Consent Quotes

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.”
― Albert Einstein

“They'll say you are bad
or perhaps you are mad
or at least you
should stay undercover.
Your mind must be bare
if you would dare
to think you can love
more than one lover.”
― David Rovics

“A slut is someone, usually a woman, who’s stepped outside of the very narrow lane that good girls are supposed to stay within. Sluts are loud. We’re messy. We don’t behave. In fact, the original definition of “slut” meant “untidy woman.” But since we live in a world that relies on women to be tidy in all ways, to be quiet and obedient and agreeable and available (but never aggressive), those of us who color outside of the lines get called sluts. And that word is meant to keep us in line.”
― Jaclyn Friedman

“All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for 'Silence gives consent.' When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. His body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence”
― Amy Reed, The Nowhere Girls

“Mr. Vey, you cannot be stuffed into a locker without your consent." Dallstrom said, which may be the dumbest thing ever said in a school. "You should have resisted. That's like blaming someone who was struck by lightning for getting in the way.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Prisoner of Cell 25

“You’re going to kidnap me again?”
Adrian tried a smile. “No, I’ll ask you if you *want* to be kidnapped again.”
― Molly Ringle, Persephone's Orchard

“Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent”
― Thomas Hobbes

“I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent”
― June Jordan, Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems

“If a man punches you in the eye, you are not expected to have pleaded with him not to for the crime to be accepted as assault. If you are sitting at your cash register and someone demands the cash in it, you will not be accused of consent if you simply hand it over. Only in the prosecution of rape is evidence of resistance an issue.”
― Germaine Greer, On Rape

“I was too afraid to risk it, so it was easier to be alone and not think about it. But I trust you." "You shouldn't." "Says the man who stopped." Neil gave Andrew a few moments to respond before saying, "I don't understand it, and I don't know what I'm doing, but I don't want to ignore it just because it's new. So are you completely off-limits or are there any safe zones?" "What are you hoping for, coordinates?" "I'm hoping to know where the lines are before I cross them," Neil said, "but I'm open to drawing a map on you if you want to loan me a marker. That's not a bad idea.”
― Nora Sakavic, The King's Men

“Manhood Diaries (The Sonnet)

Onun için cennet ol, cehennem değil.
Vicdanlı bir adam ol, hayvan değil.
Sé una bendición para ella, no una maldición.
Onun yaralarına ilacı ol, tuz değil.

Be her paradise, not prison.
Be her man, not master.
Be a miracle to her maladies.
Be her crown, not custard.

There is no alpha male and beta male,
There is only man and baboon.
Decency defines a man's character,
Not the virility of his heirloom.

Partner on the streets,
Slave between the sheets,
That's what a real man is.
Undaunted in danger,
Uncompromising in calamity,
That's what a real human is.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“If you had to be abducted by aliens, it was good to wind up with one who respected your boundaries and preferences.”
― Ann Aguirre, Strange Love

“I want you to hold my hand not because you are forced to, but because you want to.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo

“Both parties can consent to one-sided sex, but that should not be the bar set for a healthy relationship.

Just because it's not rape doesn't mean it isn't dehumanizing.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity

“What I am really naming here is the complicatedness of feeling both affirmed and harmed by your assault because your body is never really your own when you're fat and Black, and the trauma you arrive at upon realizing that there is no affirmation in touch indented to harm-or at least unintended to be sure of your consent.”
― Da'Shaun L. Harrison, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness

“In a 2015.. poll of a thousand college students they were asked whether various behaviors established consent for more sexual activity. 50% of men said yes to "takes off their own clothes" versus 44% of women. To the question "gets a condom" 58% of women said no versus 51% of men... "nods in agreement" 58% of men take this as a yes versus 51% of women. Only 15% of women believed "engages in foreplay such as kissing or touching means some kind of consent" 30% of men believe it does. Consent would be a straightforward matter if all college students agreed that getting a condom meant implicit consent to sex or if everyone agreed [to the other scenarios asked] did not constitute an invitation to something more serious. When the rules are clear, each party can easily and accurately infer what the other wants from how he or she behaves. But what the poll shows is that there are no rules... half of young men and women are unclear on whether clear agreement is necessary for sexual activity.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Talking To Strangers: What We Don't Know About Strangers

“You have to go.' HIs words are clipped and at odds with the heat in his eyes, his ragged breaths.

