85: Is Consent Black and White? (Maybe Not!) with Sarah Casper
Joining me today is Sarah (pronounced SAH-rah) Casper, Consent Educator and the founder of Comprehensive Consent. We connected over a recent TikTok about sexual coercion, sexual assault, and consent, which, as you can imagine, prompted very strong reactions. There is a new social space around the whole idea of consent, even to the point that new terminology is being created, as with the term “enthusiastic consent.” With the overall goal of education and empowerment, Sarah and I tackle this very nuanced topic in today’s show. Join us!
Show Highlights:
● Consent is full of black, white, and LOTS of gray areas.
● The truth: “Consent is not simple, and the same rules don’t apply across all contexts.”
● Understanding the difference between spontaneous desire and responsive desire and the opt-in model vs. the opt-out model
● Common questions Sarah is asked about people’s experiences
● Everyone deserves care, all feelings are valid, and your feelings don’t have to be labeled.
● Not all assault is sexual coercion, and not all sexual coercion is assault.
● Sexual ethics is much more than consent.
● Watch out for red flags in a partner wanting to “check all the boxes” for consent.
Resources and Links:
Connect with Sarah Casper and Comprehensive Consent: Website, Instagram, and TikTok
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.
-
KC 0:05
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I am your host, KC Davis. Welcome to the least most professional podcast in the world and consent. Am I right? It's so black and white, or is it? I'm going to talk about consent today. And I've brought on Sarah Casper, who is a consent educator. And she is the founder of comprehensive consent. And she and I crossed paths recently, because I had done a tick talk about sexual coercion. And we were talking about what is sexual coercion and what is sexual assault and is all coercion assault? And is, you know, this, that the other and it there were some very strong reactions online naturally, understandably. And so I ended up seeing some of saurez content we connected and I wanted to bring that conversation here, because I think you'll agree, sorry, it's a conversation that really needs to happen over a longer than 60 seconds. 100%. Yeah. So I want to start by just kind of hit that place of we're in kind of a new social space in terms of how we talk about consent. You know, it used to be that consent was, you know, can I do this to you checkbox? Yes, no. And now we've sort of moved into talking a little bit more about consent and how important consent is, there's this new term that floats around now called enthusiastic consent. And people say, Oh, that's what's important. What I thought was interesting, in this conversation, I had made this tick, talk about sexual coercion. And people who are not who are listening who are not familiar with the term, it's a term that you can see defined on a lot of major organizations, you can see it on government organizations, the, you know, national hotline for domestic violence and crisis and family violence. There are several other like large organizations that will give you a sort of a rundown a definition. And basically, it talks about pressure, force, threat intimidation, that somebody gives you to have sex, and it's a spectrum, right? So we can go all the way so far as I'll kill your family if you don't have sex with me, because it's basically in any kind of non physical force or pressure. But on the other end of it, we have more social pressure, like, Come on, baby, it's my birthday. Come on, please come on. And it sparked a really interesting conversation about what is consent? Because people said, well, you know, coercion is not consent. Coercion is not consent. And I didn't say this because I knew I could never explored enough in a tick tock, but I was like, I mean, sometimes it is, and that makes me cringe, because there's all these butts, butts, butts nuance, Nuance nuance. But let's so let's just start with this is consent, because this came up a lot in my comment section. Consent is black and white consent is black and white. So what would you say? Is consent, black and white?
Sarah Casper 2:52
No, easy? No, that's an easy now. And at the same time, that doesn't mean that sometimes it's not. There are some times when it's clear that a situation was not consensual. And also what is consent and what falls into the bucket of consent. And what what falls into the bucket of non consent is not always clear. You
KC 3:11
know, one of the things that I don't know how you like feel about this when you have this conversation, but one of the things that comes up for me is this fear of you know, if we talk about how sometimes a person might not be consenting, but the other person may not realize they're not consenting, or sometimes there's not consent, but you said yes. And this that the there's this fear of we all know, there are situations in which one party is intentionally coercing the other one, and they know that they are not gaining consent, or they're at least not they at least know they're not gaining enthusiastic consent, right. And none of us want to be the person that feels like we're giving liberty to someone to go, Well, I didn't know. I mean, just because you experienced it as assault doesn't mean I assaulted you, because there are obviously situations where 100% That person assaulted that other person. And so I just wanted to kind of start with that, like, I understand that that's the great fear that I have about this conversation. I also want to start with an important caveat that I am not ever interested in telling someone how they have to refer to their own Mistreatment to their own violation. And so that's not what this conversation is about at all. Like my goal in this conversation is empowerment to those who have experienced assault and coercion is clarity to those who want to have sort of aboveboard sexual ethics. I don't know. Do you share any of those fears when you talk about this kind of stuff? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 4:45
100% Especially because I work in the prevention space, unless in the response space, so I'm not typically actually working with survivors. And so the way I talk about consent is how do you do your best and navigate conflict heated situations that are to come. Now I do assume there's a survivor in every room just because statistically, that is correct. And also, that's not the frame of the conversation. So there are times where I'm going to how I'm going to talk about consent, because it is a concept. It's not like, Sure, you can look at the definition in the dictionary, but we can conceptualize it in so many different ways. And we have throughout history, so I'm going to be very thoughtful about how am I talking about consent, how am I approaching this and so sometimes, there are moments where someone who is really hard trauma from sexual assault will see my content, where I'm talking about the nuances of body language, and they're gonna have a big reaction. And I fully understand that, and I also, I hope they understand who I'm talking to, in that moment, and I'm meeting them where they're, I used
KC 5:47
to run a drug rehab, and one of the things that I did when I started working there was start a sexual health class, because it's just it gets very entwined, right, like our sexual behavior, and our addiction can get very intertwined. And as we're trying to kind of change our addiction and things we have to kind of look at this bagel. I mean, it's been affected by and it affects a lot of that stuff. So one of the things when we would talk about consent is I love to ask the people in the audience like questions like, oh, is consent, black and white? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And we'd sit and we kind of throw them some easy softballs, like, you know, can somebody consent when they're drunk, and everyone knows the right answer. So they're like, no, no, of course not. And you're like, Okay, great. All right. So what if you take a girl out on a date, and she gets really drunk? Can she consent? No, no, of course, she can't. We're like, Yeah, we're like, it's easy questions, right? And then I say, Okay, what if, and in this scenario, let's pretend like I'm not in recovery. What if my husband of 10 years takes me out for New Year's Eve? And I get really drunk? And we go home and have sex? Can I consent to that? And people like? Maybe, like, well, I thought you just said, What do you think? It? Certainly, certainly we would agree, it doesn't mean that I can't not consent. But has my husband assaulted me? What if he's also drunk? What if he's drunker than me? But he's the one that initiates what level of drunkenness? Must we be to determine who's the assaulter? And who's the assault? IE? Is it how we feel afterwards? Is it what we did in the moment? Is that the level of intoxication, he's twice the size that I am? What if we're the same level of intoxication, but it has a way bigger effect on me? Right? And that's always the one where people are like, Oh, right.
