“Is That Alright?” – Renegotiating the Notion of Consent
Photo: Public Work.
In this essay, Iskra de Vries unpacks the layered, often messy realities of consent—moving beyond its legalistic definitions to explore its emotional, social, and political dimensions. Weaving together personal encounters, cultural critique, and moments of uncomfortable ambiguity, she asks what happens when consent becomes a hollow ritual instead of a living, relational practice, tracing how autonomy is negotiated, constrained, and sometimes illusory—and inviting us to sit with the uncertainties that intimacy and life inevitably demand.
It wasn’t just between the two of us. The sexual chemistry we seemed to share was confirmed by a text message from one of my dearest friends: “I saw the way he was looking at you…” During that first encounter, our connection was mostly unspoken, exchanged through a few words and some not-so-sneaky glances. Months later, I kissed him at a New Year’s party, and in that brief collision of lips and breaths, all the unspoken things between us seemed to crystalize into something undeniable. I kissed him again at a random date not long after. A few days later, we saw each other for the last time. A farewell that felt a little confusing, upon which we had agreed to part ways because of our respective living situations. Suddenly, just moments after I closed the front door, he texted: "I can come up to kiss you, if that’s alright with you?"
"Is that alright?" I wondered. Wasn’t the way we had been looking at each other already enough of a signal? The hollow politeness of his message briefly sparked a flicker of shame in me, branding myself – if only for a moment – as some kind of unethical slut. It’s true: I had kissed him without much thought for how he might feel. Had my behavior toward him really been as welcomed as I believed? "Is that alright?" The question lingered, and as I tried to make sense of our brief rendezvous I found myself grappling with deeper questions about consent.
The significance of consent has been powerfully reinforced and culturally anchored by the #MeToo movement, which brought widespread attention to issues of sexual misconduct and the critical importance of clear, affirmative mutual consent. In my memory, the emphasis of this movement was mostly on casual sexual encounters, which in reality are rarely ever casual when one considers the persistent power imbalances between the people involved. The absence of consent, however, stretches far deeper; it’s rooted in the long, tangled history of patriarchy, woven into the fabric of our social norms and even our laws. Let’s not forget that, until 1991, marital rape wasn’t even recognized as a crime in the Netherlands—a brutal reminder of how deeply the denial of consent has been embedded in our legal and cultural systems.
Coming back to the feeling of being an "unethical slut," is it that bad that his clumsy way of expressing his wish to kiss me somehow made me feel the opposite of aroused? I don’t have easy answers on how to unpack this feeling, but I know for sure that I am not advocating for a world without consent, nor for a return to the days when ambiguity was used to excuse violence.
“A kind of consent that doesn't just ask “Is that alright?” but instead invites an ongoing dialogue: What do you want? How do you feel? How do we attune into becoming one rhythm?”
What I am asking for instead is a deeper reckoning with the emotional and social complexities that shape how we relate to one another. A kind of consent that doesn't just ask “Is that alright?” but instead invites an ongoing dialogue: What do you want? How do you feel? How do we attune into becoming one rhythm? I believe it has something to do with a yearning for a deeper, more meaningful form of connection in a world that often feels superficial, in which relationships are ever more regarded as investments, standardized and capitalized.
When communication is abundant yet increasingly fragmented and bland, there’s a longing for a more profound attachment—one that transcends the noise and provides a sense of understanding and intimacy. Perhaps this desire is rooted in the need to find something more genuine amidst the distractions of modern life, where market logic permeates every aspect of existence, from relationships to self-worth.
Don’t get me wrong—consent is crucial. Yet it is also a socially constructed concept, shaped by cultural norms, power dynamics, and relational contexts. This means that what counts as “freely given” consent is often influenced by structural inequalities, impacted by gender, race, or class, which complicate the idea of consent as a purely individual choice. While the ways we enact and interpret consent rely on mutual understanding, that understanding is never formed in a vacuum—it is negotiated, fluid, and often constrained by the very structures it seeks to navigate.