'Why?' The cold is a shock to my system without his body heat.

'Because I can't.' He rakes both hands through his hair and leaves them on the top of his head. 'And I refuse to act on desire that isn't yours. So you have to walk back up those steps. Now.'

I shake my head. 'But I want-' Everything.

'This isn't your want.' He tilts his head up at the sky. 'That's the fucking problem. And I can't leave you out here on your own, so have just a little mercy on me and go.'

Silence ices over between us as I get ahold of myself. He's saying no.

And the shitty part about it isn't the chill of chivalrous rejection. It's that he's right. This started because I couldn't tell Tairn's emotions from my own. But those emotions are gone, aren't they? My door is wide open, and I don't feel anything coming from Tairn's direction.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“It was a mistake. You and I are going to be stationed together for the rest of our lives, never able to escape the other. Getting involved- even on a physical level- is a colossal blunder. No point talking about it.'

I barely keep from clutching at my chest to see if all my organs are where they're supposed to be, since it feels like he just eviscerated me with four sentences. But he had been just as into it as I was. I was there, and there was no mistaking that kind of... enthusiasm. But maybe it was the churam. 'What if I want to talk about it?'

'Then feel free, but it doesn't mean I have to be a part of the conversation. We're both allowed our boundaries, and this is one of mine.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Truth be told, whether free or incarcerated, women were not safe anywhere. Since the dawn of time, they had been the victims of decisions that were taken without their consent”
― Victoria Mas, The Mad Women's Ball

“You shouldn’t ever trust me,” Sato mumbled. “Not on anything except this. In that aspect, at least, you’re safe with me.”

“In that aspect, you’re safe with all of us.” Cian patted the bed. “Consent is black and white, sweetheart. A simple no will do when you’re uncomfortable.”
― Jane Washington, Tourner

“It seemed strange to me, to suddenly be so protective of the rights of refusal of a girl I was dying to sink my teeth into, a girl who would probably love to see me crawl and beg and suffer. But I decided on the spot that if I was going to be a monster, I was going to be an elegant one, like my beloved De Lafontaine. There was no sense descending into an animalistic frenzy without the full agreement of my blood donor; there was no art in it, no beauty. And I would die before I sacrificed art and beauty. Life simply wasn't worth living if it wasn't by those principles.”
― S.T. Gibson

“She sighed a mocking “seriously?”, followed by a nervous look into my eyes “Is this okay?” I nodded; consent had never been so damn sexy.”
― Emely Gottwald, I Fall in Love Once A Year

“~ Consent isn't just a simple 'yes' or 'no' – It's about understanding and respecting the power dynamics and vulnerabilities that may exist in any relationship. It's about recognizing and challenging the societal norms and expectations that contribute to coercion and violence.”
― Carson Anekeya

“Consent matters,” I blurted. “Shane always asks first.”
Shane, right there with me, nodded.”
― Stephanie J. Scott, All-Star Love: A Six Lakes Tennis Academy Novel

“Agreeing to something does not make that thing any less harmful for our bodies or minds. It is psychologically exhausting, damaging and toxic to fake a connection to someone, especially a sexual connection. Not being free to be yourself in such a vulnerable and intimate situation is physically and psychologically exhausting. Being paid to have sex on someone else’s terms is the farthest thing from sexual autonomy that exists.”
― Mia Döring, Any Girl: A Memoir of Sexual Exploitation and Recovery

“It comes down to this: if men believed that sex was a mutual activity between two human beings based on equal respect and power, the sex trade would not exist.”
― Mia Döring, Any Girl: A Memoir of Sexual Exploitation and Recovery

“If the men who paid me weren’t rapists, if this was all consensual sex, why am I traumatised by it? Why do I experience flashbacks with the same tone and texture as flashbacks I have had from being raped? I have had a lot of sex I regret having which I am not traumatised by. There is sometimes sadness, but not trauma. I experience trauma and flashbacks only in relation to sexual exploitation. Sex that didn’t involve money, in which I’ve felt dissociated, or didn’t feel like it, or when I didn’t stop something I wasn’t comfortable with has not traumatised me in the way sex-trade sex has – sex to which I ‘consented’.”
― Mia Döring, Any Girl: A Memoir of Sexual Exploitation and Recovery

“People don't usually ask. Especially if it's for my own good."

"That's never an excuse. People should ask.”
― Aliette de Bodard, In the Shadow of the Ship