consent

It took me a long time to understand consent. I knew that forcing sex on someone was rape. I knew that one in five women would be raped in their lifetime. I knew that the majority of rape victims knew their attacker. But beyond that, my understanding got cloudy.

Dear Men’s Fitness, We read your “How to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes'” post yesterday [as of writing], and noticed a few rogue errors. Considering we have an office full of women, we thought we’d give you some handy advice on how to REALLY “turn things around” when one of us laydeez is apparently a total B and has the audacity to reject you.

As moms and dads, we probably don’t talk directly about rape to kids, at least not until they’re older. But we’re still sending messages about sex and consent all the time. Because of that, we need to make sure we’re not teaching them some very dangerous lessons, even if just by accident.

In a world shrunken down to the size of a phone screen, we don’t always even connect with another person’s eyes. Going someplace to touch and be touched might reaffirm our humanity.

Survivors need support, but often, when they reach out, they are met with responses that only cause further trauma. The impact of these responses is immense.

As soon as I hit puberty, I was fascinated by sex.... As I’ve gotten older (and actually had sex), my relationship with the act has shifted. Most of this has been the result of my not only coming to terms with my body and what it does and doesn’t like, but coming to terms with another part of my existence: my anxiety disorder.

In general, I don't believe in compromising for love. I'm not interested in a relationship where I become less of myself to make someone else happy. It's not that I want it all — it's that I know that both my partner and I deserve the most intense and unfaltering happiness and satisfaction we can bring each other.