Make sure the yes...

I have since Christmas been working my way slowly but surely through Clarissa Pinkola Estés' "Women Who Run With the Wolves", after auntie Dave (who is one of the many feminist influences in my life, and who is really my auntie and is not really called Dave but that's her family nickname for reasons unrelated to feminism) saw it on my Amazon wishlist (I added it after reading a review on someone's blog; alas, I unremember whose or where) and dug it out from her bookshelf and passed it on as an additional Xmas gift. (Bugger me (in a figurative sense only) but there were a lot of parentheses in that sentence - and in this one also!)

Anyway, back to the point. I haven't got very far through it yet: I'm on Chapter 4 (The Mate: Union With the Other).

In the chapter notes for this chapter, Dr Estés quotes a childhood rhyme that she says originates in Jamaica:

Just to make sure the yes
Is a yes to the end
I ask her again
And again and again and again.

I was instantly taken in my mind to the ideal of enthusiastic consent, and how great this song could be for teaching the concept in sex education.

Because a big thing of the "not-quite-rape" excuse so often heard is tied up in this idea that once she's said yes, that's it. But as soon as consent is withdrawn, it IS rape. So the ideal has to be to make sure that the "yes" is "yes" right to the end of any sexual encounter.

Even though I know that there are many in the BDSM world at least (and I imagine in vanilla sex-positive approaches) who would get very cross if their partner kept breaking off to make sure they're alright by asking directly, and thus breaking the moment and the energy of the encounter, the principle itself still remains intact even in those situations. You might not be asking directly all the time, but you do have to be alert to your partner's condition and responses and the moment there's any reason to doubt her willingness to continue, that's when you really do have to ask. This alertness is like the sub-conscious asking again and again and again - and when the sub-conscious doesn't get a "yes", then the conscious mind has to respond appropriately.

Although Dr Estés wasn't writing about sexual consent when she introduced this note, but rather about the dual nature of women and how some men reject it and some (the right sort to be a woman's mate) embrace it. However, later in the chapter, in talking about the nature of a suitable man, Dr Estés talks about the importance of the sub-conscious and the conscious working together for a man to court successfully the similarly dual woman - which ties in neatly with the last thought in the previous paragraph.

So yeah - I'm sure others will have spotted and commented on this before me, but anyway, I wanted to highlight it again. The concept of making sure that the "yes" really is "yes" and is "yes" right to the end: vital.