Sarah Casper 7:30
Yeah, I do this with high schoolers. And with usually with seniors in high school, or with college students, we play a game where I say a statement about consent, they go to one side, if they agree, once, I'd say disagreeing anywhere in between. And again, I'm coming in under the title consent educator. And so they think they know the answer, when I say consent need to be enthusiastic. And they all say, yeah, and then I'm like, Well, you know, what, if I say, you know, I'm willing to try that is that can I not consent, and then all of a sudden, without even me like, giving them permission to they start, like shifting where they are, I also find that a lot of the time, if there are students on different sides, they're actually saying the same thing, they just have a different story in their mind of what's happening. So again, you know, if you say, you know, you can consent to sex, if you've been drinking, one person assumes that in this scenario, the person has passed out. And another student assumes that the person has had like two drinks and is an adult and like, has experience with like managing their alcohol before because again, like a 16 year old, being drunk is very different, or having two drinks is very different than a 30 year old having two drinks. And it's exactly this like idea that consent is simple. And the same rules apply across all contexts that I think is really difficult. Another question that I asked her like statement, I say, is coercion is the same thing as convincing, and students who not know what to do with that. And they tried to define like, what's the difference between convincing and coercing? And they struggle? And I don't have an answer for them I struggled to.
KC 8:52
That's another thing that came up a lot when we were talking about coercion. And somebody was like, well, sometimes I don't think I'm in the mood until my husband coerces me or until my wife coerces me and it was like, Oh, well, let's slow down for a second. Because that's not what I mean. But here's some interesting thing is I have found it very helpful for adults to talk about the difference between spontaneous desire and responsive desire because sometimes that clarifies for someone that's not the focus of our conversation. But just as an aside, one of the things we know from just a sexual health perspective is that there are people that have what's called spontaneous desire, which means out of nowhere, boom, body is ready to go, right? They feel turned on their body is physiologically aroused, and they want to have sex. And this is someone who maybe they see something sexy, or they think something sexy or whatever. There are other people that have more of a responsive desire, meaning if I just asked you right now, hey, do you wanna have sex? I'd be like, no, no, they might be someone who doesn't initiate often, but once someone initiates with them, they go, Okay, well, you know what, this actually does feel kind of nice. And so to them, I think It gets a harder conversation because they go, Well, I'm never in the mood. But once my partner kind of gets my gears going, once they put the idea in my head, once they kind of start to turn me on, then I feel like I'm ready to go. And so to them, I think it's a harder conversation because they always experience sexual desire in the context of quote, unquote, being convinced. Here's the part that I think is interesting that with that is what I brought up was, you know, when we talk about consent, though, everyone's always going to penis and vagina or, you know, whatever that like hand to genitals like what you know, like, that's the moment you need consent for. And what I think is interesting is okay, but would you say that if you took a girl on a date, you needed consent to grab her boob? And people were like, well, yes, obviously. And I'm like, Okay, does my husband need consent to grab my boat? 10 years and lots of sex? Will? Does he? Does he need to ask Does he verbally need to ask every time to slap my butt? Well, I guess not. Okay. So does that mean he gets to does that mean, he just has just implied consent that he gets to do that anytime he wants, I don't have autonomy over my own body. Now. People like wait, wait, backup backup, right? Because, you know, and I don't have a great answer for this. But I do know that when I experience, quote, unquote, convincing, I experience that even in that moment, like, let's say, I'm trying to convince my partner to have sex is not really in the mood. But I'm also seeking consent to do the convincing, right? Like, if he's like, No, I'm not in the mood. I'm going, but could you be? Could you be convinced I'll literally say those words? Or maybe I'll put on like, some something sexy and kind of walk around be like, Are you sure? Right? And to me that if I get a No? Or if I read that body language of like, no, like, I genuinely don't want you to try and convince me, that's like, there's almost two layers there. Right? Like there's this consent layer of engaging, but there's also this consent layer of I don't want you to keep trying, and even that's really complex, because how much of that is verbal? And how much of that is nonverbal?
