Amanda Marcotte has written an absolutely brilliant "Real consent manifesto." You should, as the saying goes, read the whole thing.
This paragraph in particular kind of blew my mind:
The feminist concept of enthusiastic consent for sex, or total consent or whatever you want to call it, is such a new, radical idea that apparently it confuses the hell out of people. And it’s absolutely fed by queer politics, if for no other reason than acceptance of homosexuality is basically the acceptance of the idea of relationships between people that aren’t in a power differential for gendered reasons. The notion that sexual relationships could be built on desire and enthusiasm from both parties instead of a series of trade-offs between someone with power and someone without is more radical than I realize a lot of the time.
You know, I've given a lot of thought to the relationship between feminism and queer politics, but I've never been able to put it so succinctly. This is why, at core, everyone working for feminism is also working for gay rights, and vice versa. And that awareness is crucial to understanding how gender rules are running us all day, every day, without our even realizing it. (But we can realize it.)
(This cross-post gives enthusiastic consent.)
[That's all, folks]
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