Consent

See the bottom p.11 in this thread http://maiotaku.com/topics/32269?page=11 for the beginning of this conversation on consent. @Animekirk The point of consent isn't to read someone's mind, it's to give people an appropriate amount of opportunity to express their thoughts. If someone says yes to having sex with her boss because she's afraid of being fired then that is not consensual. If someone says or does nothing because she thinks she's stuck in a situation, then that is not consensual. Even if we can't read people's minds, it's not hard to try to understand what someone is thinking. Certainly, no matter the logistics of consent, people are going to get it wrong sometimes. But there is no reason to just let people take advantage of other people who feel that they cannot speak out against something they don't want done to them. There are so many times when people will only tell you what they're thinking when asked. I keep using references to medicine because it's what I know best, but it is also something that involves very private situations that people may not speak about if the doctor or the nurse says nothing. Thinking about the number of times that patients say no to something only once they've been asked specifically, I can only come to the conclusion that many people succumb to these same problems in regards to sex or physical intimacy. Whether that's because of the unfortunate, sexist expectations of society, being confronted with fear or power, or otherwise, it's clear that there are significant problems that can't simply be resolved by saying "she never said no, or she didn't tell me to stop."