Sarah Casper 12:04
Yeah, this is bringing up two interesting things. For me. The first is that consent is personal, right? To some degree, there are like if you're in a organization of school, there's there's going to be policy on consent. If you're whatever state country you're in, there's going to be laws about consent, and also within your personal relationships, like you're not, you know, if you were like, well, my husband grabbed my butt. So I'm going to try to prosecute, you'd be locked out of a court room, you can establish for yourself and your own relationship, hey, you know what, I am really cool with you just grabbing my boat whenever you want. And I'll tell you, I'm putting that burden on myself to tell you if I don't want you to because a you know me pretty well. And I trust your general gauge of it. And if you get it wrong, for whatever reason, I trust myself to tell you, I'm not in the mood, and I trust you receive that well. And so that would be kind of like the opt out model. And then there's like the opt in model, which would be like, Listen, if you're gonna put something in my but I need to say Yes, first, like, I think you're gonna get a verbal confirmation on that one. Confirmation. Do not just do that. Right? Like, and different. People are going to have different standards for what they want or don't want. I'm a consent educator, trust me. I've been told I am asking too many questions. In which case, I will say, Okay, well, how do you feel about me doing mostly without asking, and how do you feel about having the burden of no on you? And they'll say, yes, then they'll say, okay, there might be some things also, for my sake, I still need to ask and hear a verbal yes, because I won't feel comfortable, like doing that. But I can definitely reduce the questions I'm asking. And so we're not we're switching the model. But it's just within that specific relationship. Because we've talked
KC 13:36
about it, those are really helpful concepts, the opt in model versus the opt out model. And I will say this, I feel like what your content does so well, is that you're not answering questions, really, you're not giving answers, you're giving better terms, better concepts for people to have this conversation and navigate this issue. Because you're right, when I'm dating someone new, everything's an opt in model to a certain point, right? Even personally, I don't even like to be kissed, until I'm like ready to be kissed. Now, not everybody feels that way. Right. And but then at some point in my relationships, it does switch to an opt out model. And, and I mean, this is probably TMI, and I'm sorry for my failures, but like, I'm a very big opt out person. Like, it wouldn't bother me if I woke up in the middle of sex, that would not bother me, that would be so awful and traumatizing to a lot of people. And they would feel like oh, my god, that was a soul. That was a rate that would not bother me one second. But that's just like my own personal history and own personal like foundation of consent and things like this. One of the other things that you said that I thought was so powerful, because so I'm writing this book on relationships right now. And I actually recently made the very hard decision to cut out the chapter on sex. Because I realized I could not do it enough justice and nuance and I didn't want the book to get huge. Maybe I'll write a book at another time about it. But when I was sort of dallying in that chapter, one of the things that that, you know, came up that I wanted to write about is like, I know that I have a lot of followers that are ace that are asexual that are people that maybe they don't experience sexual attraction. And among those who don't experience sexual attraction, some of them like there's a whole wide range of how they experience sexual arousal, right? Because attraction is something that you kind of feel energetically, arousal are the like physiological changes happening in your body that are getting ready for sex. And so what's come up on my page anytime I've talked about consent, which is people who identify as asexual going, so I can never consent enthusiastically to sex because I don't ever really want it for myself. And that's hard, because there's this huge demographic of and it's primarily women, but it's not only women, where we talk about how important enthusiastic consent is because of how many people are having obligation sex? Oh, I feel like I should I feel like I must, I feel like that makes me a good partner, or they're making me feel guilty or have a lot of religious circles, where it's like, well, I'm supposed to be, you know, did the meeting their needs and things like that. And so you start talking about that concept of enthusiastic consent, which I think is helpful for lots of reasons, and is not helpful enough for a lot of other reasons, right? Because, yes, you should want it for yourself. But then you have people not only who are asexual, but people who have been married for a long time going. Sometimes I don't, though, but I'm more than happy to give it like, where does that leave me there? And how is that different than obligation? Sex? And I think one of the more powerful things that you brought up was, the reason why that conversation gets so convoluted is because people have two fundamentally different ideas about what consent is, and you have this bucket of people to whom consent means agreement, I agree to do this. And then you have this other bucket of people to whom consent means desire, I want this and I was like, Oh, my God, that is exactly what's happening, because and that's why the compute the conversation about coercion was so difficult because people were like, well, you can't consent if you're coerce. And it was like, I mean, sometimes you can, like you can give someone permission to do something, even if you don't want it. And permission is a type of consent. But at the same time, sometimes consent is I want to do this. And so if I'm just letting you do it, but I don't want to do it. But what if I'm letting you do it? And I don't really want to do it. I don't have a big feeling. I mean, like that, to me was just it blew the conversation wide open for me. Yeah, this
Sarah Casper 17:33
is very connected to the other thing that I was going to mention, which is like one of my favorite concepts that I teach all the time, it comes from the wheel of consent. And it's this idea of wanting wheeling and enduring, which describe like these interstates of were wanting is like, I would choose it like this is my number one choice. This is what I want wheeling is a you would like it. And I have availability for that. I have genuine Yeah, I can pick you up from the airport. And then I don't want to, but yeah, and then enduring is if I do this, something in me will not feel good. I am beyond and so you can be in any of those spaces with either a yes or no, because it's not about what you say. It's about how you feel. So when people are really good at differentiating for themselves, what is where they are unwilling and when they are an enduring, especially, you can say yes to sex, you don't crave want desire, and it is totally okay. And actually, it feels really nice sometimes to be able to give that gift to someone to be able to say Yeah, can we go from the airport? I'm so glad I get to do this for you. And I have availability for that. But yeah, if you asked me to pick up from the airport at 3am, like that's just not that's beyond my limits. And I'm not going to feel good doing that and comparing sex to driving to the airport. Yes, it's a comparison. It's an analogy. It's not a one to one. But there is no it is such a high bar that both people are craving, not just sex, but the exact kind of sex and touch at some point, you're like, Yeah, this isn't my favorite position, but it's my partner for your position, and I'm cool with it. And we need space for that. Well, and
