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#MythBusting “The Line Between Sex & Sexual Violence Is Blurry"

For this month’s #MythBustingMonday, our Prevention Worker, Emma, unpacks the idea that the lines between sex and sexual violence are confusing, made up, or unclear. 

[TW: Discussion of Rape Myths & Sexual Violence]

[Read time: 3-4 mins]

Does anyone remember Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines?

The song came out when I was 13, the same age as many of the students I speak to in my job as a sexual violence prevention worker. I’ll be honest - I liked the song! Until someone explained the lyrics to me. Blurred Lines might have been the start of my feminism, or at least it marked the first time I heard sexism, misogyny, victim blaming and sexualisation being discussed by those around me. 

I can’t say I’ve thought much about the song (or anything that was in my life at 13) over the years, but being back in schools I do think of 13-year-old me from time to time. I think about the messages I got about sex even before I understood what sex was. I think about all of the pressure you feel to fit in, and how much fitting in, or not fitting in, matters at that age. I think about how that shaped the ways I thought about sex and relationships as I got older. All of this thinking gives me so much empathy for the young people I work with. 

Although we’re now years on from Blurred Lines, this idea that the lines between rape/sexual assault and sex or sexual harassment and flirting aren’t clear still comes up. 

So where is the line? How do I find it?

The line between a sexual act and sexual violence fundamentally comes down to consent. If there is no consent, then there is sexual violence. Even if a person initiates a sexual act (e.g. by flirting, touching, kissing) they always have the right to change their mind.

A lot of the time in my work as a prevention worker, people want me to give them a checklist of what “counts” as consent. It would be really easy if there was a universal marker which indicated that someone is consenting to sex. However, there are lots of different ways to give consent and it would be impossible to account for them all in a single, neat list.

But as an absolute baseline:

Consent should be freely and enthusiastically given.

There should never be any pressure around consent. If someone feels they have to say yes, or they can’t say no for any reason, there is no consent.

You want the person you’re with to be enthusiastic and actively enjoying what you are doing. Look for how the person is speaking or acting, are they touching you back unprompted? Are they actively telling you what they do/don’t like?

Consent can be taken away at any time. 

The person has to fully know about and be actively interested in what you want to do. Even if you’ve already started having sex, you still need to think about consent. You always have the right to change your mind and take consent away - no matter what is happening or has happened.

If you ever doubt whether a person is consenting, you have to stop and check in. It might be that they just don’t like what you’re doing, it might be that their heads just not in it. By doing this, you’re making sure there are no “blurred lines”.

Why is this myth harmful?

Fundamentally this notion of Blurred Lines is a myth about sexual violence which creates a cosy and guilt-free place for perpetrators of sexual violence to exist. In saying this line is unclear, we are giving perpetrators of sexual violence an out. It means they can cry “I didn’t know! This is all just so confusing!” as a way to shift the responsibility of their actions away from them. 

Nobody wants to be accused of sexual violence, and the best way to avoid this is by not doing sexual violence. 

If you or your partner ever feel like the lines of consent/non-consent are getting blurred the best thing to do is stop and talk. Talk about your boundaries, talk about how you both feel, talk about what consent means to you. Talk about things until those lines are crystal clear.