Partner clumsy about Consent

[meow1234]

Hello, this will be an extremely long post but I (24) believe all the details are important.

I‘m struggling with consent issues in my current relationship and it’s really difficult to navigate.

My partner is generally a very kind person who tries his best to never hurt anyone and to be a good and respectful partner. Hes never done anything to scare me or make me feel like he doesnt care about what I have to say. He is also very politically active and concerned about feminist issues and not in a performative way, he actively reflects on himself to not be that kind of performative feminist guy because he really can’t stand such behavior. He really tries to be a good guy and for the most part he is.

He did grow up in a very rural and quite christian area of our country though, where a lot of toxic masculinity is engrained in everyone which he despises and its actually a big reason why he’s done a lot of work to unlearn that since moving away from there and getting in touch with feminist ideas. Hes also barely had any sex education neither in school nor elsewhere, consent was never even talked about with him much less the concept of explicit verbal consent every time.
He learned the standard bs of going with the flow and assuming through body language instead of asking directly.
Hes also quite young (21).

I give that as context because he did do some things regarding sexual consent though which are really giving me a hard time. I’m going to list them here:

- The first time we were intimate (not having sex), he didn’t ask for explicit consent. We had been watching a movie and he was giving me a back massage and I was enjoying it a lot, it felt like the thing you do as an excuse to touch each other when you want to but are still awkward to admit it, in a cute way, if that makes sense. He did ask me before touching me like that for the first time. Based on what I know now I think he assumed by my reactions to his touch that I wanted more, which was true, but he still didn’t ask about that specifically.

We had been seeing each other for a while, he had always been very caring and gentle and I actually really wanted him to touch me but we didn’t talk about it explicitly. After the movie we went to sleep, or maybe it was the next night I don’t fully remember details but we were sleeping in the same bed which we had been doing before. Shortly after laying down he started spooning me and kissing my neck. I liked it but thought to myself that he probably should’ve asked for verbal consent. I didn’t think much of it at the time because it felt like a natural evolution of our physical relationship if that makes sense, like we built up to that without talking about it.

It bothers me in retrospect because I read a thread on here where a Mod stated that per definition, touching someone sexually without asking for verbal consent would be sexual assault. I understand that consent for one thing doesn’t mean you can assume anything and he now also knows that but he didn’t at the time. He just wasn’t aware of that kind of consent model. I’m absolutely certain that if he did, he would’ve asked me before.

- After that we continued to make out a lot but I told him I wanted to wait with sex until I felt more comfortable with him even though I really wanted to sleep with him because in the past I’ve moved too fast bc of my own hornyness and ended up just people pleasing the other person as I didn’t feel comfortable enough yet with them. He accepted that without any question and told me multiple times that he thinks it’s a good thing that I tell him that and that I want to do what’s right for me. He even said he kind of enjoys the anticipation and that I should take however long I need and he’ll wait. I never felt pressured by him to sleep with him at all and I really enjoyed everything we did.

One night, I don’t remember exactly but I think he was massaging me and had made the room extra comfy and warm so I could relax which was really nice. We ended up making out and at that point I still felt nervous but didn’t want to wait any longer bc I really wanted him. I don’t remember what exactly we said or what happened but I consented, I think he asked if I was sure I said yes and we ended up looking for condoms together but didn’t find any.

We were both very horny and somehow we ended up having sex without a condom from behind. I of course knew and didn’t withdraw my consent so it wasn’t stealthing or something like that. I still didn’t like that he didn’t insist on using a condom but neither did I so I blame that on us both being extremely horny and stupid in that moment. After a few minutes I snapped out of it and told him wait we aren’t using a condom. He stopped and apologized and was pretty upset with himself but tried not to make me feel like I have to comfort him about it.

I was upset too and asked him If he’d always used a condom in the past (Hes had a lot of casual sex for a while) and he said he did, every single time. He said that he messed up the one thing he has to not mess up and that he’s really sorry. I told him that it’s not cool but that we both are responsible for contraception and I didn’t say anything either so it was being stupid bc of being horny on both ends. He said it’s still his penis and that this will never happen again and it hasn’t, I never even had to say anything again he just used one every time until I got on the pill and told him I don’t want condoms anymore.

I also told him that evening that I had imagined our first time being facing each other not from behind, for which he apologized and was understanding. He had a box for condoms which he shook before and it sounded empty so he didn’t look inside. After we talked he opened it instead of just shaking it and there were condoms in it, they were just stuck in a way that they didn’t move when he shook the box. He seemed genuinely surprised and annoyed that he didn’t find them before and we then finished with a condom and facing each other and it was really nice and he was very caring and gentle with me, more than anyone before.

