Guys!

After all, we are all working diligently on a culture of consensus, reminding each other in workshops and beyond that we don't take physical affection for granted; that we don't just assume anything about what the other wants; that we respect personal boundaries and support each other in finding out in a self-determined and collaborative way what naughty things we want to do together; that we can go into surrender especially when we create safe spaces of trust; that a "no" is not a drama but a valuable clue for navigating the love zone, and and and. This is all a huge project, a humanistic educational project if you will, because there is much more at stake here than just legally securing oneself in a contract-like way when one becomes intimate together in order to arm oneself against accusations of assault. This is much more about deconstructing paternalistic structures, about new self and world relations! It is about learning to respect oneself, to respect others, to find out what one really wants, not just to please others. It is about commitment and care. It is about developing an understanding of both structural power relations and biological nervous system functioning. To become more attentive and present in order to create more spaces that finally do not correspond to the neoliberal logic of everyday life: sovereign functioning and having to be on one's guard, controlling, optimising, pursuing a linear goal, isolating oneself from others. To create spaces of familiarity and courageous vulnerability, of exhausting oneself, going full throttle, exploring, inventing, opening up and staying open in the ambivalent and ambiguous. It is about empowerment and dealing with oneself and the world in a more solidary and friendly way. It is also about unlearning behaviour in which we impose our will on others just because we want to now and trick them into a "yes" by sulking or persuading them and throwing smoke candles.

All of this is building a world of hopefully more beautiful togetherness, where there is more room for everyone to breathe. And all that is a lot of work.

So, now it strikes us that something is creeping into our daily lives that is corrupting this whole project. Maybe it's just a little thing. But maybe it is also a daily and seemingly imperceptible Pavlovian training, even if it sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory.

You are probably familiar with this: You want to go to a website and quickly read an article. But the picture is blocked by a notice about cookie settings. Mega creepy, they say that my privacy is important to them. But they push me as far as possible so that I accept everything and say: "Yes! Take me! All of it!" And I just want to read the article. So I just click on the obvious button. That's right, the colourful and bold one, where my attention automatically goes and which says: "You want it too!". Click here: Allow everything! Everything! I've already made the selection for you and put a tick here everywhere...". I don't think about it any further, I just want to get it over with quickly so that I can read this article in peace.

Yes, I had a choice. I could have said no.

Sometimes I also make the effort and take the time to search, scroll laboriously down to "More options" or "Settings", check the ticks, go to the only pale and barely recognisable button "only necessary", which is next to "ALLOW EVERYTHING!".

Most of the time, however, I am flippant and go automatically for the "I accept" suggested to me.

And then I listen to a podcast about consent, in which women are interviewed who explain when they said "I accept" to a sexual interaction, even though a) they didn't really feel like it, but b) they weren't forced to say "yes", so they could have actually said "no". They say that they just went along with it because you just go along with it. It just happens. The option to simply deny is not even present. Some say it seemed too strenuous or strange to talk their way out of the situation. And that it could hurt the other person to turn them down. People learn to agree rather than to refuse and possibly make a scene, to be uncomfortable for others. Many said that it was easier to just get the number over with quickly and then have peace of mind.

That's not going to work!