The beginners guide to consensual sex

It has come to my attention that a great many people seem not to have the understanding and skills to enjoy healthy consensual sex.

I thought it might therefore be useful to outline here in brief some basic pointers. However if you are still unsure what consensual sex is I strongly advise you to seek further support before embarking on any sexual activity. This information is for those who are unsure how to ensure their partner is able to consent. Those who are not being given the space to consent are not the ones who don't understand consent.

1.) In order to engage in consensual sex it is important to understand what consent means. The law defines consent as follows:

"A person consent's if they agree by choice and have the freedom and capacity to make that choice'

I've highlighted certain words here lets take a look at them one by one:

Agree: They were able to say 'no' and they choose to say yes.
Example:  'Would you like to have sex love,or do you need to get some sleep?'
                 'Oh yes please, I'd love to have sex right now'

Choice: They had at least two non harmful or threatening options.
Example: 'Would you like to have sex love?'
               'No thanks, I'm watching TV at the moment'.

Freedom: They are not coerced, manipulated or threatened in any way. It is therefore important that you don't physically restrain, threaten or otherwise attempt to control your partners behavior. If you are unsure you could try these line 'It's really important to me that we have consensual respectful sex, do you in any way feel you are unable to say no to sex?', 'Please don't feel any pressure if you don't want to have sex, I would much prefer it if you said no than do something you are unhappy or uncomfortable with.' or 'I understand that if you say no to sex you are not rejecting me as a person but that you don't want to have sex, or you are not comfortable with the particular sexual act.'

Capacity: A person does not have capacity if they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or asleep (the law also states that anyone bellow 13 cannot consent and that it is illegal for anyone bellow 16 to have sex). If you want to have sex with your partner but they are asleep it is not possible to have consensual sex with them as a person who is asleep does not have capacity to consent.

We suggest the most appropriate action would be to leave them to sleep and get on with something else. Perhaps you could compose a poem for your partner about how much you appreciate them, or spend some time thinking about what you could do to sexually pleasure them. Then at a more appropriate time (probably not when they first wake up - especially if they are not a morning kind of person) you could share your poem or thoughts with them. If however you really want to have sex right then and there and you suspect they may also want to have sex you could gently wake them up and ask if they want to have sex. Proceed with great caution however as it is highly probable that they do not want to have sex and will be very annoyed at being woken up. But at least this way you have given them the opportunity to consent and have not committed a crime. If you are worried that you may want to have sex with your partner when they are asleep why not try this: 'Sometimes at 2 in the morning I'm awake and sometimes think it would be nice to have sex. How would you feel if I gently woke you up and asked if you were also up for it?'

2.) Talking really facilitates consensual sex, as many of the examples above have highlighted. It is apparently common for people to become concerned when they realise that they can't just have sex whenever they feel like it with whoever they feel like, that they will have to start getting written consent before every act. This is not necessary and actually also not sufficient. Consent can be withdrawn by either party at any point so even if you had a written agreement it would become invalid the minute it is signed. But don't panic! You can talk about sex. I am sure you arrange and organise many joint activities with your partner, like your social diary, what your going to do at the weekend, maybe you discus house chores, perhaps childcare arrangements. All these joint activities are things you discus and agree with your partner, its exactly the same skill set its just about healthy respectful communication and agreement. If your finding it hard try this line 'Love, I find it a little hard to talk about sex, I feel a little awkward and embarrassed, but I think it's really important to our sex life that we have good, honest discussions about sex so that we can both enjoy it and ensure that we are respecting each others boundaries. Do you think we could make some time to talk about sex, what we are comfortable with, what we like and don't like, what we would like to try?'

3.) Remember this simple rule: yes and no are two sides of the same speech bubble. If someone can't say no, yes is meaningless. If they haven't said no that doesn't mean they've said yes. Whenever we say yes to something we say no to something else, whenever we say no to something we say yes to something else.

Example: We say no to sex and at the same time we say yes to our current desire and need to sleep
               We say no to rape and at the same time we say yes to healthy respectful consensual sex
               We say yes to allowing our partner a choice and at the same time say no to sexual manipulation        and violence

So if you want your partner to say:
yes, yes,yes, yes, yes, yes, YES, YES, YES, YES!  to sex
you have to make sure they are able to say no.

Simples.

If you are still unsure about how to ensure you have do not have un-consensual sexual activity and thereby violate another human being and commit an offence check out this blog.