It still bothers me that we didn’t start having sex ideally but that wasn’t really a consent issue more of a responsibility issue. I think we resolved it as well as we could and I was fine afterwards. Like I said, condom use was never an issue again at all. Our sex was actually really amazing, hes my first partner to make me cum regularly and actually make me feel comfortable and prioritized during sex. I feel very comfortable talking to him about anything that bothers me and he always hears me out and takes what I say very seriously. He generally cares more about pleasing me than me pleasing him.

- After a while we started to have kinky sex because I told him I want to and have always had kinky sex. Hes very inexperienced with kink. We didnt always negotiate everything beforehand and often he would improvise with themes and things I told him I like. I know this isn’t ideal but it felt very good and I enjoyed it a lot as he really understands what I want and it was the best sex I’ve ever had and because I trusted him blindly and felt completely safe with him. Also we both switched roles quite often and with him I felt comfortable exploring a dominant role for the first time which was really fun and empowering.

There were things that bothered me though, like him putting his hands around my neck (NOT choking me just holding me there) without asking first and the general feeling of “winging it” with things that can get risky very fast.

As we became more comfortable with each other he has gotten generally more bold in everyday life about touching me sexually spontaneously and saying sexual things to me etc. as he has a very high sex drive, which I usually do too so that was a good match actually. He often asked me if I felt sexualised by that and said that he feels like it’s not good and he doesn’t want to make me feel objectified and he should reduce that but I told him I like it which was true at the time. Once I told him I don’t like it that much and he’s tuned it down.

- One day, we sat down to talk about our relationship status as hes had commitment issues (very long story in itself) and he said he has to tell me something very bad about himself. He’s always said that he’s extremely afraid of hurting me and he goes out of his way a lot to avoid hurting anyone (people pleasing a lot). He told me he always has this extreme fear of hurting me as his romantic partner because in his last relationship, when he was 18, he messed up badly. Him and his then girlfriend were having sex and when he was about to cum she made a face that told him she was uncomfortable/in pain but he couldn’t react fast enough and came inside. He apologized to her of course (every time he came inside me he apologized as well and then I finally understood why) and tried talking to her and explaining what happened but their relationship broke down after that.

He says he didn’t do enough to work through that with her and support her and I can tell he really hates himself for it. He cried a lot and couldn’t look at me and told me he understands if I don’t want to talk to him anymore. He also is upset with himself for even crying about that because he’s not the one who was harmed. Hes told 4 other people about this and 2 of them ended contact with him. He realised the gravity of his actions over the past two years which has made him change and grow as a person a lot. It’s why he always tries to be very cautious about how I feel during sex and very often checks in if I’m okay etc. Even if, because of my own issues, I try to hide that something is off, he still notices and asks about it and stops until I say I want to continue.

He reached out to that girl a year ago to apologize and ask if she feels like that situation was sexual abuse and she told him she does but that she’s handling it. He feels like a monster because she now has to deal with something like that due to his actions. From my understanding, he didn’t do that out of malicious intent or disregard for her as a person or even on purpose but simply because he couldn’t react fast enough.

He says he can’t remember all the details and it’s driving him insane but he cared for her a lot and he never wanted to hurt her in any way and that he should’ve reacted differently. Which is true but it doesn’t sound like he chose to react that way, but that his body was already over the edge and it was a matter of 2 seconds.

He says he used to be a somewhat careless partner who didn’t pay enough attention in general and that he never wants to be like that again, especially not in a sexual context. And it’s really not how I’ve experienced him but him telling me that really changed the way I see him and it’s extremely difficult for me to handle. I’m glad he was honest with me though as it shows accountability. If he didn’t tell me I very likely would’ve never found out as this was back in his hometown on the other side of the country where I don’t know anyone. This was the main thing that made him really work on himself and from what I know he’s grown a lot.

- After that things changed between us, the day after that I wanted to do something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, that being trying CNC. He was very hesitant but we had talked about it for a while and built up to it and we both enjoyed it a lot in the moment. Afterwards I felt pretty bad though. He comforted me and we talked about it and I came to the conclusion that it’s probably because of what he told me the evening before. I don’t like to admit it but it shook my trust in him even though he didn’t do anything purposefully malicious or insidious, hes just made an honest mistake. A bad one but still a mistake and he really owned up to it and worked on himself a lot.

