Cosmopolitan South Africa — January 2018

48 COSMOPOLITAN | JANUARY 2018

#MeToo has reached
more than a million tweets
(and counting). It’s clear that
the problem around consent
leeches through ethnicities,
demographics, ages and
backgrounds to affect all
women. Patriarchy and
rape culture have created
an environment in which,
as women, we’ve become so
used to being harassed that
we shrug it off as normal.
In South Africa, #MeToo
and the issue of consent hit
an especially raw nerve. With
more than 51 000 recorded
sexual offences in the last
year alone and more than
142 incidences every day
(according to SAPS Crime
Statistics), South Africa is
in crisis. Now more than
ever we need to be talking
about consent.
Natalie* knows fi rst-hand
the dangerous consequences
of not talking about it. As a
22-year-old student in 2015,
she was at a Grahamstown
house with friends and an
acquaintance she didn’t
know well. ‘I was drunk
and had smoked some pot,’
she says. ‘I was borderline
passing out and vulnerable,

so I went to a downstairs

bedroom to sleep.’ But as

she drifted in and out of

sleep, she heard the door

open. In walked a man; the

acquaintance who’d been

partying with her friends.

‘I was uncomfortable. I didn’t

know him. I was passing out

but, sensing I was in danger,

I mustered all my strength to

get up and try to leave. That’s

when he locked the door.’

Natalie knew she had to

fi nd a way out. She pleaded

with him to leave the room.

He refused. Trying to reach

a compromise where she’d

be safe, she negotiated:

‘I told him that if he wanted

to sleep in the room, I would

sleep on the fl oor – but we

weren’t going to sleep in the

same bed. He kept refusing.’

Then the assailant forced

himself on her. ‘He had his

hands around my neck and

I was too inebriated to push

him off.’ As the assault

progressed, he became more

aggressive. ‘He was having

sex with me without my

consent.’ The shock, physical

force and trauma of being

violated caused Natalie

to black out completely.

The next morning, she

woke up to the man’s arms

wrapped around her, as

though the whole experience

had been consensual.

‘I pushed him off me and

ran upstairs to the host of

the house. I kept repeating

that I needed to go home.’

Had non-sober Natalie

been raped, or was she just

out of control or couldn’t be

trusted to remember if she’d

been ‘up for it’ at the time?

The answer, without a sliver

of a doubt, is that she’d been

raped. And that there could

be any debate about whether

or not she was raped – and

FYI, in our society, there’d

be plenty of debate – is why

educating ourselves about

consent is so important.

Yes means yes

What if you’re intoxicated

or asleep, like Natalie was –

does that mean you consent

by default? How do we teach

men that catcalling, uninvited

touching or unsolicited dick

pics are also a form of sexual

assault? How do we fl ip the

power balance so that the

onus is on the perpetrator to

ask whether it’s okay before

COSMOPOLITAN.CO.ZA

doing anything, rather

than on the receiver to say

no after having already had

their space, autonomy and

dignity violated? It’s one of

the reasons why, in 2008,

Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica

Valenti published Yes Means

Yes, bringing affi rmative or

enthusiastic consent into

the conversation. The deal?

Unless someone proactively

says yes, they have not

consented. It puts the power

dynamic back in balance,

and serves up more clarity:

are they too inebriated,

tired or scared to say yes

affi rmatively? Then they

sure as hell aren’t consenting.

In a similar way, Planned

Parenthood has laid out fi ve

conditions of consent that

must be met every single

time for any kind of attention

or contact to be consensual.

The consent must be:

‡^ Freely given. Engaging in

sexual activity is a decision

that should be made without

force, pressure, manipulation

or intoxication.

‡^ Reversible. You can

change your mind at any

point before or during any

kind of sexual activity. Even

if you’re in the middle of sex,

your yes can turn into a no.

‡^ Informed. This is about

honesty. For example,

removing a condom when

you consented to using one

is not informed consent.

‡^ Enthusiastic. If the

response to having sex

isn’t a resounding YES!

(through body language

or verbally), it isn’t consent.

‡^ Specifi c. Just because

you’ve consented to one

act doesn’t mean you’ve

consented to them all,

and you can withdraw

consent at any point.

There’s an expectation

that unless you scream or

shout ‘no’ as a woman, you

are giving your consent.