Paraphrasing Stuart Hall, in what is perhaps an idle fancy, one might argue that sexual normativity is the modality in which consent is practiced and lived, making it seem clear and safe even as it disciplines what consent can be. A curious (if not worrisome) development in reaching consent has been the emergence of apps like iConsent (among numerous variants available). These apps attempt to formalize sexual consent through digital contracts, reducing a messy, ongoing, and context-dependent process to a one-time transactional agreement. While marketed as tools for safety and clarity, they risk oversimplifying consent, ignoring power dynamics, emotional nuance, and the possibility of withdrawal or coercion, ultimately reinforcing a legalistic rather than relational understanding of intimacy.
“(…) Did anyone ask for my consent to live through this?”
The world is burning, both in flame and in feeling: wildfires rage, homes vanish, wars unfold, and unspeakable cruelties persist. Catastrophe weaves through every corner: climate collapse, genocide, displacement, despair. In the midst of this relentless unravelling, I wonder—did anyone ask for my consent to live through this? “Is that alright?” Of course, the two realms cannot easily be linked, consent in sexual or romantic intimacy and consent in our political lives. One unfolds in the quiet space between bodies; the other in the vast, impersonal machineries of power.
Yet both revolve around the same core question of autonomy. Do we have a say in what happens to us? Intimacy without consent is a violation; so too is being born into a collapsing world and expected to endure its violence without question. One takes place in private, the other in public, but both demand an answer to the same haunting question: did you choose to participate in this? And what happens when the answer is no?
In the context of my innocent rendezvous (at least for now) consent feels like little more than an illusion, a symbolic grasp at control, a fleeting moment where I can pretend to take matters into my own hands. It is a fragile power, one I seem to possess only within the narrow confines of my romantic life, while in everything that truly shapes the world around me, that power vanishes. Another unsettling event, further blurring my understanding of consent, hit me this winter at a so-called “sex-friendly” party in Nachbar, Amsterdam. Tucked into a pitch-black corner just big enough for three bodies, I shared a charged moment with two women. When they stepped out to go pee, I told them I’d stay put so we wouldn’t lose our snug little hideout.
Minutes later, someone asked if another trio could squeeze in. I agreed—why not?—but clarified my friends would be back any second. Suddenly I was jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, practically inhaling their scene as it unfolded inches from my face. The whole thing veered into a weirdly stilted small talk session until, without warning, they stood up and left—no explanation, just vanished. That’s when a consent monitor swooped in, eyes locked on me: “I just received a complaint,” they said. “Can you tell me your side of the story?”
In my experience, the two examples demonstrate a superfluous form of consent, purging its urgencies and importance from existence. They reveal how, when consent is stripped of its relational texture and reduced to a bureaucratic gesture, it loses its meaning, becoming a hollow performance rather than a genuine, embodied understanding between people. Neither moment was devoid of communication, but both were saturated with miscommunication, warped by the surrounding systems and expectations that shape our behavior.
What if we’ve come to expect too much from consent: expecting it to carry the weight of all our uncertainties, our mismatched desires, and our social discomforts? Consent is not a failsafe; it cannot protect us from regret, confusion, or even harm if it’s treated as the only litmus test for whether an encounter is ethical, pleasurable, or just. And yet, for many of us, it’s the only language we’ve been taught (if even) to navigate the murky waters of intimacy.
“Maybe the real challenge is not in getting clearer about consent, but in learning to tolerate the ambiguities that come with being alive, being intimate, being human.”
Maybe the real challenge is not in getting clearer about consent, but in learning to tolerate the ambiguities that come with being alive, being intimate, being human. Consent, after all, is only the beginning – not the end – of a meaningful connection.
And maybe that’s why his message lingered in my mind. Maybe it wasn’t just politeness. Maybe it was an invitation—to pause, to ask, and to listen. To meet in that space where uncertainty is not a threat, but a possibility.
“Is that alright?”
Maybe, finally, it is.
Iskra de Vries is promovendus aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam en werkzaam in een interdisciplinair onderzoeksproject over abortus- en mensenrechten aan de Universiteit van Warschau.