KC 19:06
it's like there's different levels of enjoyment to like, there's an enjoyment that comes from a purely physical, you know, arousal and orgasm. There's an enjoyment that comes from a an emotional intimacy, and there's an enjoyment that comes from giving pleasure to someone else. And I think, you know, what happens is it's kind of similar to forgiveness honestly, like forgiveness that comes organically from you can be really powerful and healing, but when someone tries to impose forgiveness about and tells you like you should forgive, you need to forgive him. You would think of all these good Bennett healing benefits that come when people forgive that kind of like outward pressure. To me, it has a lot of similarities where it's like someone telling you like, well, but you should want to please your partner, you know, like, you know, you're in a monogamous relationship where also they're gonna like you You'd want to give that gift, you know, Sally, what have you just thought of it as finding enjoyment in serving, you know, I mean, it's like it gets real gross real quickly. But it's that difference between an authentic versus a non authentic. And sometimes I think that's more helpful than the word enthusiastic is like, isn't an authentic consent, the way that I had written about it before I struck the chapter was trying to address that idea of like, well, what if I don't want the sex, and I use this example of like, you know, sometimes I'll be sitting there, I'll be sitting reading a book on the couch with my husband, and he'll get up and I'll be like, you know, I'm gonna go to the store and get a drink, do you want to come and I listed all these scenarios. So like, the first scenario was like, I really want something from the store, like, I also want a beverage from the store. And you know what, like, it's really fun to ride in the car with my husband, like, well, the we'll put the windows down, we'll turn the music up, like, we'll talk, I'll enjoy His company on the way there like I can authentically and enthusiastically consent to that. And then the second scenario is like, you know, I don't actually need anything from the store, I don't want anything from the store, the store is not like a miserable place to be or anything like, and I might not go in once we get there, right? Like I but I'm more than happy to go with him, like, it'll still be enjoyable to take the car ride with him, I'll enjoy the music, I'll enjoy the connection, I'll join the conversation, but I don't want anything from the store. And I probably just stay in the car. Now, I might just enjoy the conversation so much that by the time we get to the store, I do go in and maybe I see that drink and change my mind, right? Like, all those things might happen. Or you might just wait in the car, or might go with them and not get anything, whatever. And then that's a situation where I can authentically and or enthusiastically consent. Now it might be that I think to myself, you know, I really would like a drink, but I hate driving in the car with you. So like, so I can't really consent to that, like if you you know, if you're someone else, or you know, you're gonna you're gonna fart in the car the whole way, or we just got an argument or whatever, like, I can't do that, whatever. And then there is this idea that well, what if you know, going wouldn't be that bad. Or I could take it or leave it. You know, I don't need anything from the store. And although riding in the car was usually pleasant, I'm actually like, I'd be pretty fine. Just like staying here with my book, I'm really into my book. But I also know that he really enjoys that car ride with me, he's asking for my company. And so I can decide either way, look great, I'd love to go with you. And I know that's gonna be fun for you. And I'll enjoy that connection or whatever. Or I can decide no, I'd rather read the book, like there's no right or wrong, but I could consent to that, right. And then, you know, if it was, hey, I don't not only do I not need anything from the store, I don't want to go to the store. In fact, stores make me very uncomfortable. They're overwhelming. They're overstimulating, I typically feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack when I'm there, right? Like, I couldn't consent to that. And then if I just kind of felt like I don't really want to go, it's raining outside, I'm really happy here like, and so it kind of it helped me to look at almost like it's oversimplifying, but kind of like two different parts, there's like, even if I don't need anything, or want anything from the store, sometimes it's like the ride there, or the person or the conversation or the like the act of getting there that I would find enjoyable, or vice versa. But that was kind of one thing that I broke down because it was like, you know, you can still give an authentic consent, even if you're not like jonesing for the orgasm, or whatever it is. I
Sarah Casper 23:22
joke a lot about how I'm a consent educator who hates the word consent, because that entire story that you told, I would say instead of like, you can genuinely consent to it, I would say you won't be an enduring, right? Because that gets gets to like the root of the feeling, which is if I say yes to this, like I can say yes to this, but I will be an enduring. Yes, I am genuinely willing, as opposed to like this very, like heavy and multifaceted word of consent, but like, what will being in this experience actually be like? And then I can decide, okay, I might not love it, but I am willing versus this is going to be horrible. I am not willing, versus it might be okay. I'm willing versus Yeah, you want to go to the store? I'm totally willing to come with you. And it's almost how you said that your husband like potentially asked this question is would you like to go to the store? And sometimes that is the question, which is if you loved car rides, and you loved this store, that would be a question of, would you Casey like to go to the store because I have a feeling that this is something you would like to do. So I am going to offer this to you versus Wes, which is will you come to the store with me because I would really like your company because this is for me versus this is for you. And shaping it. It's just that slight language change really keeps you in integrity of who is like do you want to pick me up from the airport? It's like, don't ask no. It's would you be willing to and like own that you are asking for something for yourself? Versus Are you genuinely offering something? Oh my god. Like two years ago when you made a video about your daughter, you wanted to bake something and then your daughter asked if she could Big with you. And you were like, oof, I need to reorient because this was going to be like what was like maybe organizing a closet?
