Sensual sanitised
THESE days, even Pinterest wants to know your pronouns. Cricketers in the UK have to say “batter” instead of “batsman”. And an Aussie charity wants to slap woke warnings on romantic comedies.
Consent Labs, a consent education charity, proposed this week that movies with non-affirmatively consenting sex or romance scenes should be given a C rating. That’s C for lack of consent. (And L for laughable and V for a very bad idea indeed.)
Under this dreary and tedious world view, consent must be stated, not implied. A “yes” must be verbal.
One “no” and you have to stop any advances and retreat.
Even affirmative body language isn’t enough to indicate consent.
It’s got to be a clearly stated “yes” or pack your bags.
The Lab doesn’t want the offending scenes to be censored or removed, but thinks it’s important that people know the interaction isn’t sending the right messages.
I think consent education is very important, and must be taught from a young age in all schools.
As the petition from Sydney woman Chanel Contos showed us, many young people need clearer signals and better communication.
At a very base level, girls need to say what they want and resist if someone tries to pressure them, and boys need to ensure girls are freely consenting.
But slapping a warning on a romantic comedy is going way too far. This black-and-white view of love and romance doesn’t translate well in movies like rom-coms, where there’s two hours of back-and-forth.
You know the drill. Boy likes girl. Boy loves girl. Girl hates boy. Girl likes boy. Boy hates girl. Girl likes boy. Hopefully, by the two-and-a-half hour mark, boy and girl love each other. Phew.
And if you’re lucky, there will be a few steamy sex scenes along the way. If they’re anything like real life, they won’t unfold according to a preset, pre-approved plan with all the sensuality and excitement of a biology text book.
Movies, like life, are messy, silly, confusing and confounding. The thrill of the chase is all part of the fun.
But Angelique Wan from Consent Labs doesn’t see it that way. In her eyes romantic comedies are a hotbed of political incorrectness and one step away from outright abuse.
“Pretty much in every single romcom ever, one person is pursuing and the other person’s playing ‘hard to get’,” Wan said this week. “In the background, there’s often romantic music playing, and then it turns into a really passionate sex scene.”
Sigh. Is this where we’re at really? It’s so joyless, timid and depressing.
Of course, there are some scenes in movies that are clearly abusive or coercive, but we didn’t think to question it at the time.
For me it’s Molly Ringwood’s 1980s rom-com Sixteen Candles, which has a scene where a hot girl who’s so drunk she’s passed out is handed from one guy to another. The latter guy suggests that he’s had his way with the girl, who wakes up oblivious to the whole thing.
However, I’d argue that taking advantage of someone who’s unconscious is very different from the average rom-com where the chase is all part of the fun.
This desire to reduce all romantic or sexual interaction into something clinical, neat and vanilla is doing us all a disservice.
In real life people change their minds, communicate consent with actions rather than words, or are not always sure what they really want.
Surely the aim is to teach our young people good values so they make good choices and treat each other with respect.
Isn’t that more important than telling them what to say and do according to a preset bedroom plan?
If things keep going this way, soon people won’t be able to flirt, flatter and fumble their way into finding Mr Right – or even Mr Overnight.
Before setting eyes on each other they will have to exchange watertight legal affirmative consent contracts.
They will say things like: “I wish to enter with you into a mutually agreeable situationship during which I will protect the sanctity of your body, respect your gender identity and undertake not to violate your body boundary.
“I will encourage the choices you make as a cisgender feminist sexpositive intersectional being (insert the correct terms) and I agree to authentically signal my feelings to you verbally before any physical interaction will take place.”
After six months of sending mutually respectful texts, they might even be able to meet in real life – with masks on of course.
Imagine a movie made about that. I’d give it a Z rating. Z for zzzzzz...