I told him that for now I only want to have vanilla sex again like in the beginning and that I don’t like how he became less careful and loving with me during sex because of our kink stuff. He understood and tried to comfort me and said that that’s completely understandable and fine. However he had a hard time readjusting and figuring out what exactly to change so we had some situations where he did things I considered rough without realizing I didn’t want them or assuming in context that things were okay. I got somewhat upset a few times and explained to him what I don’t want and that I only want things we explicitly talked about before from now on.

I also established that I want him to ask every single time before he touches my breasts or vulva. We generally had some talks about verbal consent, how it works and how it doesnt and he did a lot of reevaluating his bringing up. Hes also reading a book on the topic I gave him and realizing just how engrained sexual violence is in society. Hes really doing his best to implement these new things but there have still been mistakes and slip-ups. He’s gotten a lot better at it with time and in every conversation we had about it hes been nothing but understanding and willing to work on himself.

But there have still times where he forgot about my newly set boundaries or assumed things and touched me without asking when I stated clearly what I wanted. This has damaged my trust and warm feelings for him. At this point he has verbal consent down 99% of the time and when he slips up he usually instantly notices and apologizes, for example when he helps me change my shirt or something and accidentally touches me or doesn’t realize he just touched my breast for example when he removed a crumb from my shirt.

He also has ADHD and CPTSD so he is very all over the place in general and definitely irresponsible at times. He knows that and is looking into getting therapy as well. We are working on implementing kink in our sex life again with a checklist for what is and isn’t okay and by watching educational videos on how and when to ask for consent specifically when it comes to kink. He has a lot to learn but he genuinely wants to make it all right.

I really really like him as a person and we have a great relationship apart from these issues. It’s my first relationship where I feel heard and where I never get yelled at or belittled. Our values align and we have so much fun together, we have many common interests and we also have intense physical attraction. We also have great conversations and he makes me feel very cared for, for example he gets up and makes me breakfast every morning even when he’s super tired and has a day off where he could sleep in.

I’ve had ups and downs and there have been times where I felt happily in love again like nothing happened but lately I’m struggling a lot. I also have strong OCD tendencies and CPTSD from parental and spouse abuse (emotional and physical but not necessarily sexual). I’ve been in therapy for years and my therapist told me she doesn’t think my partner has any bad intentions and that harm can’t be perfectly avoided in any relationship. I really want to continue our relationship but I feel like i’m stupid or weak for wanting that and I’m so scared of not being able to fully recover my feelings for him.

Thinking about losing him makes me cry, he truly cares about me and does so much for me and we just enjoy each others company so much. I want to accept him as having been more than clumsy about consent before but truly wanting to respect me and his partner before me but it feels like I can’t get over my negative feelings and it’s blocking my love and sexual attraction to him. I’m really struggling with this and don’t know how to move on and enjoy my relationship like I used to do.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this and for any advice.

[KierC]

Hey there Meow1234, and welcome to the boards.

I’m sorry to hear this has been a source of stress in your relationship! It can certainly be difficult to navigate communicating about sex, but I’m glad you’ve found us here to ask about this. Ongoing consent between all partners is incredibly important, and I hear you that it’s been making it hard to feel close.

Before diving in to the details, I’m wondering if you could tell me a little more about how you’ve been engaging in active consenting with him, just so I can have a fuller picture of how consent goes for both of you. Have you initiated any conversations with him before sex or touching about consent and what he wants and needs? How about his previous partners: did they?

[meow1234]

hey, thank you for replying!!

During our conversations I have told my partner several times that this of course goes for both of us and asked if he wants me to ask his verbal consent every time aswell, in general or for specific actions.
He tells me he is completely fine with me touching him without asking first, though I still ask if we are doing anything unusual or new. I also make sure that he knows he can change his wishes any time and talk to me if he ever feels uncomfortable about anything.

I have to admit that I have been pretty focused on myself regarding this topic and that your question has made me consider if I should be more careful and/or encouraging for him to think about and state his own wishes regarding consent. I do try to do that but I can see that I’m not as focused on that as on my own anxieties.

