Hotline Bling: Consent and Conversation
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I've gotten better at communicating my boundaries over the years. However, sometimes these boundaries continue to be challenged, crossed, and disrespected. Dating is tough enough on a regular day, but the pandemic, as I'm sure many are familiar, placed several barriers to forming and maintaining connections with people. Having to rely on phone calls, video chats, and text messaging poses several challenges. These alternatives gave folks access to my digital space, which I found harder, at times, to navigate and set boundaries around.
Let me explain. As someone who only speaks on the phone with her closest friends, giving out my number to someone I had not met in person disrupted my personal space. It gave someone I didn't know direct access to me, and at first, I had a hard time articulating why. And then I remembered all the incidents in which men I trusted blew up my phone in rage, not stopping until I picked up. Over the last year and a half, my gut feeling about giving out my number has only proven, repeatedly, to be correct. I've changed my number several times, and my block list on my phone seems never to stop growing.
Recently, I've found myself having to repeat my boundaries regarding conversation topics I did not want to engage with.
"I thought we agreed not to bring that up."
"I don't want to answer that question."
"Can we change the subject?"
“Over the last year and a half, my gut feeling about giving out my number has only proven, repeatedly, to be correct. I’ve changed my number several times, and my block list on my phone seems never to stop growing.”
The person on the other end of the line continued to cross these boundaries, choosing not to honour any of my requests. While consent shouldn't be exclusive to our interactions during dating, it's usually when I become hyperaware of the lack of consent education regarding interactions we often brush over, such as phone calls and text messages. So the question remains: how do we navigate phone calls that lead to the breach of our consent? Let's start first with the definition of consent. The University of Toronto's Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Centre defines consent as the following:
"The voluntary agreement of an individual to engage in a sexual act. Consent is positive, active and ongoing, and can be revoked at any time.
Consenting to one kind of sexual act does not mean that consent is given for another sexual act or kind of activity.
Consent is NOT obtained where a person is incapable of consenting – for example due to intoxication, or where a person is induced to engage in the activity by someone abusing a position of trust, power or authority."
Positive, active and ongoing are keywords to remember when speaking to someone on the phone and things take a turn you are not comfortable with. A breach of consent can happen at any time during the conversation. Sometimes our understanding of what transpired during the conversation catches up later, which is completely okay. It is also okay to redefine to your partner or whoever you are speaking with that there were moments in the conversation that did not make you feel good. A good partner will respect those boundaries.
