Enthusiastic Consent

We should say enthusiastic

We should say enthusiastic consent

We just say consent

And nobody knows

What the fuck that means

Nobody has any idea

And we keep teaching it

And explaining it

And nobody’s getting it

And it’s just vague enough

Where it doesn’t hold up

When you poke at it

So why don’t we alter it a bit?

Why don’t we say--

Or, or, or treat it

Like a first step

We have just stopped

At consent

At the idea of consent

And I’m not sure

Why we didn’t keep striving

To make it clearer

To make it--

No, instead

We make jokes

About it

About how nobody can figure out

What it means

And how it’s so simple

Well--

Uh, I’m not trying

To let anybody off the hook here

But maybe

Maybe it’s not so simple?

But…

It’s still important, right?

So let’s modify it

Let’s--

From now on

Let’s say

Enthusiastic consent

Let’s not say--

Just get consent

Let’s say--

Make sure that other person

Is fucking thrilled to be having sex with you

They are excited

They are enthusiastic

They are conscious

Real important that last one

They are in control

They are saying ‘Yes’

And ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’

They just keep

Repeating it

On a loop

It’s all they can say

And nothing they’re doing

Is, uh, making it seem like

They are anything

Anything

But over the fucking moon

To be sleeping witih you

If that’s the standard

Then--

Then how hard is that to understand, you know?

If that’s the, uh, the bar?

Then I think we can clear up any, uh--

Ambiguities

--About what is and isn’t okay

What qualifies

As consent

We need to stop--

We can’t let this

This idea

Of what is

And isn’t consent

Become a joke

About--

Oh, it’s so hard to figure out

We can’t let that happen, because--

That’s how, um--

That’s how these people

These men or whatever

That’s how they turn it around

That’s how they destroy it

The idea that it can ever be clear

Crystal clear

About what a woman wants

And doesn’t want

They make it seem like it’s too--

Uh--

My father once asked my brother

To mow the lawn

And my brother didn’t want to do it

But he wasn’t dumb

He didn’t say ‘No’

He just did a really shitty job at it

Because he knew my father would be pissed

But he’d never ask him again

That’s--

That’s not the same thing, but, uh--

You get it, right?

You get how it kind of is?

They want to make us believe

That they’re just bad at this

At figuring this stuff out

Don’t believe them, okay?

Just--

Don’t believe them