Also, lately I rarely am the person initiating and we have kind of developed a dynamic where he will initiate something that gets me in the mood as well and I then follow his lead. This means I rarely do anything he isn’t directly asking me to do and mostly he’s the one giving and I’m receiving so the opportunity for me to ask if he’d enjoy me doing something to him doesnt arise as often if that makes sense? I guess this sounds kinda unbalanced when I type it out like that but it’s what we both genuinely enjoy as we can and do have very open conversations about our sexual preferences.
He does tell me about new things he’d like to try frequently and is quite forward about his sexuality in general so I think that he feels safe to share these things with me.

I hope this gives you the context you were asking me about!

[meow1234]

I wanted to add about the part where you asked about his previous partners as I just read that when I looked at your reply again;
I don’t know if they asked him for that we actually never talked about that but I’m assuming they didn’t as this concept was pretty new for him to practice. I will ask him about this today.

[KierC]

Hi!!

Thank you so much for this context! It sounds like you’ve been reciprocating with asking for consent, and I’m glad you let him know that he can come to you if his wants or needs changes. Consent should very much be an ongoing conversation, so I definitely encourage you to keep the door open for those types of talks. We want all partners involved to have equal space to practice consent.

I understand it can be hard to focus on the other person when you have your own anxieties about the situation. I’ve certainly been there myself. I’ve found that, in times when I’ve caught myself focusing on myself and not really encouraging my partner to share, making a conscious effort to communicate early and often goes a long way toward building a relationship where all partners involved feel like they can bring issues to the table. Too, since the anxiety you’re experiencing has to do partly with your relational dynamic and consent, opening up a more direct and ongoing conversation about this could help ease those anxieties too. Know what I mean?

From what you’re describing, it sounds like there’s a dynamic here where you do talk about consent, but it tends to happen after the fact. Did I understand you correctly there? If that’s the case, I’m wondering how it might feel for you to have a conversation about consent, wants, and needs *before* engaging in any sexual activity. How does that sound to you?

Also, thank you for sharing those details in your second reply, too! I think it is a good idea to ask him. Honestly, it sounds like he’s had some rough stuff happen to him with consent, particularly with the previous partner, so opening up that space for him to share if other partners have asked him for consent might guide you both toward a better understanding of where you’re each coming from. It does sound like there’s been a pressure on him to communicate and consent, and it might be good to talk with him and see what consent has looked like for him too. (I’m also happy to talk with you more about the situation with the previous partner if you’d like.) Overall, I think (1) having a more general conversation about sex and consent, and (2) having regular conversations before sexual activity, might help a lot here. But do let me know what you think about this! <3

Also, I saw in your first post that you were looking at making a checklist for consent with him. That is an excellent idea! We actually have an article or two on our site that might help guide you two during this, if that sounds helpful to you. Here they are:
1. All about consent, including different models for consent and ways to practice it: Driver’s Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent
2. A checklist you can complete alone or with your partner, which might be helpful as you talk through what you do and don’t want to do together: Yes, No Maybe? A Sexual Inventory Stocklist

[Heather]

(I do also want to poke my nose in here and say that there sounds like, per the experience with the previous partner, that people -- maybe even including your boyfriend -- don't realize that stopping oneself from ejaculating if that is already starting is extraordinarily difficult, much like stopping yourself from peeing when you have to go and have already sat down on the toilet is really hard. While everyone has the right to voice what they feel has been an experience of assault, assault involves an intent to do harm and actively making choices, and making it about an involuntary physical response does not at all feel like a fair standard. It sounds like some of the idea that he engaged in assault is coming from people being ignorant about how bodies work.

If you want to talk about that more at any point, or he does, I'd be glad to do that.)

[meow1234]

Hey, thanks for both of your replies!

Sorry that I’m replying so late myself, my partner and I where on a camping trip together where I wanted to get my mind off this topic for a few days, which was hard to do but worked a little bit in the end.

I’ve started typing out a reply but it’s already impossibly long winded and it’s probably not even half of what I have on my mind about all this.
I tried reducing it to the essential parts but I think it’s all important.
I feel like it’s too much to post here and for you to read and reply to everything but I also don’t have any other opportunity right now to get help with this from people who know what they’re talking about. :/

I’ll try again in a bit shorter but it’s still a lot:

So regarding me asking him about being asked for/talking about consent with previous partners, there wasn’t anything like that at all for him up until now. Neither being asked nor asking himself. He grew up with almost
no sex education and the usual patriarchal, outdated ideas about sex. He never agreed with that stuff but didn’t have any model/guide for what he wanted instead.

