If you’re like me and one of your first experiences with sex in the media was either Twilight or The Fault in Our Stars, the scene below might sound familiar to you.
I am a young attractive woman, but I’ve never had sex before. I’m so nervous. But, this boy I trust so much and I think I love him and I think I want to take our relationship to the next step. I look at him, wanting him to kiss me, but not knowing how to ask him to. Luckily, he knows what I want even before I do, and he kisses me passionately. He does things to my body that I didn’t even know were possible. We lock eyes the entire time. Breathy moans escape my body.
Before I reveal how much of my preteens were spent writing fanfiction, I’ll stop. I think you get the picture. This is what I mean when I talk about the mood ™. Someone once told me that in movies they have “pretty sex.” I’m sure many people can agree with this. There’s always nice angled, diffused lighting. Sometimes there’s rose petals. There’s candles. If there’s any dialogue during these scenes at all, it’s very breathy. And then the scene fades to black.
Since my sexual debut, I’ve never had sex like this. Other than the obvious lack of perfect lighting in my bedroom – while my Instagram would be popping if I did have it – something that’s also unrealistic about these sex scenes is the lack of asking for consent. I think the first time I thought about this was because someone told me “I wanted to have sex with them, but I thought asking would ruin the mood.”
Why is the mood ™ more important than asking for consent? I’ve never heard anyone say “I didn’t want to ask my friend to pass the ketchup, because it would ruin the mood of lunch.” So why is it that the mood ™ is so sacred? Why is sex in movies only silent, without any clear asking for consent?
I don’t have clear answers for these questions, and I’m sure there could be many arguments made, but I’d like to provide an alternate scenario. Consent doesn’t have to be robotic and mood ruining – in fact, it never has been. I’d even like to push you to wonder why someone may not feel comfortable asking for consent/withdrawing consent in a situation, and analyze if that’s really a situation that is safe and pleasurable.
Here’s some fun, not mood-ruining ways to ask consent that I’ve used during/before/after sexy funtimes:
Kiss me please.
Can I kiss you?
Can you move? I have to fart.
Can you get off my arm?
Can I touch you there?
Can I get on top?
If I can do this, I think anyone can. I’m about as far from a smooth sultry master sweet talker than about anyone I know – I flirt with people by telling them about bugs or the chemicals that make books smell good. If the mood ™ is ruined by the asking of consent, then maybe it’s time to change the mood. Sex, and relationships in general, can be funny and playful. If I had to stay absolutely in silence and enraptured – or something like that – during sex, I’d become so bored I’d start making grocery lists in my head.
