Consent Is About More Than Sex

For many people over the past year and a half, every social event—hugging a relative, eating with a friend—has become a complex and sometimes-awkward dance. They’ve determined their safety needs and wants, then verbalized them to others. They’ve had to ask permission for more things, after considering other people’s comfort and boundaries. Whether people have realized it or not, everyday pandemic-era interactions have frequently turned into consent conversations.

At its most basic level, is at least two people agreeing about what they’re going to do together, Dorian Solot, who co-founded the sex-education organization Sex Discussed Here!, told me. We might most often associate consent with sex, and for good reason: Consent is crucial in all sexual interactions. (In some” is the legal standard for all public colleges and universities.) Still, Julia Feldman, who runs the sex-education consultancy Giving the Talk, told me that when in sex education, it is sometimes presented as “a hoop to jump through.”