposite. Maybe it’s not good as a slogan, because it misses the point, but give me more examples like the scene above from “Benjamin Button”!
I was very young when I saw the movie and it was irritating and beautiful for me to see this scene, because I was used to movies, where sexual acts “just happen” without much communication, or to all those tropes associated with rape culture.
In a world where rape culture is
eroticized

and normalized, I see nothing wrong in rethinking sexual dynamics and portraying consent culture as sexy.
But to justify consent with the fact that it’s sexy or can be sexy is dangerous: It’s mandatory, nothing more and nothing less, period!

I am all for “may I kiss you?” and “I am going to kiss you now” thing because as much as I like the whole grabbing and kissing the living daylights out of ze lover*, consent is very hot.

*Unless you are in a well-established relationship and that kind of thing has been discussed already, then it’s okay.