KC 25:06
Yes, I remember that as I was already organizing the pantry, and all of a sudden, she was like two or three issues like, can I help and I was like, Oh, God, I don't want you to help. But I know that it would be like the good thing to do to let you participate. But I need to reorient my frame of mind away from a task oriented goal into a relationship oriented goal. Because if I let her help, and I remain that this is a task oriented goal, and I need to get this done, she's gonna make it worse, I'm gonna get frustrated, she's gonna get in the way. But if I change it to, if I kind of let go of that, like, you know what, it's not going to actually get organized the way I want. And there's probably going to be a bigger mess at the end. But relationship wise, like, that's going to be original to have a different goal. That's what that one was. Exactly. And
Sarah Casper 25:51
we'll have consent would say like, Who is it for it started off as a task for you to organize your whatever, then it became a task, which was like more about what does she want out of this? Or what does our like, what's kind of driving that relationship? Not the task? And that helped. And that like slight shift of like, would you versus like, what do you want this? Versus Can I have this right? It was about what your daughter was wanting in that moment. And it works the reverse. Also, when a parent is like to their child, like, Would you like to put on your coat? Nope, the child would not like to put on their coat, but it's like, will you please put on your coat, it will help me so that I can go do whatever and being in their integrity of the kid is doing something to make your life easier. It's really
KC 26:35
helpful to think of those like wanting wheeling and enduring. And what I've noticed is that so much of this conversation starts with the person who is having to give or not give consent, like a lot of when we talk about consent, we're talking about the importance of getting it. But there's so much in our work. And I think that kind of circles back to what I was talking about the beginning, which is what makes it a little bit of a tenuous conversation is that like, I never want to open up this like opportunity for a bad actor to be like I was above board, you need to do your own in our work, right. But at the same time, there are instances where we engage in sexual activity, and then we feel really bad about it. Afterwards, we realized I didn't want to do this, we realized that felt like a violation to me. And the other person did not engage in a violating intention or violating act. But and I think this is particularly true of women, we have so many cultural messages about you know, what we should do sexually. And there's also like a protective factor of If I say yes, or I engage sexually because I'm afraid to say no. Sometimes I'm afraid to say no, because that person has done something wrong. They have done something intimidating, sometimes, I'm afraid to say no, because the last person did something intimidating, because I have my own fear and my own trauma, or my own, you know, whatever it is, and that person has no idea what's going on inside of my mind, right. And I can come away from a situation feeling like oh my god, that felt violating. And there's this whole aspect of it that we've been talking about up to this point of like we I think first have to understand consent for ourselves, which doesn't take away from other people's responsibility to do make a good faith effort to find consent, or to not violate us or any of those things. Right. I like to say that, you know, every everything, like every person should absolutely approach you with an opt in mentality of consent. And if they don't, that's on them, not you. That being said, Where does this conversation and the other part is, this is like going back to kind of like, do I do it just for someone else, and willing, there's a difference between I don't have a lot of sexual desire, or even just in this moment, I don't have sexual desire, but I love you and I love to meet you in this place. There's a big difference between that and a partner who has deep, genuine sexual desires that are always having to be suppressed because of a multitude of reasons. Because the communication is not great, because there's some trauma there because they don't feel comfortable because their partner is selfish in bed, whatever it is, right? Like there's a difference between I'm always enduring and I think sometimes you could think like, Oh, I'm not I'm not enduring. I'm willing, I'm not under I'm willing. But if you have genuine sexual desires that are never at the seat of the table, they're never the receiving end of someone else's willingness. That's valid to look at and go oh shit, if it's always one person engaging in the quote, unquote, enduring are willing and always one person wanting Well, if you truly would say I'm just a person that doesn't have a lot of sexual drive, and that dynamic works fine for me that's different than someone going No, I actually probably am a very sexual person, but I always feel like I have to shove and suppress my own sexual needs. then Preferences and desires and my orgasm, just to be on deck for this other person's wants.
Sarah Casper 30:05
Yeah. And that goes into mutuality. And that doesn't make those individual instances, non consensual. But in terms of like what you said in the beginning about sexual ethics, which is like consent now has this like overlap where it's like somewhat legal and permissible and somewhat like ethic, it's like, I would imagine you want to be in a relationship that's mutual, that doesn't mean it's a one to one. But it means that sometimes they're getting what they want. Sometimes you're getting what you want. Sometimes you're both getting what you want. Yeah,
KC 30:32
you want that balance. And it's interesting when you talk about like wanting wheeling and enduring, I think when we were having that conversation online about, you know, well, if you don't really want to do it, then there's no consent. And if there's no consent, then it's assault. Like it's this very specific formula. And one of the like, demographics that popped up in the comment section of which I am a part of, were couples that had struggled with fertility, because when you are trying to get pregnant, there's only a certain amount of days in the month, and sometimes you're taking medications around those days. I'm like, you have to have sex on those days to get pregnant. What I am not saying is that it's okay for someone to override your consent just because you're trying to get pregnant, not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that those of us in situations where it was that day, and we both are looking each other going about Tinder this or like, I'm willing, I guess, right? I guess that's technically willing. Like, it's like I Okay, like I am consenting. I am like, none of that's why a lot of us were like, no one would say that, like we assaulted each other, just because clearly, we were like, This is a fucking bummer. Neither one of us want to be doing this. But like, we do want a child, we do want this thing. We want the outcome, right. And so I just thought that was another like, interesting. And I didn't have enough nuance to throw into the mix online. But it was like, I mean, talk about consent, like,
Sarah Casper 31:52
so is that consent or not? Right? And it's that instinct to, like, define it as a, in a way that can be communicated through like one word of like, was it right or wrong? It's very binary, as opposed to like, how are people feeling on it about it was it talked about where ethics like violated according to the people in this situation, that's a much different conversation, and someone else can look at your situation and say, that wouldn't be okay with me. And that is totally valid for them to say, in no way. I don't care how badly I want a child, if I am not aroused and excited about sex, that would feel like sexual assault to me, that is so valid, that doesn't mean that that person gets to look at your situation and say, that wasn't consent. That was sexual assault. Yeah,
KC 32:38
that's a great point. Like if you and I were in the same situation, but to me, like, I did not feel violated, I didn't feel like nobody has the right to then say I was assaulted or I assaulted someone. On the same token, if you are in the exact same situation, and you say, that felt like a violation to me. Nobody has the right to say, Well, that wasn't a violation because you consented. Talk to me a little bit about when people ask you to like judge their personal situation. They describe a situation that happened between them and a sexual partner, and they say was that assault? Was that consent? How do you handle those conversations? And what do you think people are really asking?
