Page 8 - My FlipBook

YOUR BODY, YOUR RULES
Consent is linked to values. You get to make rules about your body. And
it’s also your job to respect other people’s decisions about what they
want for their bodies. That means listening to what they like or don’t
like. It also means listening to what they’re not saying and paying close
attention to their body language.
Consent is the foundation of all good relationships—friendships,
professional situations, dating, marriage, and interacting with strangers.
Consent requires communication. That means clearly agreeing (out loud
or in writing) to whatever is going on. Consent takes the place of making
assumptions about how another person is feeling. You often don’t know!
Or you get it wrong.

SCENARIO: BROKEN TRUST
Here is an example of friends working out consent:

Byron and Kelly are good friends who are in art class together. For
his final project, Byron takes some artistic photos of parts of his
body that he doesn’t usually show people—his chest, his stomach,
and his butt. Kelly says she’d love to see the project, so he emails her
the photos and she gives him some feedback. He asks her to delete
the photos after she’s seen them because he doesn’t want other
people to see them or for them to wind up online. Kelly does exactly
that, deleting the photos without showing them to anyone else.

Byron communicated his boundaries in clear words: it was okay for
Kelly to see these photos but no one else. He was trusting her to respect
his rules. He didn’t just send her the photos out of the blue. Sending
someone photos that could be perceived as sexual is something for which
you always need consent first. If Kelly had forwarded the photos to other
friends or posted them online, that would have violated Byron’s consent.
Kelly would have broken his trust.

8 YOU DO YOU