Integrated Counseling

In my sophomore year of college I volunteered as a Peer Health Educator. A group of us met with large cohorts of the incoming freshman class and offered education about drugs, alcohol and sex. As they were going through that hectic and transitional freshman orientation week, our groups were mostly a welcome break during which we demonstrated putting condoms on bananas, used red Solo cups to show proper serving sizes of alcohol, and held up pictures of various illegal substances to identify. 

When it came to talking about sexual consent, we learned and taught one predominant framework for understanding what healthy, respectful sex looks like. It was that consent must be Verbal, Ongoing, Sober and Enthusiastic (I refer to this model as VOSE for short):

• Verbal – Consent must be asked for and given out loud; you cannot rely on nonverbal cues alone to know that someone is okay with what’s happening. 

• Ongoing – Consent should be requested during each “stage” of sex, or with each new sex act. Asking once at the beginning doesn’t cut it. (These first two together, verbal and ongoing, constitute what’s also known as affirmative consent, an idea that originated from college feminists striving to transform rape and sexual assault culture on campus in the early 1990’s.)

• Sober – Consent cannot be given if someone is under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

• Enthusiastic – You want your partner(s) to genuinely engage in sex with you, not just say “yes” when they really mean “no”.

VOSE covers many bases and intends to promote healthy, respectful sex. The four pillars are important factors to consider before, during and after sex. But even as 19-year-old college students, my peers and I had some immediate questions. Like, what about people who have just had a bit to drink and know each other really well? By this definition, sex between those two would be nonconsensual. And what about the instances where we knew sex had been good, yet we weren’t constantly asking each other if everything was okay? Or when sex wasn’t good, and maybe even something unwanted happened, yet it didn’t feel like sexual assault or rape? 

How do we both navigate and make sense of these real life sexual experiences within our current framework of consent?

For certain, having good, healthy sex and also processing what has happened afterwards involves more than asking ourselves and our partners four yes-or-no questions (no matter how many times we repeat them). Since real life is more nuanced, shouldn’t our framework for sexual consent be, too? In my experience as an informal sex educator, professional psychotherapist and real life human, I have come to see two overall limitations of VOSE: 

• It’s too black-and-white. From the format of a checklist to the focus on one type of communication, there are several reasons why our sexual consent model is too rigid for real life. Sexual activity also inherently involves some risk that can’t be mitigated by asking only these four questions. Here, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 does not necessarily equal 4. 

• It’s not realistic for everyone. Many people use substances, communicate in different ways, and have different kinds of sex (think, BDSM and Kink). Further, we all have a unique trauma history, often intersecting with sexuality, that impacts how we have and enjoy sex. We need a framework that encompasses a variety of differences and is trauma-informed.

There are many reasons why we need a good working definition of consent for sex. Legally, we must have a baseline agreement and understanding on which behaviors we allow and those we won’t tolerate in our society. Socially and culturally, we need a realistic way to help people navigate sex healthily and respectfully.

Ideally, this wouldn’t be so hard. We would all be able to communicate our needs, desires and boundaries and be in tune with our partners’. We wouldn’t have so many people with sexual trauma in their personal histories, or such a hard time promoting a sexual culture of health and respect. 

In reality, there are many reasons why folks struggle to even understand their own needs and boundaries, much less communicate them. Being “in tune” with a partner also requires skills that many of us have not had access to. Changing some things in the way we talk about sexual consent with our friends, our children, and our partners could move us towards more overall sexual health and justice in real life.

Tune in for parts 2 and 3 of this series, in which I will break down where our current definition of sexual consent falls short, and then offer an alternative that is more realistic and helpful. 

Meredith Rose, LCSW is a therapist in St. Louis, Missouri. She writes about and works with sexuality, relationships, and human beings. Find out more about her at wholenessandchoice.com.