This is not an easy letter to write, not least because it might be embarrassing to my family, but I’d like to strongly endorse Lacey Jane Brewster’s letter stating that “consent means ‘yes.’” As she said, “Teachers, parents and members of the community need to be teaching our youth that it is not enough that a partner didn’t say ‘no’. What matters is, did they believe there was a ‘yes’?“
When I went to high school in the 1960s, having grown up in what I think was a normal middle-class family with “traditional” values (though they were breaking down with the “sexual revolution”), it seemed standard practice that the young man would try whatever he could, the young woman would resist and, if he was lucky, perhaps he could get her aroused and willing. But I think consent was rarely discussed or even clearly indicated or expected.
Even today — in movies and TV — we almost always see wild passion, tearing each other’s clothes off. OK, that would seem to imply consent, but my point with that example is that most sex, in real life, is not like that. In fact, at my age — requiring a little help — it needs planning, and why waste a little blue pill if consent will not be forthcoming?
When I was a little older, in the 1970s, it seemed like almost “anything goes.” I remember taking a young woman — an employee! — to a party where we both got drunk, she more than I. When I took her home, I “seduced” her. Did she consent? Was she in any condition to consent? Did she even know what was happening? Did I care? Unfortunately not.
And that’s the attitude that we need to counteract.
— Rick Wicks
Anchorage
Have something on your mind? Send to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Letters under 200 words have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length.