Regarding the tip about talking beforehand, we talked about having conversations about what I want him to do and what he wants to do, right before starting some sexual activity but he didn’t start doing that more than one or two times after talking about that and he doesn’t know why.
Similarly, we talked about introducing new sexual things, outside of sexual activity, and having a talk about it. And also checking in during sex, generally saying what he wants to do and asking if I want him to do that.
He doesn’t consistently do *all* of that either but I also don’t even know if I even want all that every single time, I just feel like we have to do it like that for me to be safe because it didn’t work yet? I’m not sure how to put it.

Now I’m also scared that the sex we had before all this started wasn’t okay because we didn’t discuss every single part before. But I enjoyed it all and I felt completely safe with him because he does check in a lot if I’m okay and reacts to what I say/how I move and notices when I’m uncomfortable etc. He is really careful and attentive and wanting to please me, during sex and also just in general - except for some reason he just isn’t able to practice explicit verbal consent concepts the way I ask him to and which he agrees to and that it’s important, it’s all just so confusing and I’m really not doing well because I don’t want to lose him over this, he’s a good person and I know he really cares about me because of everything else he does for me.

It’s like that a lot of times where we have good conversations about ideas for solutions and he’s genuinely trying and understanding and engaging but then he just really struggles to consistently apply these concepts in practice. Then I speak up about it and we have a similar conversation again.
Sometimes he didn’t understand that he was supposed to ask before doing something, other times he assumed I wanted something (and then feels stupid because, in theory, he knows that’s not how it works) or just didn’t think about what he was doing enough before realizing he should have asked.

Now almost every time we have sex he does remember some of the things and asks for them (like asking before touching me with his hands) but forgets about others (like after he came and he’s using a vibrator on me he didn’t ask before starting penetrative sex again bc I saw him take a condom from the nightstand and he assumed that I would’ve said something if I didn’t want that). I don’t even think that it’s unreasonable to assume nonverbal consent in a relationship but it’s just the fact that we’ve had so
many talks about this and he knows how much it damages our relationship and hurts me (and also him) and he still forgets parts of it.

I honestly don’t feel like he’s doing this on purpose or out of malicious intent but it still damages my trust and ability to feel fully safe with him and in my body. Which makes me extremely sad because before all this, with him was the first time I ever felt really happy, safe and taken care of in my sex life and about/by my partner in general.

I just want to be able to look at him again and only feel warm and safe and happy instead of this whole messy situation and overthinking everything. It makes me so sad and scared to lose what we have and never recover what we had.

I also feel like it’s damaging his self worth that he fails to apply these concepts and hurts me with it so often because it’s really the last thing he’d ever want to do.

I really don’t know what to do, we both try hard to fix this because we really care about each other but it just doesn’t really work and neither of us understand why. I asked him to actively engage with these topics more by reading about them and trying to research bdsm communities/workshops where he could talk to people to learn about this and he does try but he’s not good at taking initiative and doing it by himself which he also doesn’t understand why. He’s still trying to get the necessary things done to get therapy too.

He also asked me if I think it could have something to do with CPTSD about being told not to ask questions but just do things as a child a lot and being abused if he asked too much. And maybe his ADHD also plays into it. Also years of less than ideal consent practice because no one educated him about this.

I just read everywhere that technically this is sexual assault because I tell him to ask for verbal consent every time and he doesn’t reliably do that but if he genuinely forgets about some of the things I want him to ask/takes a longer time to get them right consistently and he does show improvement over time and never dismisses anything I say I don’t think it’s justified to call this assault? Like you said, assault requires an intent and a choice to do harm and get personal pleasure at the expense of the other person, not accidentally practicing consent less than perfectly.

I wish I could just accept that he simply needs some more time and practice/encouragement to adjust to this new consent model because that’s what I believe but I get so emotionally overwhelmed by this whole topic. Do you think it’s safe and okay for me to do that? Or is it weak and naive? He genuinely treats me very well and does everything he can manage for me every day. Also, I went off the pill bc of my mental health and he is completely supportive about that and looking into getting a vasectomy to take responsibility even though he’s really scared of that.

I’m going to stop here because it’s already a whole lot of stuff.

Sorry if this is way too much text or as a topic in general and thanks for reading and any advice.

[Heather]

Hey there.

I may have more to say about some of what you posted later (I have to head out and work offline this morning), but I wanted to see what you thought about you two just taking sex, all sex, off the table for a while — maybe weeks to months — in order to try and rebuild trust together and mutually heal. How does that sound as an option?

Alternatively, or with that, how about seeking out some counseling together? Is that an option?