Sarah Casper 33:17
Yeah, that is one of the most common questions I get, especially on college campuses is either a hypothetical, or guys like in disguise as a hypothetical or an actual, like, this happened to me. And I can usually tell how they're feeling or they say how they're feeling. And I'm like, that must have sucked so much. That sounds horrible. Yeah, I've had a similar thing happened to me. If you are looking to see if this like meets criteria at your school for sexual misconduct, I can provide you some resources, like here's the person to talk to also if you are looking for like, is it okay that you feel hurt by this? And does this person? Does it make sense that you're like, No, this person needs to be accountable. This person like something needs to happen on this person's and they need to be responsible, like 100% Regardless of what any title nine what any book, Code of Conduct tells you like, of course, you're going to feel hurt in that situation. And like, here's the Counseling Center, here are some resources for that because this people sometimes say it was not consent. But but when we set up that paradigm of if it wasn't consented with sexual assault, then all of a sudden you're calling someone's experience sexual assault, which like, again, in the case of you have sex because you want to get pregnant, right? Someone calls calling it non consensual, can someone imply that that was sexual assault, and that's a weird thing to put on someone else and
KC 34:34
a dangerous thing, especially when you consider other marginalization and identities that might be involved. Right? Like probably my like, white husband will survive that. But if I didn't have a white husband, if I was married to a person of color, you know if he was a sexual minority, right, like there are people that don't survive those types of loosely thrown around things Exactly,
Sarah Casper 35:00
yeah. And then on the other side of that, there's that. Will you said yes. So it's not sexual assault. So what are you complaining about? And that's also not and that happens. Those are the people who come to me more often. And that's like it for if you want to look at legal action action with the school, great shark, here's the resources. But what I want to make sure you know, is that yeah, it was messed up, that that happened. And it totally makes sense. You feel that way? And how can we help you, you know, heal and feel okay, moving forward from here, regardless of what the label is, like,
KC 35:36
you deserve care? Like the answer is yes. Like your feelings are valid. Yep. And we don't have to label your feelings are valid. We
Sarah Casper 35:44
don't have to label in order for it to be valid. And nope, no one else that you don't look at me to, to, like, tell you it was sexual assault or not, if what you're really asking is, is it doesn't make sense that I feel this way. And
KC 35:57
that's one of the things that I you know, when we talk about sexual coercion, as this pressure along a continuum that can be light social pressure, all the way up to intimidation and threat, yes, you can act like sexual coercion can be assault, not all assault is sexual coercion, and not all sexual coercion is assault. And I think that people who have experienced sexual coercion know it to be so deeply violating that, that there's this tendency of, I feel like I have to bring the bar, like I have to make it where any type of coercion is assault for people to take this seriously, or for me to feel valid and how violated I feel, I feel just as violated as if I had been assaulted. And I think your important message is like, listen, there's no, it doesn't have to meet certain term criteria for it to feel violating and be violating. And sometimes, it might even I mean, I genuinely have known people that engage in sexual coercion, that didn't even really recognize that that's what they were doing, they probably should have recognized they were maybe being a little shitty, but just like, socially, culturally so acceptable to kind of badger their partner, they would never hurt their partner, they wouldn't, but just, you know, but it doesn't mean they were assaulting their partner at that level. Right. So taking a turn now from if we've talked a lot about sort of talking to someone from the perspective of giving quote, unquote, consent, this now even more nebulous term, it's like we've made the term less clear. But I think we've made the concept more clear. How do you talk to people who are I mean, this is all of us, we're all not only having to decide how we're going to give that consent, but also how we are going to elicit or judge or determine whether that consent is being given?
Sarah Casper 37:44
Again, this is where I'm going to shift away from the term consent, because
KC 37:47
consent is the conversation really, like it's not the it's
Sarah Casper 37:50
not this, like when we use the terms actually, really rarely use the terms giving and getting consent, I talked about the practice of consent, kind of like the practice of kindness, where you can say, Please, and thank you, and you don't get to mark that interaction as kind, just because you did that part. And you don't get to call yourself like a kind person, you don't just get call yourself a kind person, say I did this thing. And that was kind. So check the box, part of it depends on did that person experience your interaction as kind, not just did you do the things that you believe make you a kind of person, and then also on top of
KC 38:23
which is like, in and of itself kind of hard? Because you could be being kind and somebody else's issues might might be like, Oh, it's so rude. You're like, what? Exactly,
Sarah Casper 38:32
you're gonna have different experiences of that situation. And then on top of that, you can also and this is a really tricky thing, but you can have a an hour long conversation, and someone can have an hour long conversation with me walk away from the conversation being like, sorry, I was really kind and I could have some done something rude within that conversation. One of the things that really frustrates me with the way we approach consent education is that there is no room for the reality that we will make mistakes, when it comes to boundaries, we will make mistakes, body language, we will misunderstand, we will make assumptions. And that doesn't mean that doing that is okay. But also when we look at a situation say well, was that content or was that not, you know, one person is going to point to the one moment that wasn't okay, the other person is going to point to the 30 moments that were okay. And they're going to become really divided where instead, it can be a moment of oh, I did these things, right. But that thing was wrong. And that didn't feel good to you. And I'm really sorry. And here's what I'm gonna do. Or here's like a system we can put in place or an opt in opt out thing or, you know, maybe instead of a safe word, we can have a safe gesture. You know, like if you do a double tap, maybe you can't access your words at the moment, but that means something's not right. You know, and so that doesn't happen again. And so it's less about was that or was that not consensual? But how are people walking away from that interaction? And that would be like the practice of consent, as I call it, rather than just the giving and getting of consent. So great that you asked that one Question about you want it sucks? But like, if that's all you did I want to talk to your partner and be like, Was that enough? And how else were you tuning into them while you were doing it? And again, I'm not asking these questions necessarily to determine consent or not, but to determine where is their lack of skills? And where do you need to take responsibility.
