Understanding the 'No' during conversations on sexual consent

When Agents of Ishq (AOI) (a multi-media project about sex, love and desire) released a video in 2016, titled The Amorous Adventures of Shakku and Megha in the Valley of Consent, one thought it would be the usual -- no means no and it's okay to say no. But the video's protagonists say what we are increasingly, as a society, unable to understand: "consent is not like hard cash, available if you see it and not if you don't."

In a week when Peepli Live director Mahmood Farooqui was acquitted in a two-year-old rape case lodged by an American, with the Delhi High Court saying "an expression of disinclination alone, that too a feeble one, may not be sufficient to constitute rape", conversations need to be constructed around what sexual consent is, especially in India where sex is taboo and desires purportedly don't exist.

Filmmaker and founder of AOI Paromita Vora wanted to make the video to locate consent within the parameters of relationships -- which is where there are more greys than black and whites. "There are gradations of consent. Consent given once is not absolute.

We show [in the video] that the response of the guy changes. In one space, we see him respect consent but in another, not so much," says Vora, pleading that as a society we need to stop reducing consent to a binary. "A feeble no can mean a yes, but it can also mean a no. How can you be sure?," she says of the September 25 High Court judgment which noted that "Farooqui did not know that the act was non-consensual and therefore gives him the benefit of the doubt and let him walk free".

Understanding consent
Anushka Jadhav, founder of No Country For Women, who conducts workshops on gender sex and sexuality across the country, says, "I think one of the most important things to do is teach individuals how consent works -- even in non-sexual scenarios. Understanding the autonomy, is an attitude that needs to be developed early in life."

Last year, Jadhav authored an article for an online magazine on what parents and teachers can do in this regard -- from asking children for permission before giving them a hug to respecting them when they say no.

In teenagers, she says the larger problem is that sex and desire are not discussed. "But, if we don't talk about it, we can't talk about consent. It's important for individuals to know that it's okay to say no and it's also okay to say yes - and how to go about these conversations." Vora agrees.

Popular sexual imagery, for instance, doesn't show what consenting women look like. "So, men don't know how to recognise consent," she adds.

We posed the query to Shiva, a software developer who runs the Real Man Academy, an 11-year-old firm, which in essence coaches men to approach and attract women. Sexual intimacy within a relationship is after all, a tricky space. How do you make a move? "The man takes the lead but constantly checks to see if the woman is comfortable and if she is not, he slows down, backs off and then after a while intensifies the action again," he says in an email response.

What follows a feeble no
In a series of tweets on Friday, Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy said, "Once a 'no' is said, something far more affirmative's needed 'after' to convert that to a 'yes'.... If the woman has said no 'and' the interaction is in the nature of submission, and not affirmative participation that clarity of some kind of verbal or non verbal yes is required, so the man knows she's not submitting out of fear or coercion (sic)."

Giving the example of a person punching another in a boxing ring, she says, "That's like BDSM with consent." In a second scenario: of a person punching a friend, the friend forgives and everyone goes home. "Point is punching person knew he was committing an offence, friend had right to go to police did not (sic)." The rules of consent, she adds, are similar. "It's a bright line. Grayness is in the mind."