KC 40:25
And there's also more to sexual ethics than consent. I had a woman who had asked me, and she asked in the comment section, so it was public. And she said, you know, my boyfriend, you know, I told him that I didn't like this certain sex act. And he was kind of upset that I had never told him, I said, I feel horrible that we've been doing this and you've never spoken up, it makes me feel so horrible. But then like, some time went on, and he did that sex act again, together. And he said, Is this okay? And I said, yes. But it was really painful. And he could tell I was in pain. But then I don't know if I'm allowed to be upset because I feel like it like, was that consensual? Was that not? And it comes back to what you were saying? Where it's like, we go right to the is it consensual as of consent? Number one is simple, right? Well, did you agree to it? Or did you want it? And if you did agree to it, to what degree should that person have been able to read that that agreement was not wholehearted? Or that agreement was enduring? Or that agreement was whatever? And I think sometimes we lose sight of other important variables, right, which is, you know, cuz she was so bundled up in there, like, did I consent? Did I not? Do I have a right to be upset about this. And I just remember thinking, and I said this to her, a partner that can watch you be in pain for their own pleasure when that pain was not an agreed upon kink dynamic like this isn't it really gets me off. I really meant to do that, right, like a partner that can watch you be in pain and continue to gain sexual gratification in that moment is wrong and violating and it doesn't matter that you said yes, it doesn't matter that you thought it was okay, that's not acceptable. And there are people out there who have enough integrity in their sexual ethics that even if you said, yes, they saw you in pain would stop and not just stopped because they were doing the right thing would stop because they're uncomfortable, holy. I'm not this doesn't do it for me, like, I'm not I care about you too much. I can't continue to get off while you're in pain, consent, like genuinely the consent part doesn't even matter at this point, unless you have had an extensive conversation around a kink dynamic that you are intentionally consenting to, and that conversation you would not have had on accident. That is a long conversation with very specific principles.
Sarah Casper 42:58
Again, one of my frustrations with the word consent is that it is that it becomes a standard for right and wrong. And yeah, was it consensual was like was Did I do it? Right? Did I check the box of like, good, and that can be really dangerous for exactly that reason.
KC 43:16
And I think also that, you know, one of the other things about consent that people will talk about when they want to point out it's not as black and white as people think they are, is I think when you talk about like, can you can an adult have sex with a 17 year old? No, why 17 year old can't consent? Okay, well, legally, they can't consent. But like what changes emotionally and mentally on that girl's 18th birthday? As far as like if you took away the legal component, so is the legal issue, the only ethical issue involved? So he's unethical yesterday, or she's unethical yesterday. She's ethical today. Yeah. It's like well, no, there's some other things involved. Okay. What are they?
Sarah Casper 43:54
I am cracking up right now because Joseph Fishel wrote a book called screw consent and he has a chapter called on horses and corpses where yeah, oh, yeah. Um, and one of the things he says is when if someone says like, why can't you have sex with a horse people say because they can't consent and it's like wait, wait, wait, wait pull it back for a second because we
KC 44:15
horses consent with other horses I guess
Sarah Casper 44:17
we're using the term consent to apply to this doesn't even make sense because we kill horses, right? Yeah. Like they don't consent to that like so why are you putting these like body rights onto horses? Sudden it's because we've defined that as like, whether consent is right or wrong is based on this thing about consent, but if you start poking at it, it all falls apart. The reason is because if you have like power over an animal then like that is the problem is the power dynamic and like its ability to like run away and like stay in that position. Spoiler alert. He then suggests that perhaps it would be ethical for a horse to fuck a man like a human which has
KC 44:57
happened. Trigger warning has happened and The man died. Yikes.
Sarah Casper 45:00
Yes, but that if there is not like if both beings are willingly there perhaps that is actually ethical, more so than if like a horse is being restrained so that a man can get his rocks off. While chapter philosophy really gets into some things, but I do. What
KC 45:17
was his point with the dead bodies? Same thing like dead, the dead body doesn't have consent, like consents not even the point. And
Sarah Casper 45:24
I think it's kind of like yeah, like consent, like they're just
KC 45:26
other fucking X besides consent. Don't do. Someone recently
Sarah Casper 45:30
in the comments this week also said, If you rob a store legally drunk, does that mean you consent it? And I was like, Okay, this question doesn't even make sense. First of all, legally drunk isn't a concept. Like if you're just sitting at home, you can be as pice drunk as you want. It's not illegal. So first of all that but second of all, why are you bringing the term consent into robbing a store? Like, it just doesn't apply? But people use it as this new word to mean like, either like, Are you responsible? Or was it right or wrong? And again, like
KC 45:54
justified or unjustified, ethical or unethical, 17
Sarah Casper 45:58
year old and 364 days versus 18?
KC 46:02
And here's the thing with that one, it's not like yes, there are some ethical issues besides consent around like power dynamic stuff that isn't like, technically, like, she can still consent. But she may not have the same, you know, whatever. She may not have the same like foresight. But she doesn't have that foresight, if she's with another 17 year old like that, that issue is still there, right? But beyond that, it's like this question of which we all realize, when we get to that age, I'm 37. Now we go, what the hell what I even have in common with a 17. Like, that is weird. You get to the age of the people that you hung out with in high school that you thought were so cool. And you were like, why were they hanging out with high schoolers? And I do think that sometimes we stopped dead at the consent conversation and missed the likelihood even if it was legal, it's weird. And there's something wrong with you. There's something not right, if that dynamic is something you desire, there's something like unhealthy and one way and not humanizing about your desire to only be with very, very young children slash young adults.
Sarah Casper 47:06
And I would also say that like the answer for the if, you know, a 17 year old, if your consent educator, teacher, parent and a 17 year old is coming to you and telling you, you know that they're dating a 37 year old or hooking up with a 37 year old there, and it's in a state where that is legal. The response isn't just Well, that's not consensual, because that doesn't do anything. It reminds me a very, I feel like you'll appreciate this like a very, I come from a religious background as well, like from a very like, well, that's a sin like you can't as opposed to, as opposed to like the actual issues, which is like, okay, let's talk about where this is coming from what's going on for you? What do you think you're getting out of it? What do you think they're getting out of it? I'm like a conversation as opposed to just like right or wrong.
KC 47:48
Also, if you lead with the like, that's not consensual. It's like, well, because you're too dumb money. You're too immature. You just do we do baby, you can't think you can't think it's like any teenager is going to push back against that any teenager is gonna be like, Yes, I am. I did hear this thing the other day that I thought was hysterical. And I can't take credit for it. But that it was a tick tock and someone said, Whenever you see somebody who's with someone who's way, way, way, way, way younger, it's always there so mature for their age, and never I'm so immature for my age. It's no real. It's so weird. Like, that's the reality. You're so immature for your age. Yeah, well, listen, this has been like one of the better conversations I've had around this for a long time. Because I think it is very difficult to kind of thread the needle through these concepts in a way that is actually helpful for people that are trying to navigate this knowing that there's kind of minefields all around of people with their very valid hurts and reactions and feelings and fears and all of that. And I think it's really admirable the way that you have kind of gone about this kind of education and and I appreciate it Where Where can people find you online if they want to follow you or hire you even?
Sarah Casper 48:56
Yeah, on Instagram and on Tik Tok, I'm at comprehensive consent, all puffer I technically have a YouTube, it's just the same content that's on Instagram and Tiktok. And then comprehensive consent.com. I do education with kids, teens and the adults on their team. And then also adults, what else? Oh, I have a book coming out in hopefully August. That's going to be lesson plans for teachers who want to teach consent skills to like eight to 13 year olds. So stay tuned for that. And also subscribe to my newsletter on my website. That's where I you know, share big things. First,
KC 49:28
it made me think of something to like, when we are trying to teach young kids about consent, especially around like, okay, don't touch people's bodies without consent. And I think about how like, you know, if my kid is like touching a kid on the playground is like, hey, like, don't touch people's body without consent. And at the same time, like, my kid can come up to me and hug me and it's fine. Snuggle up to me, and it's fine. And then but I can say no, and they have to get off and it's like it's kind of that opt in opt out. But like that's not intuitive for kids and I'm laughing because my youngest daughter Reese gently has started coming up to me and gone. Ahead. Yeah, baby. Okay, thank you. And then she just touches my head. And this is a kid who body slams me daily, right? Like they have a very like physical relationship but it's just so funny to see her like connect those dots and be like, and I don't know, there's no way to explain like you don't have a you don't actually have to ask me before every time you put a finger on me, but you do have to stop when I say stop. It's just a funny that we think it's so simple and it's really not. Yep,
Sarah Casper 50:29
it is it is complicated. And it is it is also not easy, right? Just ask, just say no, just like here. They're like, these are skills we need to build. And so if it doesn't come easy to people to switch the way that they're or to, like adjust the way they're operating and thinking about the ethics around touch and permission and agreement. Yeah, it's work.
KC 50:51
You know what the, here's the last thing I want to close with is thinking back to when you were talking about, you know, people who want to say like, well, if I've, if I've checked these boxes, you know, and I think obviously someone not getting your consent is a huge red flag. But it is also a red flag when someone doesn't care if they don't, they're not interested in making sure like someone who would say like you said, Yes, like, I can guarantee that, like if I went to my partner today and was like, Hey, I don't feel like that encounter. We had, you know, last night or whatever it was conceptual. Their first thought would not be No, no, I did everything right. Their first thought would be anguish, oh, my God, what happened? What What made you feel that way? You know, because they don't have a desire that I would ever feel that way. Right. And so I think also like backing up that like everybody deserves to be with someone that cares about their consent, even if they don't always get it right. They care about it. Because even if they're technically getting it right, there are ways that they can disregard your feelings and your pleasure and and all of these things right. And so it's been a great conversation. Sarah, thank you so much. And you guys know where to find her and you know where to find me and I always keep forgetting to mention to you guys that I do have a book called How to keep house while drowning has nothing to do with the subject matter. But I'm very bad at promoting myself and I'll let you know when the new book on relationships comes out too. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai